Lenovo's laptops usually cater for businesses more than home
users, but its IdeaPad range is a great middle ground between the two. The Z575
has a sleek, restrained design that won't look out of place in the living room
or office.
Lenovo IdeaPad Z575
Its AMD Llano A6 processor runs at only 1.4GHz, but it has
four physical CPU cores for increased performance in multithreaded
applications. AMD’s Turbo Core technology can increase its clock speed to
2.4GHz when the processor is within a certain thermal range. This helped during
our multimedia benchmarks, allowing the Z575 to score 39 overall.
Its graphical performance is impressive for an entry-level
machine, with the integrated Radeon 6520G managing an almost smooth 26fps in
our demanding Dirt 3 test. If you drop the anti-aliasing you should be able to
play most games at 720p, although newer titles will reduce the frame rate.
We were impressed by the X575’s performance away from the
mains. It lasted just under six hours in our light-usage test, so you should be
able to keep working for most of the day as long as you stick to light tasks
such as word processing.
The Z575 has a
comfortable and responsive keyboard.
The Z575 has a comfortable and responsive keyboard. The
Chidet-style keys are spaced far enough apart for our hands not to feel
cramped, but they’re still close enough together fortouch-typists. There’s also
a numeric keypad for quicker data entry.
We weren't as impressed with the single touchpad rocker
button, which has a noticeable dead zone in its centre that caused some missed
clicks. It happened only occasionally, but it was still annoying. The touchpad
itself is an improvement, being large enough to span the Windows desktop in a
single movement and made of a smooth plastic that prevents friction. It
supports multitouch gestures, although vertical scrolling is resigned to the
far right of the pad.
Its 15.6in display is reasonable, but it won't turn heads.
Its 1,366x768 resolution is fairly standard for a screen of this size and its
viewing angles are essentially the same as every other budget laptop we’ve seen
recently. There’s a decent amount of screen tilt, but its glossy finish makes
light reflections an issue.
Its connectivity is acceptable for an entry-level machine,
with the Z575 offering three USB ports, a multiformat card reader, an Ethernet
port, audio input and outputs and a DVD drive. Unfortunately, none of the USB
ports supports the faster USB3 standard, so you’re stuck with slower
file-transfer speeds, even if you use a USB3 drive. We were also disappointed
by the lack of Bluetooth.
The IdeaPad Z575
is very keenly priced at $499 - it costs only a bit more than Asus’s X53Z
The IdeaPad Z575 is very keenly priced at $499 - it costs
only a bit more than Asus’s X53Z, which comes with a slower dual-core processor
and integrated graphics. The IdeaPad Z575 offers decent 2D and 3D performance
for the price. However, HP's Pavilion DV6 is only a little more expensive and
is faster overall.
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Info
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Price
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$499
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Details
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www.lenovo.com
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Summary
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Verdict
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A great entry-level machine for both 2D tasks and 3D games
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General-purpose laptop
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AMD A6-3420M, 6GB RAM, 500GB disk, AMD Radeon HD 6520G
graphics, DVD+/-RW +/-DL, 15.6m widescreen LCD, 2.7kg
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