Y550 delivered!

Per wife, a big ups box at home for me. I'll be sure to post a review in the next couple of days. But first a question: I want to run this thing on win7 on a partition from the getgo. I'm using lifehacker's step-by-step guide to partitioning and installing. Anything special I need to do for this particular machine? Drivers? Partitioning specifics? Anybody running 7 on an ideapad? Thanks - really excited about this transition to a new machine, and again will payback with a full picture-rich review

 

congrats! i hope you enjoy your new machine. Which model did you order (specs)?

I want the Y450 but I am holding out for the GT 130M card.

 

This thread is totally worthless without pics and a review...

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j/k congrats! .. seriously though please review

 

Absolutely will. Anybody have ideas about win7? @nicksti: I got mine from tigerdirect- 4g,320, Bluetooth. Intel gma 4500, which I was disappointed in, but it's only $650 on their website, no tax free shipping (though I paid for 2 day)

 

Wouldn't hold your breath on the 130M for the Y450. Lenovo's spec sheet has the 110M listed as the max graphics option. We are probably just getting the 105m for the meantime b/c of early manufacturing issues. I pulled the trigger on the y450 with the 105m b/c I got a great price with coupon discounts. The 110m is only fractionally better than the 105m. It has 16 shader pipelines as opposed to the 105m's 8 but the 110m has a lower clock speed. Its kinda like having a 16 lane highway as opposed to 8 but the speed limit is lower lol.

 

What's in the box? What's in the box???

 

What was your final prince?

*sorry for the hi-jack*

 

$950 for the highest model including an extra year on the warranty and tax.

 

Dying for some pics here man, anything. I'm thinking between the Y550 vs the T500 right now, but there are just no real pics or reviews of the Y550. Congrats on your laptop and really looking forward to some feedback.

 

Plenty of pics on of the white Y550 on Chinese sites.. I'm looking forward to some reviews that I can actually read without having to decipher whatever babelfish comes up with...

http://detail.zol.com.cn/181/180189/pic.shtml

 

Well here is an option on the chinese version of the Y450:

Y450A-TSI $6,299 - GT 130M Card
Y450A-TFO $5708 - GT 130M Card
Y450A-PS3 $7299 - GT 130M Card

So its not like if they cant make em with the GT 130M Card, it is if the USA will be graced with its presence.

Source: http://appserver.lenovo.com.cn/product_list.aspx?rackcode=A03B07C13D09

 

China has the grey (ash) 450's too

 

gt130m on a y550, wow, lenovo is improving it's consumer version. It will soon become better than the business t400/500/w series, if the gpu is updated.

 

The gray Y450s don't look too bad, but I like the contrast of the black and white. Currently, I have a N6010 fujitsu and it also has a white keyboard. I was planning on getting an all black machine next but the Lenovo looks sharp with the white.

What are your guys opinions on the colors. Which do you prefer?

 

The white looks clean and fresh but will show its useage and wear quicker. I do like the white version tho with its contrasting black.

 

It will show wear but it won't be that noticeable. I've had a white laptop and it looks decent. If it starts to get dirty, just take a damp sponge and wipe it clean.

 

Hence why I don't think you will see it over here until the thinkpad gpu's are upgraded.

 

I'm looking for a levono with rubber for the top case. Does the Y450 or Y550 have it?

How is the Y550 for finger prints?

 

Here's my mini-review.

Design/First Impressions:
This is going to be the bulk of my review. I haven't had a lot of chance to work on it yet. I won't be doing any benchmarking or anything, but I can tell you a lot about how it looks/feels. I'll post any problems/issues I run into to inform the community (and more importantly to get help!)

This machine is very solidly built. The build quality that Lenovo is famous for shows well in this computer, and I'm very happy to have bought it vs. competing models. It feels well put-together and solid without being too heavy. It's not as thin or light as my wife's 15" MBP, but it also cost about 1/3 as much. But it is definitely thinner and lighter than several of the other sub-$700 models I was looking at, notably the Gateway MD7801 and the HP dv1235. The lid is black with the subtle 3D honeycomb pattern in red/orange that is this generation's signature. It is high-gloss, rather than the matte finish on the Y650, which I would have preferred. Overall it looks black from the outside, with the orange stripe along the edge of the lid, which just helps to make it pop a little bit - more subtle than it looks on the pictures. Open it up and the keyboard/palmrest is indeed white. I don't know if they're planning on selling the black or grey one that's on the website, but I really like the contrasting colors, with black screen frame and white keyboard. The rest of the base is black, too, aside from the palmrest/keyboard. Just like we've seen in pictures. Another sexy little touch is the white LED indicator lights (wifi on, HDD spinning, volume keys, etc.). There's a white lightup IdeaPad logo on the right palmrest, too, which looks very nice. The design is lovely, though it's definitely going to attract fingerprints on the lid. That's one thing I loved about the last generation of Yseries was those textured lids.

