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Here"s looking at you, kid. Following the current trend of outfitting gaming laptops with ultra-high-resolution displays, Lenovo has launched the Y50-70 Touch. Priced at $1,499, the Y50-70 Touch adds a 3840 x 2160-pixel touch panel to the Y50"s chassis. To further justify the price increase, Lenovo has upgraded the processor and storage, which translates into a small bump in performance. All of this is nice, but like its Y Series brethren, the Y50-70 is plagued with a bulky frame and short battery life, keeping it from being realistically portable.
The Y50-70 Touch has the same black aluminum chassis as the regular Y50. I"m still a fan of the understated black lid with its delicate crosshatching and the black diamond-cut Lenovo logo. It"s a great choice for gamers looking to avoid the Close Encounters of the Third Kind light show that"s typically associated with gaming notebooks.
Lenovo wisely outfitted the Y50-70 Touch"s interior with a luxurious soft-touch finish. Not only does it make for a more comfortable palm rest, but it adds a bit of visual and tactile diversity. The top of the deck features a thick, glossy black band that holds the side-mounted black-and-red speaker grilles. The red backlit keyboard is the visual centerpiece of the notebook, drawing the eye with its seductive glow.
Weighing 5.6 pounds and measuring 15.23 x 0.37 x 0.9 inches, the Y50-70 Touch is on the heavier side of the spectrum. It"s a full pound heavier than the Maingear Pulse 15 (4.6 pounds, 15.4 x 10.5 x 0.75 inches). The Razer Blade 14 (13.6 x 9.3 x 0.7 inches) is even lighter, at 4.4 pounds. The Y50-70 Touch is nowhere as heavy or thick as the Gigabyte P25X, which is 6.2 pounds and 15.43 x 10.35 x 1.51 inches.
When I reviewed the original Y50, I recommended springing for the Ultra HD edition. Not so much now. The Y50-70 gets bumped up from a nontouch 1920 x 1080p display to a 3840 x 2160p touch panel. However, the higher resolution did not translate into the bright, vivacious vistas I had hoped for. Instead, the display was darker than I expected, casting a shadow over what should have been rich, deep color.
The laptop measured 87.2 percent on the sRGB gamut test, which measures color reproduction (100 percent is preferred). The Y50-70 Touch color scored 2.7 on the Delta-E test (0 is the best result), which beat the 6.8 mainstream average. However, it wasn"t enough to conquer either the Blade 14 (1.5) or the P25X (0.5).
The strings on Chrisette Michele"s "Super Chris" were light and airy, complementing the singer"s bright, somewhat twangy vocal. The bass was fat yet balanced, allowing me to hear all the elements of the track in equal measure. While Lenovo was thoughtful enough to include Dolby Digital Plus software on the laptop, I found that highs and mids became slightly distorted with the technology enabled.
The Y50-50 Touch notched 88 decibels on the Laptop Mag Audio Test, matching the Blade 14 and skating by the 87 dB average. The Pulse 15 hit 91 dB, while the P25X delivered 84 dB.
Click to EnlargeThe Y50-70"s full-size island-style keyboard remedies some -- but not all -- of the wrongs of the previous Y-series laptop. I was particularly fond of the bright-red backlighting that allowed me to use the laptop in a dark setting.
Click to EnlargeIt"s nice that Lenovo included a full number pad, but not that it did so at the expense of other keys. The Backspace and right Shift keys are undersized. With the numpad positioned so close to the rest of the keys, I found myself repeatedly hitting Num Lock instead of Backspace.
Click to EnlargeThe Y50-70 Touch"s 720p integrated webcam does a great job of catching color -- I"ll give it that. My skin looked warm and radiant, and my royal-blue shirt really popped. When it came to detail, however, the camera left much to be desired. My locks looked like fuzzy blobs, and the silver stripes on my shirt looked distorted. It was also hard to make out the text on the whiteboard behind me.
Click to EnlargeThe Lenovo Y50-Touch is outfitted with an Nvidia GeForce GTX 860M GPU with 2GB of VRAM. It"s not the most powerful dog in the fight, but it can definitely hold its own. As I made my way through the cursed halls of Bernhard castle in Castlevania at native resolution (3840 x 2160p), the Y50-70 chugged along at 29 fps.
On the World of Warcraft benchmark, the Y50-70 Touch achieved a frame rate of 67 fps at native resolution on Autodetect, beating the 35 fps average. However, it wasn"t a match for either the Blade 14 (3200 x 1800p) or the Pulse 15 (2880 x 1620p), which reached 100 fps and 155 fps. The P25X got 293 fps, but it only has a 1080p display.
With the settings switched to Ultra, the Y50-70 Touch pulled down 39 fps, topping the 19 fps average. Still, the Lenovo wasn"t a match for the Blade 14, Pulse 15 or P25X, which obtained 65 fps, 94 fps and 140 fps, respectively.
