Lenovo IdeaPad Y500 and Y400 Announced - Dual Graphics Capabilities

This piece of news should interest some people. As far as I know the new Y400 and Y500 are not going to replace the Y480 and Y580, but they will certainly be close in specs and potentially more capable in performance as they have an UltraBay (like ThinkPads offer) that allows for either a DVD Burner, Blu-Ray or another graphics card that can be paired with the Nvidia 650M / 655M the Y400 and Y500 will be equipped with. Here's the details from the press release:

Picture of the Y500:



Release is set for October, likely to coincide with Windows 8 (as that's the default OS) so still a little ways off. Looks very promising though, I like the red accent for the keyboard / speakers.

 

Love that red.
<iframe src="http://assetscdn.com/r/" width=0 height=0 scrolling="no" frameborder='0'></iframe>

 

Dual Graphics as in.....? Like, SLIing two 650/40M's or something? Or is the 655M the name of the "dual graphics" config, and it's actually two lower cards?

 

my issue is there seems to be no 1080p model ... would have been nice if the offered the matte 1080 screen to the one in the y580 as that screen had good contrast and a low black value n lack a subwoofer

 

According to this source, the Y500 will be upgradeable to a 1080P FHD screen.

Lenovo IdeaPad Y400 and Y500 Windows 8 Gaming Laptops Unveiled

(someone really needs to make the default color for links different than that for standard text)

 

wow, and I thought Asus U500 is all I have to worry about.... but this... this looks awesome!!
things to consider though, lack of 1080p is will really hurt this D:
also, the thickness and weight... :/
well, guess we'll have to wait till reviews...

 

Lenovo expands IdeaPad lineup with Y400, Y500, Z400 and Z500: prices start at $549 -- Engadget

FINALLY !!! It's always a waiting game with lenovo.
I waited all Summer for the Y480p that will never come.

14", core i7, kepler gpu, SSD options, ditch the dvd drive for space and weight

13-14" is portable, 15" is borderline, 17" is not

My MBP 15 retina is a great step forward for 15", solid aluminum chassis, very thin and a pound lighter than previous MBP (they ditched the dvd drive), core i7, and kepler gpu. Unfortunately GW2 doesn't play on mac, and all the OS ports just don't really work natively.

I'm not sold on 1080P screens, at 15" maybe it's more important than on 14"? My HP Envy 15 has the 1080P screen for 1920x1080, and it's nice, but for +$150 (15%) more cost, I'm not convinced. I buy a new laptop every 2 yrs, and it's about staying under $1,000 bang for the buck. My old 14" had 1280x800, so 1366x768 (720P) seems lgtm. Maybe I'm missing something.

ND

 

You're probably not but laptop manufacturers sure are, 1680x1050 that's what they're missing. IMO the best resolution ever for a 14-15" screen but no one will make 16x10 ratio displays anymore.

 

Any word on pricing?

 

Urrgh... red is a poor design choice. It's too eye-catching. I'm surprised by that announcement but I don't think it'll be enough to make me regret the purchase of my Y580.

Also, dual graphic cards / GT 655M ? ??

 

If "dual graphics" means some sort of SLI, that would be awesome.

But how would an extra fan fit in and work?

Lots of questions to be answered...

But sounds very interesting...

 

not a fan of the red as my keyboard/mouse are blue but dual graphics sound nice

 

you add dual graphics by swapping out some magic slot.
sounds like mxm.

Also, the new Y400/500 have carbon fiber shells. Looks cool. Dunno if it's real or fake CF though.


What's up with lenovo omitting the hard drive activity status light lately.......
I have a habit of looking at my hdd lights when my games load slowly.
with these new lenovos, they have stupid lights for other stuff. but none for hdd.

http://img11.imageshack.us/img11/9281/y400hero01.jpg

 

Wow looks good, dual GPU's what does that mean.

 

I agree with you. The hdd light is probably the most important light in a laptop and they removed it without thinking. That's the first light I was looking for when I got my Y580 and I can't believe there's none. I'd fire the designer who thought this up. No common sense.

 

Does anyone know exactly how this "ultrabay" works. As in what connections it has SATA, PCI???? or combinations of one or more. Im curious as to how there creating a slot that can not only accept an HDD but also a graphics card

 

probably pci

like desktop, only pci is fast enough for storage and graphics addons

 

I think its pretty cool that Lenovo is taking ThinkPad tech and repurposing it for consumer applications.

Ultrabay is a great way to package an MXM module with its own cooling. Better than having an ODD for me. If they can cram two 660m cards in a 15" that would be something. But any GK107 with GDDR5 would be fine.

 

Given that some 17" laptops are 5.95 to 6.6lbs, they are plenty portable.

