Our daughter needed a new laptop for college. We gave her a budget. She selected this one. It worked great for the entire first semester except for a couple of glitches caused by some third party software she installed.
We got the 2-year service plan with the computer and Lenovo was great about answering all of our daughter's questions.
They resolved the issue in one call, although it took twenty minutes to do it.
( I told her, "twenty minutes is not bad," but when you're a teenager who is missing crucial gossip, it seems an eternity!)
Our beloved daughter types faster than a raging robot, and so, is very hard on keyboards. Sure enough, at the end of the school year while she was visiting home, her keyboard developed a broken key.
"This cheap thing is ^$%%# &&$5 (*#&^$6) "
(She was in the middle of an important discussion with some of her friends about some other friends when it died. From my den downstairs I could hear her hammering away above me (in her room) with the frenetic passion of a Jack Kerouac.)
Two keys had been pressed so hard that they collapsed and wedged in place, rendering all other keys useless as they sent repeating !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! messages. That day I learned that all teenagers believe you can make your point LOUDER if you type harder.
Well, one quick call from momma, and Lenovo sent her a NEW KEYBOARD. They were very helpful both over the phone and by referring us to their excellent repair videos. Momma, (who is NOT particularly good with tools) got the old board out and the new one in in less than a half-hour!
She was so impressed with this service that she bought another Lenovo exactly like the kid's. The difference is that Mamma doesn't BANG on her keyboard when typing emotional messages. Result? We have had both of these working perfectly for over a year and a half now. For any computer that runs Microsoft, I consider that a victory.
SO, the machine is well-designed, works like it is supposed to and does not break if it is not abused. If it does break, Lenovo has resources to make fixing it faster and easier. It may not be "emotional teenage girl YELLING ON FACE BOOK proof" ...but it is darn close.
If you are an adult, (or behave like one) you will probably have no such problems. If you snap a gasket some night whilst typing furiously, Lenovo will come through for you under warranty, no shipping charges for parts.
That's better than any other PC company I've dealt with.
Hope that helps!
The laptop came from Amazon within a couple of days and was nicely packaged. The initial setup for the Lenovo was also nice. That is where nice ended.
The laptop shipped with a malware/spyware package called Nitro. Nitro blocked the Windows 8 updates. There were some Lenovo instructions that said to update Nitro but that crashed too. If you buy this laptop, the answer is easy: UNINSTALL NITRO immediately. It is some buggy emulation software that you will never need. You will also need to disable Nitro's spyware cousin, Nalpeiron. The instructions to do this are on the Lenovo Community Forum for Windows 8. Normally this would have caused me to rate it 1 Star but unfortunately all the laptop makers are taking payola to put spyware on your computer. You will probably have similar experiences with any other Windows machine.
Also, Windows 8 is a major change. Don't buy this for the non-computer savvy person in your family. Buy a Windows 7 PC for them while you still can. And remember, Windows 8 is built into the BIOS and you cannot downgrade even with a complete disk format.
And buy from Amazon because they will stick up for you in these sorry deals. Their hardware, Kindle, just works.
Buy Lenovo G580 15.6-Inch Laptop Now
Pros: price, keyboard, power management, screen clarity.
Cons: wifi takes a couple of minutes to start from cold boot; no issues after that.
I've been scouring the internet for a new computer after mine was stolen. I looked at the new breed of instant on, 14 inch display units. But why sacrifice screen space? Real work requires a sizable screen and a 15 inch is my minimum. I tried a 12 inch that I borrowed but that is simply too small.
I had an older g580 variant that I picked up for 500 dollars two years ago. Loud fan, not so great power management. Great keyboard. This is an evolutionary product. The fan noise is gone; at least not as I use it. Power users may find it otherwise.
The keyboard is different, but just as nice as the newer high-end lenovo laptops. Its the best keyboard currently available. So if you are planning to do serious typing, as I do, then this is a major plus. One note on the keyboard/touchpad. The touchpad is the latest variety that is multitouch and very large. It makes typing more difficult. You learn to reposition your hands and most of the time it is a non-issue. To make things easier, I went in and changed the multitouch settings, turning over the perimeter of the touchpad, where you are most likely to have an issue. Works well with that tweak. Others just use a mouse and turn it off altogether. Either way, this is the size of touchpad that's here to stay, so we just have to deal with it.