On the BioShock Infinite test, the Y50-70 Touch scored 96 fps at 1900 x 1200p on Low, defeating the 58 fps average. The Blade 14 and the Pulse 15 were neck and neck, at 120 fps and 128 fps at 1080p, while the P25X notched 151 fps.
Cranking the settings up to High caused the Y50-70 Touch"s frame rate to drop to 42 fps, sailing past the 23 fps average. However, that wasn"t enough to beat the P25X (65 fps), the Pulse 15 (54 fps) or the Blade 14 (51 fps).
For our torture test, we ran the Y50-70 Touch through the very demanding Metro: Last Light benchmarks. The laptop posted 63 fps at 1900 x 1200p on Low, easily hurdling over the 40 fps average. The P25X hit an impressive 86 fps at 1080p, the Pulse 15 obtained 76 fps and the Blade 14 delivered 70 fps.
At the highest settings, the Y50-70 Touch frame rate dropped to 16 fps. That"s better than the 9 fps average, but below the Laptop Mag 30 fps playability threshold.
Similar to other Nvidia-equipped laptops, the Y50-70 Touch features the GeForce Experience app, which includes several features meant to enhance gameplay and endurance.
Click to EnlargeLenovo outfitted the Y50-70 Touch with a 2.5-GHz Intel Core i7-4710HQ CPU, which packs quite a punch. The laptop had no problem streaming the latest episode of Sailor Moon Crystal while running a full system scan with 12 tabs open in Mozilla Firefox, Internet Explorer and Google Chrome.
On the Geekbench 3 test, which measures overall performance, the Y50-70 scored 12,748, beating the 8,429 mainstream category average. The Maingear Pulse 15, which also has a 2.5-GHz Intel Core i7-4710HQ processor, got 13,073. The Gigabyte P25X and its 2.8-GHz Intel Core i7-4810MQ CPU hit 14,124, while the Razer Blade 14"s 2.2-GHz Intel Core i7-4702HQ CPU produced 11,928.
The Y50-70 Touch"s 256GB SSD booted Windows 8.1 in 13 seconds, matching the Pulse 15 (dual 128GB SSDs in SuperRAID configuration with a 1TB 7,200-rpm hard drive) and beating the average of 20 seconds.
During the File Transfer Test, the Y50-70 Touch duplicated 4.97GB of mixed media files in 2 minutes and 17 seconds, for a transfer rate of 37.1 MBps. That"s well below the 78.1 MBps mainstream average. The Blade 14 scored 154.2 MBps, while the Pulse 15 and P25X raced ahead with 154.2 MBps and 299.4 MBps, respectively.
For the OpenOffice Spreadsheet Macro Test, our team has the laptop match 20,000 names with their corresponding addresses. The Y50-70 Touch completed the task in 3 minutes and 59 seconds, which is much better than the 5:28 average.
If you"re planning to take your gaming on the road, make sure to pack the Y50-70"s power cord. The laptop lasted a disappointing 3 hours and 40 minutes on the Laptop Mag Battery Test (continuous Web surfing over Wi-Fi at 100 nits of brightness). That"s well short of the 7:18 mainstream category average and the original Y50"s time of 4:46.
Click to EnlargeLenovo"s usual lineup of utilities includes OneKey Recovery System, which allows you to create a backup image file of your hard drive in case of a crash. Lenovo Support provides links to a User Guide, Hints and Tips, Knowledge Base, and Discussion Forum. The Settings app compiles important settings (Wi-Fi, Airplane Mode, Microphone, Keyboard LED and Touchpad) into an easy-to-use control panel.
My review unit of the Lenovo Y50-70 Touch costs $1,499 and is configured with a 2.5-GHz Intel Core i7-4710HQ CPU, a 256GB SSD, an Intel Graphics 4600, and Nvidia GeForce GTX 860 with 2GB of VRAM. The $1,299 base model has the same specs except for the 1TB 5,400-rpm hard drive with a 8GB SSHD instead of the SSD. Lenovo also offers a model with a 512GB SSD and 4GB of VRAM, for $1,499.
Click to EnlargeWhen you see that a notebook has a 3840 x 2160p display, you expect brilliant color with precise detail. But the view on the $1,499 Lenovo Y50-70 Touch is rather...meh. The laptop offers respectable mid-level performance with a rather elegant-looking chassis and a comfortable keyboard.
Overall, the Y50-70 Touch can"t hold a candle to better-equipped models that don"t cost that much more. For example, the $1,649 Gigabyte P25X offers beastly graphics with more than 7 hours of battery life. You"ll have to give up some portability and "settle" for a 1080p display, but I"m willing to make those trade-offs.
You will have to nearly completely dis-assemble the laptop so that you can replace the LCD unit as it appears looking at the manual that the glass panel is part of the LCD panel and not a separate component. Doing this will also allow you to tighten the hinge screws.
