Lenovo IdeaPad Y480 review

Lenovo IdeaPad Y480 review pictures

View full Gallery

The IdeaPad Y480 is not a svelte machine: at 1.3 inches thick and weighing just over 5 pounds, this 14-inch laptop is a far cry from the slim and sleek ultrabooks that have clamored for our attention over the last few months. Lenovo is counting on the fact that you'll overlook its heft in favor of its potential as an entertainment machine, built to whet your audio-visual appetite. While a bit bulky, at first blush it isn't unattractive: the brushed metal lid lends the entire ensemble a clean look, one that's only improved when you open it up and check out the rest of the rig. The brushed metal motif continues here, surrounding the keyboard tray and lending the laptop a bit of gravitas. A pair of JBL speakers sit on opposite ends of the machine, all but defining its purpose as an entertainment device.

On the left, you'll find VGA port accompanied by the Gigabit Ethernet jack, a pair of USB 3.0 ports, and an HDMI port. I understand why the VGA port is there — legacy monitors, projectors, and the like — but I can't wait until we (collectively, as a species) decide to do away with the vestigial connector entirely in favor of modern connectors like DisplayPort and its ilk. On the right, you'll find headphone and microphone jacks, a pair of USB 2.0 ports, and the tray-loading DVD burner. Things get a bit more interesting under the hood, where Lenovo has stashed a quad-core Intel Core i7-3610QM processor clocked at 2.3GHz. That Ivy Bridge CPU is backed by 8GB of RAM, a 750GB hard drive, and a 40nm Nvidia GeForce GT 640M LE GPU. You'll also find the usual fixings, like a multiformat card reader along the front edge, and built-in Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity. If you're willing to spend a bit more, optional extras include a 1TB hard drive with a 32GB mSATA solid state drive for caching, and a Blu-ray player.

At this point in their lengthy history it should go without saying: Lenovo makes great keyboards. The company rolled out a new design this year, ditching their classic design for rounded, chiclet style keys. I got my first taste of the new keyboards when I checked out the Lenovo ThinkPad X230 a few weeks ago, and while I was initially a bit worried (why fix something that wasn't broken?) my time with the new design assuaged my fears. Lenovo's chiclet keys feature what the company is calling a "smile" design; the bottom of the keycaps are rounded off into a "U" shape, giving every key a bit of extra room on the tray without actually spacing them any further. As a result, the keys feel comfortable and spacious, but your fingers won't need to do any extra stretching to get to them. The keyboard also comes with a backlight, which can be activated by holding the Function key and tapping the spacebar. Being able to see keys in the dark is pretty crucial, and while there isn't anything special about this implementation (the ThinkPad X230, for example, offered two brightness stages), it's a welcome presence.

It's a shame that this is noteworthy for a Windows laptop, but the trackpad works rather well: it's responsive, and gestures are recognized reliably. We'll have to wait until Windows 8 makes its debut to see much in the way of multitouch gestures, but there are a few baked into the Y480's trackpad. Swipe four fingers up, and you'll fire up the Windows task switcher (the equivalent of hitting Alt + Tab). Swipe four fingers to the right, and you'll open the Quick Notes application, which presents virtual sticky notes to jot things down on. Four fingers to the left, and the wallpaper app lets you pick a new image to serve as your wallpaper. These particular options are pretty useless (well, with the exception of the task switcher), and there's no way to configure them, but pinching and swiping on the wide, smooth surface works flawlessly.

I don't like the glossy texture, or the way it readily picks up the oils from my fingers and starts to look unsightly, but neither of those elements actually get in the way. The trackpad is a single clicking surface, with a thin line demarcating the left and right sides. It all works as one should expect a trackpad to; we haven't quite eclipsed Apple's glass-coated trackpad, but it's certainly a step forward from the poor trackpads that have been all too common on the Windows side of the fence.

The IdeaPad Y480 lasted for about four hours and five minutes on The Verge Battery Test, which puts it right between the MSI GT70 and the Razer Blade. Our battery test consists of cycling through 100 websites and occasionally downloading high-resolution images until the laptop throws in the towel. I tend to stream music over Spotify while juggling web pages, lots of writing, and the occasional video, and saw three hours and forty minutes of battery life. That isn't really enough to juice for a day out, so you'll want to keep your charger handy.

Heat and noise aren't really an issue under normal use; the bottom of the laptop got a little warm while I was writing and web browsing, but barely higher than room temperature. Once I fired up Battlefield 3 and the GPU stepped in, the decibels crept up noticeably. Again, heat and noise weren't too egregious: the Y480 expels warm air out of the vent on its upper left side, so I moved my mouse a bit further south (I'm a lefty). The fans make a bit of noise while they're trying to manage the temperature, but they couldn't match the raucous din of a game's gunfire.