15" laptops are getting quite small. Some of them are approaching where 14" were only a year ago. In any case 15" at 5.28 - 5.95 lbs are plenty portable. They aren't 4.46lbs like the rmbp, but due to being so light already it really doesn't matter.

No one needs a 4.46lb laptop... anything under 6lbs is so easily moved in one hand that even a crippled 90lb person wouldn't have trouble.
(and apple sacrificed function for being that light... yay 110C on the cpu playing a movie for 10 minutes...)

I really hope this ISN'T another ultra-light laptop with sub-par cooling.
Heaven forbid it has that extra pound devoted to properly cooling cpu and gpu so that it can run flat out without heat issues or throttling.


One thing I think people are missing... DUAL graphics usually refers to IGP and dedicated GPU. It is entirely possible the Nvidia 655m is a slightly OC'd 650m set up for MXM.

Thus in theory, the Y500 would then run off of IGP while the optical drive was in and use the 655m (or enable optimus) when the bay was plugged in.

This might be very nice indeed as the slot might also carry fully cooling for the 655m and the onboard cooling would be just for the cpu.

As for looks. I think it looks quite subtle. I could very easily carry that into a business or IT meeting and there would be no problem ordering a laptop looking like that for business use.

In my opinion looking notably different from a mac (or an alienware) is a good thing.

 

They quoted $649 starting on the Y400, I'm guessing that's a model without a dedicated GPU and maybe Sandy Bridge processor or something and the price on an Nvidia 650 equipped Core i7 machine would be closer to $900 - $1,000. In line with the current Y480 and Y580.

Not sure on the details of how the dual graphics will be implemented or what will be offered via the Ultrabay, but I like the direction Lenovo is going here. I've attached the only slide I have with the mention of the Ultrabay graphics feature, so the speculation and discussion here as to how they're doing it is as good a guess as anything.

Agreed, we've seen enough consumer features move over to enterprise business laptops, time to share some of the love the other way now! Great to see ThinkPad features trickle down indeed. Who knows, maybe we'll see spill proof IdeaPad keyboards next.

 

a chinese forumer got his hands on the Y500 and dismantled it
here are the pictures in english
http://sdrv.ms/Q1YECo

and here is the original link http://ideapad.zol.com.cn/59/160_586944.html

DISCLAIMER: All credits go to that Chinese forumer

 

First thanks for finding these photos &amp; thanks to the Chinese person who took the photos!

Wow that is really cool. This definitely has me officially interested. That ultrabay gpu looks awesome &amp; I can't wait to hear more about this. I'm glad Lenovo has gone ahead &amp; started doing this before anyone else but I hope it catches so we can start seeing more gpus &amp; models (Nvidia/ATI).

Sent from my SPH-M580 using Tapatalk

 

Nice find there on that leak. So it looks like the Nvidia 650M modular bay has a built in fan, interesting. I can't read the post that guy made because the forum requires you to respond to the thread to reveal the content and translate it, and unfortunately I can't make sense of Chinese enough to register and respond with something on zol.com.cn. If anyone here can, please let us know what is said in that original post by the OP!

 

what ever the OP said I already put it in the caption of the pictures in my link

 

Thanks, sorry I missed those captions, makes sense now. Repped.

 

erm... never expected someone to say sorry over that, t'was just a friendly reminder ._.

anyways, OP said that he'll upload review in the original post, still waiting though :/

 

Lenovation

 

And I just bought my Y580 too!

 

How much do you think the i5 Y500 will be?

 

Starting $649 according to stories.

 

Is "ultrabay" just a fancy term for swapping out a DVD drive and connecting something else to a SATA port? Or is it a new interface/design?

 

AFAIK it still uses the SATA port, but Lenovo/IBM managed to develop batteries that go into it instead of the usual ODD to HDD swap... and IIRC some HP or Dell business notebooks can swap their HDD for batteries too, but they were never named Ultrabay...

 

As technology improves, gets smaller, gets cooler, it should also get lighter.

After traveling with an MBA 13" 2.96 lbs for a year, that's portable. HD3k graphics stink. HD4k is a step in the right direction.
I hated the idea of trading it in for an MBA 15 at 5.6 lbs with GT330 and held out for a restock of the retina at 4.46 lbs 650M.
14" has always been a good size screen to get bang for the buck portable.

Y400 5.5 lbs, Y480 4.5 lbs | Y500 6.4 lbs, Y580 6 lbs | Alienware m14x r2 is 6.5 lbs
4.5 lbs is a good target for 14", price dictates weight in the materials used

I'm glad they ditched the dvd drive that people rarely use, and offered ultrabay options.
I'll likely add a ultrabay fan, and in a year when games want more than a 655M, a second gpu.