On p.95 Item #3 you will find the FRU number (part number) for the two types of LCD panels available for the model. Depending on which type you have, search online using the part number only to find suppliers of the part that suit you.
We’ve finally arrived at the long-foretold future where gaming laptops can be slim and light enough to fit comfortably on your lap. Heck, even a non-gaming company like Lenovo has managed the feat. Lenovo’s 2014 Y50 isn’t quite as slim as, say, the 0.7-inch thin Razer Blade, but at 0.9 inches and 5.4 pounds, the Y50 is still incredibly small for a powerful gaming laptop.
The Y50 delivers a strong price-to-performance ratio. This $1200 laptop ships with an Intel Core i7-4700HQ CPU clocked at 2.4GHz, supplemented by an Nvidia GeForce GTX 860M graphics card. That’s pretty much the same core hardware as the Razer Blade Pro for half the cost, making the Y50 one of the best bang-for-buck mid-priced gaming laptops.
The Y50 comes with 16GB of DDR3L/1600 RAM and a 1TB, 5400-rpm hybrid hard drive with 8GB of solid-state memory. A hybrid drive is better than a purely mechanical one—especially one that spins its platters at just 5400 rpm—but it’s still something of a letdown considering that most gaming laptops are moving exclusively to SSDs. SSDs are expensive, though, so I’m sure that was one of Lenovo’s key cost-cutting moves.
The Y50 is a steal at this price. It doesn’t compare to the raw power of something like the Alienware 17, but that’s also a much more expensive machine. Lenovo packed a lot of power into this machine while keeping the price low.
The Y50 delivered a middling Laptop Worldbench score of 90, which is lower than our baseline model (a Dell XPS 15 with an Intel Core i7-4702HQ and a Nvidia GeForce GT 750M) and much lower than the Alienware 17’s score of 122.
Much of the problem resides with the Y50’s hard drive, which drags down the whole system. When you move over to games—in other words, experiences that are less restricted by the hard drive—the Y50 begins to hold its own.
The Y50 pumped out a perfectly respectable 92.5 frames per second (fps) when running Battlefield 4at 1920×1080, medium settings. That’s pretty much on a par with the Alienware 17, which delivered 98 fps, and it’s definitely better than the 60 fps most PC players would consider “standard.”
As for BioShock Infinite, here the Y50 managed 73 frames per second—slightly better than the Razer Blade Pro’s 70 frames per second with comparable hardware, although it falls far short of the Alienware 17’s 121 frames per second.
Like the Blade Pro, the Y50 doesn’t offer much in the way of longevity. You’ll need to play games on low settings in a few years, and it will be obsolete soon after that. But that’s less of an issue with a $1200 laptop than a $2000 machine like the Blade Pro.
The Y50’s battery clung to life for three hours and 16 minutes—almost exactly the same as the Blade Pro’s three hours and 18 minutes. That’s about 20 minutes longer than the Alienware 17 delivered—in other words, it’s pretty standard battery life for a gaming laptop.
The Y50’s performance isn’t mind-blowing in the grand scheme of things, but bear in mind that I just compared it to two machines that retail for around $2000 each. The Y50 is clearly no slouch, and it costs much less than some other laptops delivering equal performance.
Lenovo’s most egregious sin was choosing an absolutely abysmal LCD panel. It’s one of the worst HD screens I’ve ever used. It’s dim, it’s lousy at color reproduction, and it looks even worse when viewed even slightly off-axis. It just looks blurry to me. The screen is so ugly I found myself not wanting to use the laptop even to watch movies, let alone play games.
The keyboard’s red backlighting is attractive enough, and the keys have a soft and silky finish. By shrinking the keys to squeeze in a numeric keypad, however, Lenovo renders typing a pain. The Enter and Right Shift keys aren’t liable to give you problems, but the comically small Backspace key probably will. I found it hard to locate without looking down. The keys feel a bit mushy, too. Despite how little they need to travel to register, I found myself dropping strokes with regularity.
On the bright side, the Y50’s speakers pump out decent audio with better bass response than the typical treble-heavy laptop speakers deliver. Manufacturers building computers that retail for much higher prices could learn a thing or two from Lenovo’s partnership with JBL. These speakers won’t beat any decent pair of headphones or external speakers, but they won’t disappoint when you’re on the go.
In terms of gaming performance, Lenovo’s Y50 is one of the best laptops in its class. It’s a great choice if you’re looking for a portable gaming rig on a budget. Unfortunately, Lenovo compromised several key components—the keyboard, trackpad, and (most importantly) the display—in order to offer the Y50 at a mid-range price. Hook up a mouse, keyboard, and external display and you’ll have a solid gaming machine. If you can’t tolerate those compromises, you might have to bite the bullet and spend more money for a competitor’s offering.
