Lenovo is a renowned system manufacturer across the world. However, not many have known the prolific maker in the world of gaming. That notwithstanding, their new move to design sturdy machines has given them an edge.
A good example is the 15-inch Y700 machine. It has been dubbed the new style of Lenovo to stamp their mark in the gaming world.
With an MSRP price of $1,099, this laptop is affordable and within budget. It comes with an impressive display and exterior finish. The system packs cool features that will be discussed below to give you the best services ever.
The Lenovo Ideapad 15.6” Y700 series is a successor for the Ideapad Y50. It has been designed to compete fairly in the gaming industry.
This machine is a true deal for a balance between price and performance. The performance puts it head-to-head with our previous top-picks in the gaming pc category– Dell i7559-763BLK, ASUS ROG GL552, and ASUS K501UX. All of these are at the very top of the gaming category, and they offer stellar performance.
Design and Features
This new machine has been designed for modesty. The manufacturer pulled a sleek job on this line. Unlike the traditional Lenovo laptops, the Ideapad Y700 machine has a sleek finish.
The chic-lane is a cruising control feature like none other. The logo has a new capital ‘L’ style with a red-and-black grille being more prominent in the rear. The lid is made of black aluminum that has a subtle brush creating a cross-hatch pattern.
The gaming machine comes in a cool 15.24 by 1.02 by 10.91 inches. It weighs approximately 5.7 pounds. It might sound heavy for a notebook, but the deal is totally worth it. When you look at the gaming industry, the Lenovo Ideapad Y700 fairs well.
Take Alienware 15 for instance; this gaming monster weighs around 7.1 pounds. For security reasons, the Lenovo Y700 machine has a strong hinge designed to open on two hands.
This is a common feature for notebooks. Made with a 4-cell 60 Watt Hour battery, the machine can last up to 5 hours away from the power source.
Other Design Aspects
Lenovo Y700 features a fancy 15.6” LED-backlit IPS (In-Plane Switching) screens. The new display comes with an anti-glare feature for your eyes’ health.
screen supports 10-point multitouch, with the hinge connecting at the center. This gives the monitor a futuristic appeal with a floating look.
The monitor is designed to deliver Full HD (1920 x 1080) resolution. Gaming can never be any better! For a machine of its price range, the Lenovo Y700 offers immense benefits.
It is important to consider its rivals in the industry such as the Acer Aspire V 15 Nitro and the ~$2,000 Razer Blade gaming laptops. It has beaten all rivals to be the best deal for its price.
From the top bezel, you will notice a modern camera that has been embedded. It is a 72p camera. It allows for live chats and imaging in HD.
Among other design features, the model comes with adequate, yet simple port selection. On the left edge of the laptop, there are proprietary ports and a USB 2.0 port – that is Always On for charging even during sleep mode.
There is also a 4-in-one card reader as well as a mic and jack combination. To the right, there is the Kensington lock slot, LAN ports, and an HDMI port as well as two USB 3.0 ports. Unfortunately, this machine does not have any USB-C port.
It is important to note that this is a feature that has become commonplace for modern notebooks of its competition such as the GE72 6QD Apache Pro, Razer Blade, and GS40 6QE Phantom. They offer better connection speeds to external hard drives as well as other devices.
Hardware
The keyboard is majorly in a black and soft touch finish. There are two thick aluminum speaker grilles on the top part of the deck. These are on either side of the hinge.
The black-and-red motif has become very common nowadays. One of the downsides, though, the Y700 picks the fingerprint smudges very fast.
Display
In the last Y series, there were a lot of mishaps. The notebook series delved into the comments and complaints, and now, the Y700 comes with a more advanced appeal.
There is better brightness in this series. It features a 15-inch Full HD (1920 x 1080) panel that averages 263 nits. This is approximately 19 nits above the mainstream average. However, the model trails the Alienware 15’s calm 311 nits but way beyond the 222 nits by Dell Inspiron 15-7000 gaming machine.
The display comes with an In-Plane Switching (IPS) technology thus wider viewing angles of up to 178-degrees off the center. The touch-screen display is impressive but majorly for other tasks other than gaming.