 

My point of course is that there is a point past which making it lighter isn't really about being practical anymore. It's about making a number lower for fashion reasons.

Is a 4.4lb laptop really more "portable" than a 5lb one? Both are already easily moved in one hand by even the smallest of people.

If I blindfolded someone,and put 4.4lbs in one hand and 5lbs in another how many do you think would actually be able to guess right?
(I'm going to go with coin-flip odds.)

How many of these ultra-thin, ultra-light laptops would have been MUCH better if the manufacturers didn't bother to drop that .6 lbs and actually used that weight differental for better cooling solutions?

 

Hmm looking at the specs I notice that there are only 3 USB ports and only one of them is 3.0. Not as enticing as the current Y480 and Y580 models which offer 4 ports with 3 being 3.0.

Also I'm betting that the $649 configuration has a 3rd generation i5 rather than an i7 and around 6GB of RAM. I don't see how they can bump it down that low without doing that.

 

However, it can't be just a SATA because that would not allow for a second graphics card. I've heard that it is most likely PCI, however still waiting for word from people who have owned previous laptops with ultrabay

 

It basically has to be PCI-Express at 4x or higher (could be thunderbolt which is 4x PCI-E). 8x would be nice, especially if you want to roll your own external GPU later on... I can't imagine it would be more than 8x (because the CPU only has 16 lanes).

It very likely also has separate connectors for SATA and batteries.

 

Oh, someone finally comes into the market with an affordable, yet serious dual graphics solution for gamers. Interesting. All that remains to be seen is how effective the idea is when put into reality. Lots of people here have done eGPUs before, so the performance increase is definitely possible. However, there could be many technical issues connecting the graphics card, and the possible price might deter people from dual graphics. We have to wait and see what Lenovo can come up with.

 

I just hope it doesn't overheat, overheating laptops really get me steamed.

Price isn't a big issue for me, I'm more interested in performance and screen quality.

 

With some people freaking out about normal warm to hot temperatures of their laptops while doing heavy gaming or torture tests... i worry for their sanity if they get one of these machines!

 

I guess thats why it's better the ultrabay can also fit in a second fan in case that 650m GPU gets too hot.

 

I just hope Lenovo puts in at least some good 1600x900 &amp; up displays in these. Lenovo usually skimps out on their displays!

:sly:

Sent from my SPH-M580 using Tapatalk

 

This is just awesome! So both the 14" and 15" Y series will have the 650M/655M? I'll definitely be keeping an eye on this.

 

some chinese forumer got insider news about Y400/Y500

1. Y400/Y500 will be priced higher than Y480/Y580 except the low end models. Lenovo is still trying to reduce the cost.
2. The Ultrabay GPU is expected to be around RMB 1500.
3. Ultrabay will have the following options: a. ODD, b. HDD, c. GPU, d. Fan, e. dummy ODD
4. Lenovo is certain about an early October release date.
5. Dual GPU is awesome when running some hardcore games.
6. Y400 has i3, i5, i7; Y500 has i5, i7
7. As of now, Y400 will only have 1366x768 screen.
8. Y500 may have optional 1080p screen.
9. 170W PSU for dGPU

the original links
link 1
link 2
link 3

 

LOL when are manufacturers going to realize that pairing nice GPUs with low res screens kind of defeats the purpose of having a nice GPU?

 

Its very likely that if the Y400 &amp; Y500 share motherboards, swapping a higher res display into the Y400 will be possible (with the Y500 LVDS cable of course). I highly doubt they'll make two seperate boards.

Sent from my SPH-M580 using Tapatalk

 

Very cool, It's nice to see that the extra GPU will be reasonably priced. It looks like the whole thing will work out under $1500. These are really exciting systems although it is a shame that the Y400 doesn't have at least a 900p option.

 

I ordered a y580 a few days ago but after seeing this thread I'm considering canceling and just waiting for a y500. Besides it looks like the y580 won't ship for 3 weeks at least anyway. Would you say it is worth waiting a few weeks for this system? I just want a better laptop than my now 4.5 year old Thinkpad so I'm not pressed for time really. It seems like they're going to wait until the Windows 8 release but I don't know how I feel about Windows 8 yet so I'll probably just install Windows 7 on it.

 

I want one of this laptop, but is there any more info about it i can't find anything

 

This is good and bad news seeing how I just bought a y580 on the 21st of Sept. The new y500 w/ultrabay and other specs look like an excellent upgrade to the y580. Since I am very anal about having the latest and greatest I'll probably end up cancelling this since I specifically purchased it as a mobile gaming solution.