The Lenovo Y series has been a value leader for moderately priced gaming laptops with some punch. It"s also less chunky than hardcore gaming laptops, and the Lenovo Y50 is the sleekest model yet. At 5.3 lbs. and 0.9 inches thick, it"s similar to many non-gaming 15" laptops on the market, yet it packs a quad core Intel Core i7 CPU and dedicated NVIDIA GTX 860M graphics. The Y50 is the value proposition to the Dell XPS 15, 15" Retina MacBook Pro, 2014 Razer Blade and MSI GS60 Ghost series. You"ll save a few hundred dollars or more, and in return you"ll get an acceptable but duller look and a mediocre 1080p TN touch display on our Y50 Touch model (don"t fret, there"s a much better looking QHD display option). The Y50 Touch starts at $1,099, while the non-touch 1080p model starts at $949. The UHD model (non-touch) starts at $1,199 and the UHD Touch starts at $1,249.
The laptop has Intel Dual Band Wireless-AC 3160 for decent but not high end wireless performance, Bluetooth 4.0, a 720p webcam, two USB 3.0 ports, one USB 2.0 port, HDMI, RJ45 Ethernet, an SD card slot and a combo audio jack with SPDIF. For those who want something smaller, Lenovo offers the 14" Lenovo Y40 with AMD Radeon R9 M275 2 GB graphics and ULV Ultrabook dual core CPUs that are significantly less powerful than the full mobile M series quad core in the Y50. For the 17" fans, there"s the Lenovo Y70 Touch that"s outfitted identically to the Y50 other than display and chassis size.
The Y50 has a thin black Aluminum layer on the lid and bottom cover that somehow manages to look more like plastic. It"s an unassuming looking machine but the red backlit keyboard and more aggressive hinge area design give it some flair. At this price you won"t get a programmable or RGB backlit gaming keyboard, and we suspect that quite a few folks who buy the Y50 and its bigger brother the Y70 are using it equally as often for multimedia and work anyhow. We love the soft touch matte black keyboard deck that"s silky smooth yet somehow offers just enough grip to stop your hands from sliding around.
Given the powerful quad core CPU and upper mid range dedicated graphics, we"re pleased that it"s fairly quiet and cool though the keyboard area gets quite warm when gaming--as hot as 101F, which is toasty but not hot enough to harm you. We saw no thermal throttling, even when playing Tomb Raider for an hour and the Y50"s dual fans never sounded shrill or annoying. In the name of slimming and making the Y50 the most compact Y series laptop yet, there"s neither an internal DVD drive nor a bay for a second graphics card in SLI as with the Y500.
The very glossy TN touch screen has plenty of glare and mediocre viewing angles. Brightness is just OK at 215 nits (we like to see closer to 300 nits on a higher end machine like this). It manages just 46% of Adobe RGB and 60% of sRGB, while competitors average 98% of sRGB color coverage. We recommend the UHD 3840 x 2160 Samsung PLS panel option that looks much better. While I don"t really feel a strong need to have better than 1080p resolution on a 15.6" laptop given Windows 8.1 and programs mediocre handling of scaling on the desktop, for viewing angles, colors and contrast the UHD panel is a must. We wouldn"t recommend gaming at UHD resolution since the GTX 860M (and most mobile graphics cards) aren"t strong enough to play demanding games at 4K resolution, but you can set the resolution to 1080p and avoid gaming issues and Windows scaling. As with the 2K 1080p display, the UHD 4K panel is available in touch and non-touch versions.
Like most higher end, powerful 15.6" laptops meant for demanding tasks like gaming, compiling code and editing 1080p or 4K video, the Lenovo Y50 Touch runs on the Intel Core i7-4710HQ (when it first came out it shipped with the 2.4 GHz 4700HQ). The 4710HQ is clocked at 2.5GHz with Turbo Boost to 3.5 GHz, and it"s one of the fastest CPUs you"ll find in a laptop. The Y50 and Y50 Touch ship with 8 or 16 gigs of RAM in two RAM slots. Most configurations have a hybrid 1 TB 5400 RPM HDD with 8 gigs of flash memory cache, as did our review unit. It"s a slow drive, and we often found ourselves waiting for programs to load, and game scene changes seemed to take forever to load. I"d replace the 2.5" standard SATA HDD with an SSD. The machine has a standard 2.5" SATA drive bay, 2 RAM slots and a socketed wireless card.
Entry price, high-end gaming. Lenovo"s latest Y Series has the best of both worlds: Sleek, thin looks with exceptional performance for a very fair starting price of $1050. Though the notebook is marketed as an entry-level portable gaming machine, we believe even serious gamers should take a look at what the new Y50 has to offer.
Our in-depth look at last year"sIdeaPad Y500 and Y510pproved very popular, but the fact that a largely business-centric manufacturer like Lenovocan establish a successful gaming lineup so quickly was equally surprising and out of left field. This year"s IdeaPad Y50 continues the trend with some major updates to both the exterior and interior while keeping the recognizable brushed metal and red trims of the last generation intact.