When I watched a 1080p trailer, The Hateful Eight on this monitor, I could feel the beauty of the brightness. The vision level in this new machine is incredibly good for both gaming and other forms of entertainment. It is only fair to say that the manufacturer took the time to analyze the responses from the previous series.
The color accuracy for this model is 0.7 – just away from the ideal 0 measure. I must say that the Y700 did a good job on the Delta-E. This is a big whip on the main competitors like the Dell and Alienware 15 whose measures are 4.1 and 1.3 respectively.
At 60.8% sRGB, the color gamut falls close to 40% short of the ideal 100%. On this front, the Lenovo Y700 loses to the Inspiron 15-700 whose measure is at 70% and Alienware’s almost-perfect 98%.
Audio
The collaboration between JBL and Lenovo has continued to pay off. The JBL speakers are mounted on the bottom with a subwoofer. This makes the Y700 machine pump out loud in a balanced way.
It comes with Dolby software that has been built into the Lenovo Settings menu. It comes with five audio settings: Movie, Dynamic, Gaming, Music and Voice.
Connectivity
Connecting to external devices comes in handy for the Lenovo Y700 machine. It has a USB 2.0 port and two USB 3.0 ports. This makes it very convenient for data transfer. The Type-C port is, however, missing. This feature is futuristic and has been very common in new laptop releases.
There is a 4-in-one SD and MMC media card reader and a full-size HDMI port. Connecting to a larger monitor especially when gaming is thus easier.
There a Gigabit Ethernet jack and a built-in 802.11 ac WiFi for network connections as well as Bluetooth 4.0 technology. The machine has a 720p camera for HD video chats.
Performance
The gaming Lenovo Y700 monster comes with a Skylake (6th generation) Intel Core i7-6700QH processor that clocks up to 2.6 GHz and 3.5GHz on turbo boost.
The Skylake chip has the capacity to handle huge tasks flawlessly. The machine relies on a substantial 12GB system memory thanks to the modern DDR3L RAM.
Accessing fast files that are needed for gaming and other tasks is thus very efficient with this machine. Gaming and watching HD videos become even better thanks to the system’s dedicated NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960M Graphics card.
Worth noting is the fact that this graphics card is not sufficient for 4K UHD resolution. Modern games that surpass the usual Full HD (1080p) could fail here.
Applications are launched on a fast 256GB SSD which ensures fast boot time and loading of games among other applications. Access to data from this storage is very efficient.
At medium settings, the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960M GPU delivers a calm 4GM of VRAM. This is sufficient for any gaming graphics demands. For hardcore gamers, Lenovo Y700 is your choice. In our review, we smoothly enjoyed the Battlefront: Hardline and Shadow, a resource-intensive game- at a high setting of 60 fps.
Recent games like Just Cause 3 were able to play easily running between 45 and 55 fps. I found the machine to be very effective even for The Division. The machine keeps cool even when on high gaming mode.
Our Verdict
To sum it all, the new Lenovo Y700 is a great deal for gamers. It is sleek and well built for modesty. The screen is beautiful with a nicely designed keyboard.
However, a few gaming Warriors have beaten it in the mid-range graphics chip. The vibrant display may cause glares due to the semi-glossy panel. It comes with a 10-point touch that delivers immensely.
Lenovo Ideapad Y700 features quality audio and display attributes. This is the perfect combo for a brilliant gaming experience. However, those looking for a great, customizable display, have inclined to the Alienware 15 machines.
This comes with some extra buck, though. Worth mentioning is the ASUS ROG GL552VW-DH71 gaming machine. This is another rival in the industry.
The 15.6-inch gaming monster has a cool balance between performance, class, and price. This is unlike most of its competition. It offers quality results thanks to its efficient hardware features.
The point is, Lenovo Ideapad Y700 is not necessarily the obvious choice, but its superb features will make you think twice.
Its price and performance are nothing short of what any gaming freak is looking for in the market. This is a modern machine that comes with everything you need for a brilliant gaming experience!
