Lenovo Ideapad Y500 Review

Why is the Lenovo a good gaming laptops under $1500?

Gaming laptops by Lenovo will always seem like somewhat of a contradicting proposition to us. As Lenovo is known for its business orientated products, a gaming laptop simply seems to step away from this brand image. Still, for some gamers this might actually be the perfect wolf in sheep clothing. A laptop that doesn’t shout gaming performance, yet still packs a punch under the hood. 

Features

Being 1.4 x 15.2 x 10.2 inches, the Lenovo is fairly small and portable gaming laptop, similar to the number 1 in our comparison, the MSI GX60. Being a pound lighter though makes it considerably more comfortable to take on long trips. A lot of the savings in space and weight are due to the smaller screen size of 15.6 inches. Although it offers less theatrical effect, it still has a full HD 1920x1080 resolution. 

A fairly uncommon feature on the Lenovo comes in the form of the Ultrabay. The Ultrabay is can be upgraded with unto four modules: A second hard disk, a DVD player, a cooling fan or second GPU. Upgrading your system straight from the factory is possible but not cheap. The second graphics card comes in at 229,99, the hard drive at 189,99, the dvd drive at 69,99 and the extra cooling fan at 29,99. 

The Lenovo comes packed with the Intel Core i7-4770MQ 2.4 GHz processor that we have seen in many other gaming laptops as well. But their is something off in the way it is set up in the Lenovo. Even when combined with 16GB of RAM, the performance was less than the processor showed in other, similar laptops. Even in the test by Cinebench, where they test the processor by itself, the Lenovo scored only 6.32 points and was outperformed by similar laptops by MSI and Asus. 

What games should you be able to play?

The games below run on ‘ultra’ settings with a frame rate of at least 30 per second.

The Elder Scrolls Online, Titanfall, Batman: Arkham Origins, F1 2013, Fifa 2018, Saints Row IV, Dota 2, StarCraft 2: Heart of the Swarm, Tomb Raider, Assassin’s Creed 3, Call of Duty: Black Ops 2.

To Conclude

The Lenovo is great gaming laptop under 1500 dollars with many features to love. The sleep and slender exterior, the lightweight chassis, the customisable Ultrabay options and the graphics cards. Still, there are sadly also points to dislike. The processor doesn’t seem to be able to show its full flying colours in this setup, nor does the battery life of the Lenovo impress. Although a great system, we would advise you to look to the #1, #2 or #3 in our comparison of the best gaming laptops under 500 dollars. 

The Key Facts:

• Processor / CPU: 2.4 GHz Core i7-3630QM
• Graphics Card / GPU: NVIDIA Dual SLI GT650M
• RAM: 12 GB DIMM
• Hard Drive / HD: 1000 GB
• Screen Size: 15.6 Inches
• Screen Resolution: 1920 x 1080 pixels
• Operating System: Windows 8
• Weight: 6.4 Pounds
• Number of USB 2.0 Ports: 2
• Number of USD 3.0 Ports: 2
• Battery Life: Lithium-Ion with a battery life of 3 hours
• Dimensions: 10.20 x 15.20 x 1.40 inches