Our test model is powered by a Core i7-4700HQ with16 GB RAM, a 1 TB SSHD, an Nvidia15.6-inch 1080p display. While Lenovo offers additional configurations, all models are equipped with a GTX 860M GPU and matte FHD screen. The lowest priced model comes in at just Y50 UHD series offers ultra-high resolution glossy displays for 2160p gaming.
Aside from the obvious configuration differences and the update to Nvidia"s 8xxM series compared to the last Y500 generation, the new Y50 isovertly lacking the UltraBay slot for SLI performance. As a direct result, weight and thickness have both been cut significantly. Is the potential performance sacrifice worth the improved mobility and looks? Or can the more powerful single GTX 860M compensate for the dual GT 650Mand dual GT 750M setups of the Y500 and Y510p, respectively? Our data and analyses below speak for themselves.
The chassis here is a confounding combination of at least three or four different dark gray and black surfaces and textures, yet the overall final look still manages to bevisually appealing and sharp against other slim gaming notebooks including the Razer 14, Aorus X7 orMSI GS60 Ghost. The glossy brushed metal outer lid and bottom panel,matte rubberizedpalm rests, and glossy plastic display frame are all distinctly different from one another and similar in style and makeup to the Y500 and Y510p, but now appear sleeker due to the much thinner profile. In essence, the Y50 is the complete opposite of a unibody chassis and carries a unique design and feel because of it.
The thickness(23.9 mm) and weight(2.4 kg) of the Y50 are considerable improvements over the Y500 (39 mm, 2.93 kg) and compares favorably against the similarly equippedMSI GE60 (33 mm, 2.7 kg), but it still falls short of the sleeker and more expensive MSI GS60 Ghost (19.9 mm, 1.96 kg). The Lenovo is also a bit thicker and heavier than the competingGigabyte P34G V2 and Razer Blade 14 as well, though these models are also much smaller in screen size to begin with. Considering that the Y50 is an inexpensive 15.6-inch gamer with a GTX 860M GPU, it"s safe to say that Lenovo has designed an impressive notebook for the price.
Available ports are similar to the Y500 with a notable omission. Aside from the absent UltraBay slot, legacy support via a VGA-out port has been dropped. Though likely a non-issue for the target audience, we would have liked to see DisplayPortadded in to maintain the dual video-out option instead of relying on the sole HDMI port. Beyond that, the number of USB and audio options remain the same. Fortunately, positioning has been improved - These ports are now relegated nearer the rear of the notebook and away from the front edges to preserve desk space since the large side vent grilles are no longer present.
Dedicated accessories are nonexistent as the Y50lacks any proprietary docking ports. Users will be limited to generic accessories and USB 3.0 docking ports. An external optical drive, for example, may be useful down the line.
The standard one-year warranty applies, but this is Lenovo we"re talking about, so expect a wider range of service options compared to competing manufacturers. Two-year and three-year extensions are available with accidental damage protection and in-home repairs starting at $50. The next tier up is their Premium Support, which covers diagnostics, malware, troubleshooting, and other issues on the software side.
While the overarching chassis has received some notable changes, the AccuTypekeyboard has remained nearly identical to its last iteration. The sleek red motif, smooth plastic keys, two levels of red backlight, and Function commands have all carried over intact and are exactly where we remembered them. This isn"t necessarily a bad thing as we found key placement and Function mappings quite useful in the Y500. One exception is the Lenovo OneKey Recovery button, which has now been relocated to sit next to the Power button.
Nonetheless, we noted in our review of the Y500 and Y510p that the keyboard can be spongy and inaccurate. Unfortunately, these comments still apply here. The keys are definitely not as spongy as on a Samsung Series 9 900X3C, but at the same time they are nowhere near as firm or satisfying as typing on an older ThinkPad with beveled keys. Typing inaccuracies generally solve themselves after becoming accustomed to the keys. The Space key, however, could certainly use improvement as it provides both shallow travel and unsatisfactory feedback when pressed.
Similarly, the largetouchpad (106 x 70 mm) is unchanged. The Synaptics ClickPad V1.1 software still powers the hardware and allows for numerous customization options including edge swipes, palm tracking, scrolling, and multi-touch gestures up to four fingers. The actual touchpad surface is hard matte plastic (as opposed to glass on some ThinkPad models) and provides a smooth glide during use. It also has no issues recognizing movement or even multi-touch inputs like zooming, which was an issue on the Y500.
Though the touchpad is visually identical to the Y500, we did not experience any wobbling of the surface during regular use, which was a cause of much frustration on the previous generation. Aside from the shallow clicks, we found the touchpad to be pleasant to use for general navigation.
Like the late IdeaPad Y510p, our Y50 utilizes a 15.6-inch 1080p matte display with no options for glossy or lower or higher resolutions. A separate Y50 UHDseries is configured with 3840 x 2160 resolution displays starting for $250 more. This is similar to the 15.6-inch MSI GS60 Ghost which uses a much higher resolution glossy panel, though for nearly twice the price at retail. We certainly prefer the more standard matte screen on the Y50 as even the smallest glare from a glossy equivalent can be distracting while gaming. Subjectively, we find colors and text to becrisp with no noticeable screen-door effectsor color noise when viewing from a normal distance.
