Lenovo’s iconic ThinkPad range has become synonymous with high-quality business portables, and with its Value line, it's attempting to recreate that success with keenly priced consumer models such as the G550.
The design of the G550 has changed slightly from the G530, switching from a smooth matte exterior finish, to a black weave pattern. The new cover is every bit as strong as the last one, preventing any screen distortion even if you hit or flex the back of the screen. The interior of the notebook shares the same color as the lid, but is textured with a rougher matte finish similar to what you would find on unpainted sections of a ThinkPad. Lenovo took the back-to-basics route with the color scheme on this notebook, making it entirely black inside and out.
To upgrade components the G550 has easy access panels to the memory and CPU, wireless card, and hard drive on the bottom of the notebook. No components, including the processor, had "warranty void if removed" stickers, making it very easy to handle upgrades or repairs in the future.
The screen of this workhorse measures 15.6” across. It presents a resolution of 1366 x 768 pixels. The graphics processor employed in this cheap laptop is the Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 4500MHD. High definition audio is also offered.
Usability is excellent. The wide keyboard proves accurate at all times. The large keys have a slightly spongy typing action, but not enough to hinder use. A full numeric keypad on the board's right-hand side makes it quick and easy to input data.
The 2.1GHz Core 2 Duo T6500 and 4GB of RAM are a powerful combination, and the G550 did extremely well in all our benchmarks, achieving an overall score of 62. Rather than Intel dedicated graphics, there's an Nvidia GeForce G 105M graphics chip. This managed only 9.4fps in our Call of Duty 4 test, which isn't much of an improvement over integrated graphics. However, it should provide enough power for older strategy games.
The 320GB hard disk provides plenty of storage space, and is a welcome improvement from the previous model's 250GB disk.
The laptop has an USB, Optical Drive and the AC Power jack on the right side and a Kensington lock slot, LAN, VGA and another two USB Port on the left. The wireless on/off switch and headphone and microphone jacks are on the front and there are no ports on the back. We do not expect HDMI or a FireWire port from a budget priced notebook but at least another USB Port was expected from a 15 inch notebook. Also, there is no Express card Slot or Memory Card reader slot to be found on it. We have to say that the laptop only has bare minimal ports leaving the place to be wanting for more.
The 2.5kg chassis is relatively light and can be comfortably carried on short journeys. The outstanding 293-minute battery life also more than triples the mobility of the Advent and easily beats a lot of other rivals, making the G550 a fantastic travel partner.
Thermal performance of the G550 is very good thanks to the large chassis, slower processor, and integrated graphics. Under stress the system controlled temperatures very well, and under normal loads the bottom of the notebook and palmrests stayed cool to the touch. Fan noise was minimal, with it staying off under light system loads, and going just above a whisper under intensive use. The one hotspot that stood out on the G550 was the panel beneath the hard drive that warmed up considerably if you were stressing the disk.
The Lenovo G550 is a solid budget notebook with decent performance. If you can withstand with the unresponsive touchpad and don’t need more port than what it has, it is recommended for those who are looking for a mainstream computer on budget.
Pros
- Very good performance for a budget notebook
- Good design and build
- Nice keyboard
Cons
- Ports selection is bare minimal
- TouchPad sensitivity is not satisfactory
- Average display
Author Resource:
Asli Mana is the writer of this laptop article. Too see her work about Toshiba notebook models see her Toshiba notebook website.
![[Valid RSS feed]](http://www.look4articles.com/images/icon_Rss.png "XML Feed For RSS"){kind=icon}
Category Rss Feed
Print This Article
Add To Favorites
![[Valid RSS feed]](http://www.look4articles.com/images/rss.jpg "XML Feed For RSS")