Lenovo is known for producing value for money laptops and G Series laptops from them won people’s acclaim for that. The budget minded mainstream notebook packs a decent sized 15.6 inch display, Intel Pentium Dual Core Processor and 3 GB DDR3 RAM for a standard configuration. The price of around $500 may seem netbookish but the display size and performance is no nonsense. Let us take a closer look at the laptop to find out if they have omitted anything important to cut down the price.
The G550’s 2.56kg frame seems to promise equally thick-set build quality, but it isn’t up to ThinkPad standards. There’s nothing major to worry about, but the chassis is noticeably more pliant than Acer’s Aspire 5739G, and there’s a fair amount of give in the lid, too. If you do decide to take the weighty Lenovo on your travels, battery life is middle of the road: sitting idle with the screen set to mid brighness it lasted 3hrs 52mins on a full charge.
The display has a good size of 15.6 inches showing 1366 X 768 pixels in standard 16 : 9 aspect ratio. The screen is a glossy one showing lots of bright colors and contrast but as with other glossy displays, the display glare on brightly lit environments like in the office makes it very annoying to see things on the screen. The horizontal viewing angle was very good to share the screen with a couple of your friends but the vertical viewing angle is not that much good.
The keyboard is easy to type on, sharing the same comfortable and durable feel as my ThinkPad T60 keyboard and only differing in layout. Individual key action is smooth with no audible click when pressed. The keys are textured with a smooth matte finish, giving decent traction for typing ... unlike the glossy keyboards we are seeing on a greater number of notebooks these days. Keyboard support is excellent, barely a hint of flex on the main section of the keyboard. The newer 16:9 chassis on the G550 allowed Lenovo to add a numberpad to the keyboard, but they didn't change the support under that side of the keyboard frame. It doesn't appear to have much flex, but it has just enough to make a squeaking sound against the optical drive when press down. Media-related keys are limited to touch-sensitive mute and volume up/down buttons located above the keyboard.
This machine features a dual-core processor and performance notably betters most rivals around this price. Applications run quickly and multiple tasks can be performed simultaneously without slowing the system down.
Graphics performance is less impressive, but betters the similarly specified Advent Roma 2000 and Toshiba Satellite L450-136. There is ample power for general home use, as well as basic photo and video editing, but don't expect to play the latest games on this machine.
The capacious 320GB hard drive doubles the capacity of the HP and Toshiba and will hold an entire family's files. This is one of the only laptops that has no card reader, however. Bear this in mind if you plan to upload photos from a digital camera.
Although the G550 is now larger than the G530, Lenovo still managed to decrease the amount of ports available. The ExpressCard slot is missing, USB ports are down from four to three, and the modem jack is gone. I can see no other reason besides cutting costs for such a loss of features. There are three USB ports, optical drive, Kensington Lock slot, LAN, VGA, and audio jacks.
The Lenovo G550 15.6” Laptop weighs 2.7kg. This Lenovo laptop comes in grey and black colours. The battery life offered for normal computations is about 4 hours. The cost of this mobile computer is currently £434.
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.
Author Resource:
Asli Mana writes articles about different subjects, including Laptop . To read her articles see her Acer Laptop website.
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