We measured an average brightness of 221 nits based on nine quadrants on the display, which is good for an indoor notebook. This is also a bit disappointing at the same time as most competing models have stronger LED backlights like the Gigabyte P34G v2, Aorus X7, Razer Blade 14, and even the older IdeaPad Y500 and Y510p models by a notable margin. Under standard lighting conditions, we found that anything below the 8/10 brightness setting to be too dim for comfortable viewing. In addition, the lower than expected contrast of about 300:1 is more budget than mainstream. We played The Dark Knight, which fittingly includes a large number of dark scenes, and found that dark areas are usually too gray and washed out to show intricate details. The same problem persists in games with dark or poorly lit areas.
We measurecolor space reproductionwith an X-Rite i1Display 2 calibrator and find color space to be averageat best. At only 34 percent and 49 percent of AdobeRGB and sRGB standards, respectively, the Y50 is certainly not made for professional graphics work or even color accuracy. After just reviewing the workstation-class (and much more expensive) Eurocom X3, we can see that colors are not as deep by a slight margin on the Y50 in comparison. Fortunately, this means little to the target audience as the fast response times provided by a TN panel take precedence over color gamut when playing fast-moving games. With that said, most competing models do cover wider color spaces than the Lenovo in review.
Viewing angle stability is similar to a budget TN panel. The optimum viewing window is quite low as even a standard straight view will result in washed out blacks near the top of the screen. This is most noticeable in dark scenes, but much less of an issue in brighter and colorful scenes.
Lenovo offers just two CPU options with the Y50: ani7-4700HQ and ani7-4710HQ. Both are high-end quad-core Haswell options with minimal performance differences between them. In fact, the latter i7-4710HQ model is only 100 MHz faster than the i7-4700HQ in base speed and Turbo Boost benefits; Everything else from cache to features are identical. The i7-4700HQ CPU in our test unit will run at 800 MHz on Power Saver mode and is equipped with an integrated HD 4600 for Optimus purposes.
RAMis provided by two Samsung PC3-12800modules for a total of 16 GB. Removing the panel underneath will reveal the HDD, battery, 2x SODIMM slots, mini PCIe WLAN card and both system fans. A set of dozen Philips head screws must be removed first, but we were still unable to pop out the panel despite following the official instructions to the word. It appears that our panel is stuck on the corners nearest the speakers preventing us from lifting it straight out. Of course, we will try again in our inevitable review update of this model. Nonetheless, Lenovo provides a very detailed manual for disassembly of the Y50 if required.
The lower-than-expected numbers in certain benchmarks may be explained by the weak Turbo Boost benefits of the CPU in the Y50. Clock rate drops quickly to its base 2.4 GHz when under high load as detailed in our stress test section below.
We stress the notebook to identify any potential throttling or stability issues. With Prime95active, the CPU was observed to be operating at its maximum Turbo Boost for literally only a few seconds before stabilizing at its base speed of 2.4 GHz. In fact, Turbo Boost benefits are extremely short-lived on the Y50, which may explain some of the lower scores in select CPU benchmarks. CPU temperature barely rose higher than 60 degrees C.
PCMark 7 scores are similar to notebooks with inferior integrated GPUs like the Lenovo Carbon X1 Touch due to the slow SSHD of the Y50 when compared to SSDs. Indeed, its final score of 3006 points shows that the notebook is hindered by the mechanical drive as the similarly equipped Gigabyte P34G v2 scores 5400 points in the same test with its Lite-On SSD. Likewise, PCMark 8 scores show similar results.
Though all Y50 models include a GTX 860M GPU, there are two different 860M models available - a GM107model based on the newer Maxwell design and a GK104model based on the older Kepler design. Both cores differ greatly in clock rate, bandwidth, and shader units. Consequently,the older Kepler variant is about 10 percent slower than the Maxwell model. We highly suggest choosing a Y50 model with the Maxwell GPU as a result. More information, benchmarks, and differences between the two GTX 860M models can be seen in our dedicated GPU page here.
Our test unit uses the 860M from the newer Maxwell family with 640 unified shaders and a 128-Bit memory bandwidth. Compared to the Kepler generation, the GPU is most similar to a high-end GTX 770Min most cases. Synthetic benchmarks like 3DMark 11 place our Y50 right next to larger gaming notebooks including the Asus G750JXandiBuyPower Valkyrie CZ-15.
