Lenovo Ideapad Y450

Full Review

Lenovo's Ideapad series is known for multimedia entertainment, and the Ideapad Y450 doesn't disappoint on that front. It's 14-inch glossy display is an inch lesser than the Dell Studio 15's, and similar in quality. But paired with its superior onboard speakers, watching movies is immersive and fun--whether it's on a DVD or HD content (both 720p and 1080p files played without any stutter).

The Y450 doesn't quite match up to the Studio 15's designer looks, nor the slimness of the Inspiron 14z, but it holds it own with a textured screen lid and a shiny, metallic coating around the keyboard (including the palmrest). On the inside, it has a slightly slower processor compared to the Studio 15--a Core 2 Duo 2.1-GHz. There is no graphics card either, but Lenovo tries to make up for it with 4GB of RAM, a 320GB hard drive, and a truckload of features. A dedicated HDMI and eSATA ports, along with Gigabit Ethernet and Draft-N Wi-Fi, FireWire, multicard reader and ExpressCard slot are the most obvious ones. There's a Wi-Fi on-off button on the front edge, row of touch-sensitive multimedia buttons, proprietary software like VeriFace face-recognition, OneKey backup and recovery, and much more. The Ideapad Y450's keyboard and multi-gesture touchpad are also pretty good, true to Lenovo's tradition.

With a WorldBench 6 score of 87, its combined overall performance and battery life is still second best to the Dell Studio 15, though. Apart from gaming, it does very well in every other department. The Ideapad Y450 is tied at second place with the Inspiron 14z mainly for lack of a graphics card, battery life, and weight (2.3-kg compared to Inspiron 14z's 2.1-kg).

Bottom Line

Despite all that it's still a very good laptop. We were impressed by its multimedia potential and the range of proprietary software it offers. Also if feature set matters to you a lot, then the Ideapad Y450 is undoubtedly for you.