Lenovo Y580 15.6-inch Laptop Review

Final Thoughts
The idea behind the Y580 and previous Y570 is an all-in-one laptop that can serve many purposes.  Lenovo took what they did right with the Y570 and improved upon it in many different ways and have put together a very powerful machine in the Y580.

The Y580 does have a very sleek look to it with its nice brushed aluminum lid and silver accents.  I would really like to have liked to see some styling that really set this laptop apart from others considering the price.  The backlit keyboard is a nice addition and I like that you have the ability to turn the lights off if you want to.

Beyond looks the Y580 is a definite powerhouse.  The quad core Intel i7-3610QM can handle pretty much any task a normal user would throw at it and more intensive tasks like video editing and Photoshop.  The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660M discrete graphics will allow you to play pretty much any game out there, but if you want to play them at the full 1920 x 1080 resolution you may need to turn the settings down a bit.  For the most part you can play games at high or medium settings and they will be smooth and crisp.  Most people gaming on a laptop can accept lower resolutions or settings.  For those wanting this to be something like a desktop replacement this is pretty close.

One of my favorite features of the Y580 is the screen.  It is not often you find a full HD screen on a 15-inch laptop, but here you have one.  This means you can watch movies and videos in full 1080p glory.  You can also play games the full resolution they were meant to be played at.  1920 x 1080 resolution on a 15.6-inch screen can make things a bit cramped, especially text.  I did notice that some text on the screen appeared much smaller, especially on websites.  I was easily able to remedy this by zooming in on certain websites that I had a hard time reading.  The larger resolution also allows you to have multiple windows open at once and gives you quite a lot of space to work with.

Battery life is something you always need to take into account when purchasing a laptop and the battery life on the Y580 is excellent!  Over 5 hours with general web browsing is pretty impressive.  Of course if you are going to be doing things like video encoding or gaming expect your battery life to be much, much lower.

This type of laptop is the perfect laptop for someone like me and I’m sure many other people.  Of course I work on ThinkComputers, I have to encode video, I need a powerful laptop on the road, but I also do not want to carry around a huge laptop with me.  The Y580 is the perfect match of power and portability.  You can do intensive tasks like Photoshop and video encoding, play games and at the same time have a laptop that is fairly easy to take with you and has a pretty long battery life.

Right now Lenovo is offering an ecoupon for the Y580 so the base model is only $839.20 our system as configured is $1239.20, which is a great price for all that you are getting.  Overall ThinkComputers gives the Lenovo Y580 15.6-inch Laptop a 10 out of 10 score and our Recommended Award.

rating10 10 small TC award recommended small

Pros:
– Intel i7 processor and NVIDIA GTX 660M graphics
– Backlit keyboard
– Full HD resolution on a 15.6-inch screen
– Battery life

Cons:
– Could have been a little more stylish

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