The display is very nice, with a 16:9 dimension and 1366x768 resolution. Brightness is very good, but I think the colors come out a little washed out. Not the best vibrance/saturation I've seen on a display, but it's very sharp and bright. I frankly find the 16:9 a little strange and wish they'd kept the 16:10 from the y530. Screen just seems a little short in the vertical dimension to me, but it does display 16:9 movies without letterbox, which is nice if you're watching a lot of DVDs on this machine. While I'm at it, I wish they'd kept the 'edgeless' display from the y530, too (maybe they did on some models?), but that's really my only gripe from a design perspective and it's a matter of personal preference.

The speakers are 2.1 down from the 4.1 available on the 530. I never listened to those speakers, but these are nice, and the subwoofer really does help to improve the tinniness characteristic of most laptop speakers.
Love the keyboard! The keys are well spaced, and have a lot of travel to them. They have a good degree of resistance and really feel like a standalone keyboard. They're not the quietest keys I've ever seen, but definitely not too clacky. Haven't noticed any problems so far with key placement - everything is right where it's supposed to be, and touch-typing is easy.

The touchpad is textured, which some people may not like. Kind of a bumpy or ridged pattern to it, which gives it good feel, although maybe a touch too resistant to finger motion for some people. The buttons for the touchpad have just the right amount of resistance and again have a lot of travel. I love the feel of them. The built-in multitouch is not the best. No built-in support for two finger scrolling, but that was easily remedied with twofingerscroll.exe from Google code. The rest of the multitouch (i.e., the zoom-in, zoom-out) is buggy. Hard to get it to work reliably, but at the same time you still do it accidentally sometimes when trying to two finger scroll. I'm sure it just takes some getting used to. That said, the Macbook touchpad remains the best implementation of multitouch that I've used.

Software/Crapware
I've got the 6400 processor, 320gb HD, and 4g RAM, with the integrated graphics chip. So far, it runs Vista very snappily, and everything is moving along very well. It came loaded up with what I think is a pretty standard complement of junkware: Lenovo's "startcenter" or some such, norton trial, Ms office trial, as well as the much-maligned ReadyComm and Veriface software. I got rid of all of them right off the bat, so I don't know how much it slows the machine down. I kept the OneKey, but I haven't tried to use it to back up yet, so I'm not sure how I feel about it. I'm backed up to an external hard drive, so I might just remove the partitions altogether, but I'm not messing with any of that yet. I also loaded up my standard complement of freeware: Ccleaner, PC decrapifier, OpenOffice, iTunes, Avira, Imgburn, Firefox, Google apps. So far, so good.

Wrapup
Overall, I'm extremely happy with this machine on initial delivery. I think overall design and build quality is better than anything else in this pricepoint. One of the only windows-based machines that I think looks substantially better than this is the y650, just because it's so damn thin! No performance issues yet, but I'm just getting started. I'm going to be experimenting with Win7 soon, I'll let you know if I run into any problems with it. I'm even considering just doing an upgrade install instead of a dual boot. We'll see. Anyway, at this point I'd recommend both the Y550 and TigerDirect to anyone who can live without a serious graphics card or 1080 HD. I'll post some pics soon, and will be happy to answer specific questions not covered in this review.

EDIT: One thing I wanted to add: I noticed several times that where your hands naturally go to pick the machine up happens to be where the button for the CD drive lives. I've had the CD tray accidentally pop out about 5 times in 4 hours of use. Of course I've gotten used to a slot-loading drive, too, so maybe it's me. (I do really wish they had a slot-loader for this one, though - I always feel like that tray is going to snap off when extended!)

 

Thanks for posting your impressions.. any noticeable excessive heat?

+rep

 

Haven't noticed any excessive heat. The right palmrest gets warmer than the left. Held it on my lap for a couple hours plugged in last night without noticing too much heat. There's a large vent on the left side of the machine that you can really feel blowing out hot air, though. Think it's well ventillated.

 

The GT 130m won't ever be in the 450 model. However, I've heard since that 550's being delivered are actually equipped with the 130m instead of the 105m posted on the website. I'd be willing to be 450's that get delivered will have the 110m instead of the 105m since the 110m is what is listed in the spec sheet.

 

You mean in the US version? Because the chinese ones have the Y450 with the GT 130M option.

Have you seen any of these Y550s with the GT 130M cards in them that you can post a link? I really do not want a 15.6" but I will suck one up to get the card.

 

The hard drive is right below the right palm rest, so the temperature of that spot will depend on the specific hard drive - some run quite a bit warmer than others.

Thanks for giving your feedback on the laptop!

 

Is there anyway to replace the hard drive without voiding the warranty on the y550? I want to order this model but I would love to add a 7200 rpm drive into the mix.

 

Someone who received Y450 confirmed in different thread that it comes with G110M.

 

+1 on this

 

It is surprising this model is not having a single review here.

 

yeah, i really wanted a good review with that gt240m...i don't know if i 'll be able to afford the new t510 when it gets released...may be i'll get this ideapad, but i've still not taken my decision. i still have to read about its battery life, keyboard quality...i have experienced good keyboards since i've got my laptops (dell vostro 1700, apple macbook pro)...i don't want to be disappointed...

 

As far as reviews go, battery life is 3.5-4 hrs. The keyboard is sturdy as some users have reported. There is very little flex.