How is the screen? Those that crave a high resolution will need to cough up more cash for a different model. But let's be practical: you simply do not need it. I've watched netflix movies on here, and its as crisp as an HDTV to my untrained eye, overall excellent.
As for the battery life, that is why I elected to wait for a third generation I3 chip. The improvements are notable. I can get up to 3 hrs with routine use, better than the 90 min of my old laptop, though I haven't timed it precisely. While a far cry from some of the newer models, you pay more for those, so figure out how many hours unplugged you really need.
What about the sound? It has dolby stereo and plenty of power. Great for netflix.
So what's not to like? My only nit is that the wifi takes a while to find the router. Occasionally I have to run the troubleshooter to reset the adapter, a pretty simple task. But once the wifi is running, its fine. You can watch a film front to back without a glitch.
Overall, I think this is the best bang for the buck in a 15 inch laptop, especially if you can find it on sale.
Read Best Reviews of Lenovo G580 15.6-Inch Laptop Here
This is going to be a perfect gift for Mom and Dad (baby boomers) and their first PC windows 8 is a nice touch and will be our third Lenovo laptop very solid performers and very little in the way of hardware issues. Nice bright screens and fantastic touch on the keyboards. Nice addition with the USB 3.0 ports. All in the all for the price and with an Intel i3 3rd gen a really nice package for the price $429 on 11/22/12. We own a G780 also and highly recommend it as well.
Want Lenovo G580 15.6-Inch Laptop Discount?
Update of original review -
After owning this machine for less than 2 weeks I began to have software problems, specifically with the Windows Updater. The machine would hang while updating any software that used the Updater. I called the Lenovo Helpdesk and was told to reload the Windows partition, which I didn't want to do since I would have to reload hours of installs and updates to Norton, MSoffice, Itunes etc. I was transferred to advanced software support where the tech told me he would help but at a cost of $59.00. "WHAT!" I said, "the machine is only 10 days old". "Too bad" he said. "Goodbye" I said and returned the machine to Office Depot taking advantage of their 14 day return policy, and traded it for a Toshiba. In retrospect I would have given the machine 0 stars and I will never buy a Lenovo product again.
Original review =
This is a nice machine for the price. Lenovo makes several G580 models with different configurations. This one has the Core i3 3110M processor which is pretty fast. I was a little disappointed that this model didn't have Bluetooth but I can live without it.
So far the only redeeming feature I can find about Windows 8 is that it boots fast. Other than that the menus, screens, and features are different from other versions of Windows and take some time to get used to. They've removed the Start button from the Desktop view. The most aggravating thing I found so far is that the Windows Mail tool in Windows 8 doesn't support POP3 servers used by a lot of ISPs. You have to sign up for a Windows mail account to find this out. If you have a POP3 server for your incoming mail delete the Windows 8 Mail and download Windows Live from Microsoft's website or some other tool.
I saw complaints about the sensitivity of the touch pad but it's adjustable and can probably be set to most users preferences. The default settings are set to very sensitive touches and pressures.
I like the feel of the keyboard but I'm a 2 finger typist so YMMV.
The Nitro program mentioned as Spyware in some reviews is, according to Google, a third party PDF viewer. I installed Norton 360 and didn't get any bad reports on it but I uninstalled it since I use the standard Adobe Reader for that stuff. I also saw a complaint about the Chrome window size not being adjustable but it sizes fine on my machine. Things like using the Ctrl +/to magnify work too.
Wireless connectivity is good. The machine has a Broadcom 802.11n adapter and it connected with my Linksys router with no problems. It also recognized my Canon Mg5320 printer on the network and configured it without having to run any setup programs so I guess that's also a plus for Windows 8.
The display is bright and crisp enough for me to be happy.
All in all I think it's a good machine for the price.
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We might be seeing a passing of some of the refinements that have traditionally enhanced the appearances of Acer laptops. Lately some additional finishes are being added to their laptop products, and the latest laptops with the familiar hi-luster shiny black mirror finish may not be so quite as well adorned as some of the previous units. Possibly because cut-backs were necessary during these tough economic times, or possibly in an effort to help make their products more appealing after some unfavorable feedback, but I think it is mostly to provide better durability against the bumps and scratches that have an inherent attraction due to their portability.