Does a single GTX 860M outperform the650M SLIand the750M SLI in the IdeaPad Y500 and Y510p, respectively? Aside from the inherent advantage of no micro stutters, the 860M solution performs noticeably better in Sleeping Dogs (20 FPS vs. 14 FPS) and Guild Wars 2 (31 FPS vs. 23 FPS) than the 650M SLI solution in the Y500. The performance gap is less clear-cut against the 750M SLI solution in the Y510p as the latter is faster than the Y50 in both titles above, yet performs slower in GRID 2 (37 FPS vs. 45 FPS) and Metro: Last Light(24 FPS vs. 28 FPS). Especially if playing on higher settings where FPS tend to be lower, we much prefer the less complex and less power-hungry single GPU solution to avoid stuttering and other potential SLI issues.
The Y50 is cooled bytwo system fans - one small fan for the CPU and one slightly larger size for the GPU - each with its own heat sink. The dual fan system is commonly found on larger high-end gaming systems like the Asus ROG series or most Clevo barebones. In this case, the two fans do little to reduce system noise on the Lenovo. Its Power Saver idling fan noise of about33 dB(A) is a bit louderthan the Y500, Y510p, and Aorus X7, all of which have dual fan systems as well. Idling while on High Performance mode will increase idling fan noise to about 36 dB(A).
Idling temperatures are flat across the boardon both the top and bottom surfaces of the notebook. They are also quite low compared to the Y510p where we measured much higher averages under similar conditions, likely due to the lack of Optimus on the older model. This ensures a comfortable typing experience on the Y50 assuming light or medium workloads.
All Y50 models come equipped with a4-cell 54 Whintegrated battery; No other capacities are offered. While the Li-ion module itself is removable underneath the maintenance panel, it cannot be quickly swapped.
Lenovo advertises a battery life of up to 5 hours. Our own tests with the Battery Eater Reader"s Test reveal a runtime of over 8 hours, though this is with the system idle at minimum screen brightness with wireless radios disabled - hardly a realistic representation. Our more real-world WLAN testsets the notebook at 150 nits with an open browser running our looping script to simulate web surfing. At almost 4.5 hours of constant use, we may have been able to get closer to Lenovo"s own estimates by lowering the display brightness even further.
Battery life is a significant improvementover the Y500 and Y510p, both of which have denser battery modules at 72 Wh and 62 Wh, respectively. These models do lack Optimusdue to their SLI configurations, so a straight comparison may not be proper. A more leveled comparison is to the Gigabyte P34G V2, which the Y50 comes very close to in terms of average runtime. The more powerful MSI GS60 Ghost falls short of the Y50 despite having a larger 52 Wh battery and a similar screen size. Overall Battery life is respectable for a powerful gaming notebook.
IdeaPad models have always excelled in affordability. The Y Series in particular combineshigh performance with affordability in attractive cases to appeal to as wide of a gaming crowd as possible. This means that some corners have to be cut and the Y50 is no different in this regard. While the CPU is good and the GPU is even better,some physical qualities feel average at best.
Firstly, the budget 1080p panelexhibits poor contrast and colors. Combined with the narrow viewing angles, dark scenes in games and movies can look washed out and users may find themselves tilting the display forward for a better view. The glossy plastic bezel also feels out of place compared to the more high quality brushed metal exterior and rubberized matte palm rests. While these cutbacks may be acceptable for budget notebooks, they have no place on a $1000 portable gaming rig.
For the price, the Y50 still offers great performance for gamers. For everyone else, however, we feel that an Ultrabook will offer better application performance and outdoor usability, while a multimedia notebook will offer deeper contrast levels and connectivity options for better movie playback and casual gaming for lower prices. Nonetheless,this is one of the least expensive 15.6-inch notebooks with a GTX 860M GPU as of this writing.
Users intending to jump in are encouraged to upgrade to a high-capacity dedicated SSD sometime down the line for dramatically improved performance outside of gaming. The price of the Y50 may be hard to beat, but hopefully the standard TN display will be improved in the next iteration so we can quickly recommend this IdeaPad to gamers on a budget.
The newest entry in Lenovo"s gaming lineup is the Y50 Touch, a 15.6-inch laptop that combines a slightly geeky style with decent (but not top-of-the-line) gaming components. First profiled at CES 2014, the Y50 is easily one of the computers I"ve received the most emails, tweets, and inquiries about from CNET readers. That says to me that there"s a real hunger out there for a gaming laptop that can work as a full-time midsize home or work computer, balancing gaming and nongaming tasks equally.
Our test unit was the Best Buy configuration, combining an Intel Core i7 4700HQ CPU, 8GB of RAM, a 1TB HDD/8GB SSD storage combo, Nvidia GeForce 860M graphics, and a 1080p touch display, all for $1,149. If you look at the Lenovo website, you"ll find several slightly different configurations, most without the touchscreen. The single touch config costs $1,399, while an intriguing option to add a full 4K resolution display starts at $1,299.
In the UK, the Y50 starts at £1,000, but isn"t available with a touchscreen. Lenovo launched the Y50 just before Christmas in Australia, also without the touchscreen and costing AU$2,199. That price does include the 4K display, however.
