The Lenovo IdeaPad Y580 is one of the best values among 15.6" multimedia and gaming notebooks. Though it's got as much style as grandpa's galoshes, the laptop is well made with quality Lenovo IdeaPad Y430g battery internals that translate into quick performance and reliability. And the backlit AccuType keyboard? Superb. The 1080p display? Excellent.
Departing subtly from Lenovo's all-business ThinkPad line, the IdeaPads are topped with a brushed metal shell in deep gray. We imagine the metal gives the display some extra protection. It’s beveled on the left and right sides and nicely cool to the touch. The bottom case is black plastic—standard stuff, but less sturdy than the top.
The keyboard also is well equipped with a full range of function keys and a separate numeric keypad on the right side. The keys are chiclet style—short and springy—and illuminated from Lenovo IdeaPad V450 AC adapter underneath via a backlight function controlled by the Fn key plus space bar.
Touchpad of this laptop is accented along with thin silver metal around the edges and the left and right click buttons are incorporated in a singular design. The touchpad is large and hence comfortable to use. All the standard features such as 2 finger scrolling and pinch to zoom are effortlessly executed.
Many users often lament 1366x768 resolution displays on 15.6-inch notebooks due to the apparent small screen real estate for such a large display. Such a resolution is, after all, commonly found in most budget and entry-level 15.6-inch offerings. As stated in the introduction, Lenovo thankfully includes Lenovo IdeaPad Y460 battery options for a 1080p upgrade for $100 above the base price. The glossiness and FullHD display in this review model are certainly appealing and more useful for everyday tasks, respectively, but no matte panel options exist as with most IdeaPads.
The Lenovo IdeaPad Y580 is loaded with Nvidia Optimus technology that automatically switches between the notebook's integrated and discrete graphics. The integrated Intel HD Graphics 4000 GPU takes care of all the light tasks such as watching video, and the Nvidia GeForce GTX 660M GPU with 2GB of VRAM handles multimedia creation as well as some of the more demanding PC games on the market.
The IdeaPad Y580 comes equipped with a 1TB, 5,400rpm hard drive and a 32GB solid-state-drive (SSD), the latter of which has 12.7GB of free space out the box since it's loaded with some preloaded software and drivers. While users have the option of installing new apps to the SSD, its primarily designed to Lenovo IdeaPad V450 battery operate in the background to allow the Y580 to quickly reboot from sleep mode. Otherwise, new apps can be installed on the 1TB hard drive, which is plenty capacious. Overall, the ratio of useful apps (Microsoft Office Starter 2010, a full version of McAfee Internet Security) to unnecessary bloatware (desktop links, for instance) fortunately tips in favor of the user.
While so many laptops are foregoing optical drives to save space, weight, and money, Lenovo threw in a Blu-ray drive to render the Y580 capable of showing high-definition movies. The Y580’s design is sleek but simple: It looks like a true power machine, but one that’s free of flashy lights and garish decals. The wide, backlit keyboard is comfortable to type on, and the touchpad is smooth and easy to use. I rarely have nice things to say about touchpads, since any plug-in mouse will be vastly superior, but this one’s size and smooth, glass-like texture obviate any hassle in use.
Using the CyberLink YouCam 3 software, the Y580's HD webcam captures images and video at 1280 x 720 pixels. Under fluorescent lighting, our skin tone and our emerald green shirt were rather Lenovo IdeaPad Y430 adapter dark, but moving to a natural light setting balanced out the color. In both instances, the images were sharp with a good level of detail.
For gamers, there is Nvidia GeForce GTX660M graphics card and I got 30 fps speed playing with medium quality settings and the laptop got hiccups only for settings of high quality. For Crysis I got 97 fps playing at resolution of 1,024×768 pixels and in high quality native resolution, I got 13fps. Compared to this, Envy 17 could just give me 88 and 12fps respectively. For Lost Planet 2, the results were 71fps at medium quality at resolution of 1,024×768 pixels and 28fps at high quality when played at the native resolution.
The Lenovo IdeaPad Y580 gives plenty of bang for the buck and almost entirely eliminates the need for a desktop altogether. It features a dazzling screen with 1080p resolution, a built-in Blu-ray player, and even a full-sized keyboard on top of superlative multimedia and gaming Lenovo IdeaPad V430A adapter capabilities. While the HP Envy 17 (2012) offers a similar smorgasbord of features, the Y580 nonetheless outguns it while costing nearly $400 less. For these reasons, we're willing to overlook its so-so battery life, and it rightfully earns its place as our Editors' Choice for media laptops.