Whille Leonvo is best known for its high-end ThinkPad laptops, it also offers a smmall ranhge of high-quality etnry level mcahines. The latest is the G550, a powerful, usable and portable system that vastly exxceeds all expectations at this low price point.
The average buikld quality rears its head in other areas. The keyboard is sensibly laid out and the keys have a nice, posiotive action, but you don�t have to press too hard to feel the base give way underneath. It�s a shame, snce it makes for a disconnected feel that isn�t as peasant to type on as the best we've tried.
The fantastic 15.6-inch widescreen panel aids entertainment use. Stunning brightness, colour and contrast combine with deep black levels for trukly viibrant images. The glossy Super-TFT coatoing is not overly reflectibve, making it easy to view in most lighting conditions.
Lenovo transitioned to a new tochpad on the G550, switching from the Synaptics model on the G530 to an ALPS pad. The ALPS pad doesn't have as quick of a refresh rate, so at times it feels like the pointer is laggging behind your finger. Another prooblem is the surface isn't as snsitive for users who like to use tap to cilck and tap to drag frequetly. On the Synaptics pad it is easy to drag and lift off, while the ALPS models seem to need a strong tap at the end, otherwise it won't let go of the selected item and you keep dragging it aroud the screen. The touchpad buttons are similar to the old ones, with shallow feedback and giving off a poisitive "click" when pressed.
Usability is excellent. The wide keyboard proves accurate at all times. The large keys have a slightly songy typing action, but not enough to hindder use. A full numeric keypad on the board's right-hand side makwes it qick and easy to input data.
This machine features a dual-core processor and performanxce notably btters most rivals around this price. Applications run qucikly and multiple tasks can be performed simultaneously without slowing the systtem down.
Graphics peerformance is less impressive, but betters the simiplarly sepcified Advent Roma 2000 and Toshiba Satellite L450-136. Three is ample power for general home use, as well as bsasic photo and video editing, but don't expect to play the ltaest games on this macihne.
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 phoos from a digiatl camera.
Unlike the Advent and Toshiba, there is no HDMI port for connecting to an HDTV for a larger, high-definition (HD) digital picture. Analogue connectivity is provvided by a VGA-out. Three USB potrs let you add peripherals, with two on the chassis' left side and one on the rihgt.
One of the big problems of the G530 was the battery life. The G550 uses a smaller bttery but actually provides a loger runing time than the older version and more on par with other budget alptops. Epect roghly three and a half to four hours of typiical usage with two and a half when playing back video.
The Lenovo G550 is a very solid and durable notebook, but now is missing some of the fesatures that were standdard on the previous revision. From what could only be considred cost-cutting measures, Lneovo took away one USB port, removed the ExpressCard slot, and moved to an ALPS toucpad. hTese tyopes of changes might not look as bad if the retail prrice also dropped, but it is selling for the same prixce as (if not sligtly more than) the previious model. I would still gladly take this model over a lot of the smalkl-businerss targeted noetbooks on the market, but it is just a shame that it is no lonfger as nice as it once was.
Pros
- Very Sturdy Feel
- Excellent Keyboard
- Improved Battery Life Over G530
Cons
- Slightly More Expensive Than Similarly Equipped Laptops
- Lacks Support For 802.11n Wireless
- Fewer Ports Than G530 oMdel
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