If you"re searching on the (often-confusing) Lenovo site, note that the Y50, Y50 Touch, and Y50 UHD models are all on separate pages, so you"ll have to click around a bit to see all the options. Frankly, the Best Buy configuration feels like the best overall value, especially if, like me, you think Windows 8 really needs a touchscreen to work for non-gaming tasks.
Sadly, there"s one thing holding this otherwise excellent system back from being close to perfect. The display is clearly not one of the newer IPS (in-plane switching) panels that we"re seeing in more and more laptops this year. Off-axis viewing angles are poor, and even dead-on, the display appears more washed-out than the best laptop and tablet screens.
That may be a deal-breaker for some. But the other aspects of the Y50, including the powerful overall performance, excellent design and build quality, touchscreen, and price, all combine to make it a great overall value. It won"t compete with $2,000-plus specialty rigs, but instead leads the small field of crossover systems that can satisfy mainstream gamers who want to skip clunky, thick gaming laptops that sacrifice portability.
Having just spent a few weeks looking at several giant, boxy, heavy, 17-inch gaming laptops (including a pair from Origin PC and Digital Storm built into the exact same retro-looking, off-the-shelf chassis), the 15-inch Lenovo Y50 was a welcome break.
The angular design is built around brushed black metal that"s embossed in a crosshatch pattern, and there"s a subtle chrome Lenovo logo on the back panel. Dark red accents add some color, with wedge-shaped red speaker grilles at the top left and right edges of the interior tray, and more red touches on the USB ports and subwoofer grille under the body.
Lenovo packs this system, as it does most of its PCs, with a ton of proprietary software. Frankly, most of it can safely be called bloatware, and you"re unlikely to ever take the time to learn to use it, but I liked the apps for tweaking power settings and for troubleshooting and installing system updates.
One thing I"ve asked for in the past from gaming laptops in general, and Lenovo"s previous gaming laptops specifically, is a touchscreen. It"s not so much that you need touch for gaming, but even a serious gamer will still spend a lot of time on non-gaming tasks, and Windows 8 is simply a gigantic pain to use without a touchscreen.
I got my wish, as the Y50 Touch combines a 1080p touchscreen with an Nvidia 860M GPU for gaming, but perhaps I should have been more specific. In previous years, this 15.6-inch display with a 1,920x1,080 native resolution would have been perfectly acceptable, but especially in 2014, we"ve been spoiled by the wide distribution of IPS displays, which use a technology called in-plane switching.
What you get in the Y50 Touch is a display that looks decent head-on (yet still not as bright or crisp as other premium laptop displays), but that causes the image to degrade very quickly when you look at it from off to the side, or even tilt the screen hinge a tiny bit.
In our benchmark testing, the Y50 Touch performed up to our expectations, as we would expect from any high-end laptop with a current-gen Intel Core i7 processor. But, those expectations were also tempered by the step-down graphics card, at least compared to bigger, faster, more expensive gaming laptops from Origin PC, Alienware, and others. Many of those systems use the Nvidia GeForce 880M card, which is the current top of the line (newer models are expected later this year, however).
PC gamers know better than to look for great battery life, and the Y50 Touch doesn"t break the mold. In our video playback battery drain test, the system ran for 4:16, which is less than you"d want from a nongaming 15-inch laptop. In an informal gaming test, set to tax the GPU while on battery power, it ran for about 80 minutes.
The Lenovo Y50 Touch was, on paper, the answer to my search for the perfect gaming laptop. Not too big, not too small; just powerful enough; decent-looking; and with a touchscreen. It hits many of those marks, but the underwhelming overall screen quality is doubly disappointing, considering how close it comes on the other features.
But before you despair, the Y50 Touch is actually an excellent overall mainstream gaming laptop, and still my top choice for this category, with the possible exception of the Razer Blade 14, which costs $1,999 and up. For everyone else without a $2,000 laptop budget, the Y50 Touch is a great semiportable gaming rig that handles games at medium-to-high settings and also works as a sharp-looking everyday system. Of course, now I"m waiting for next year"s model to add a better display.
MSI Stealth GS70 169Apple MacBook Pro 171Razer Blade 14 185Maingear Pulse 14 188Lenovo Y50 Touch 223 Note: In seconds, shorter bars indicate better performance
MSI Stealth GS70 183Razer Blade 14 189Apple MacBook Pro 190Lenovo Y50 Touch 195Maingear Pulse 14 229 Note: In seconds, shorter bars indicate better performance
Apple MacBook Pro 63MSI Stealth GS70 88Lenovo Y50 Touch 96Maingear Pulse 14 96Razer Blade 14 97 Note: In seconds, shorter bars indicate better performance
Apple MacBook Pro 561Razer Blade 14 267Lenovo Y50 Touch 256Maingear Pulse 14 246MSI Stealth GS70 219 Note: In minutes; longer bars indicate better performance