Monday, October 12, 2009

Lenovo's IdeaPad Y550 Laptop Compromises The Right Way

Lenovo's new IdeaPad Y550 is something of a mystery, considering that just about everything on the laptop is a compromise of some sort; from the 15.6 inch screen to the NVIDIA GeForce G210M graphics processor, RAM memory and hard drive space.

Note, however, that I did not say that this was entirely a bad thing.

The IdeaPad Y550 seems to be a great general laptop, despite having only 1 GB of RAM (which is fixable for a low cost through Lenovo or independently). The laptop has a large array of peripheral ports and a decent amount of memory and a pretty decent graphics processor for a relatively low price. The array of ports also means that you can plug a variety of accessories into your laptop, anticipating both existing and future options. This could help keep you from being unable to use that hot new addition a year or two from now just because you don't have the right port. You can find the full specs here if you're interested.

Here are the specs, lifted from About.com:

  • Intel Pentium Dual-Core T4200 Dual Core Mobile Processor
  • 1GB PC3-8500 DDR3 Memory
  • 160GB 5400rpm SATA Hard Drive
  • 8x DVD+/-RW Dual Layer Burner
  • 15.6″ WXGA (1366×768) LED Backlit Display With 1.3 Megapixel Webcam
  • NVIDIA GeForce G210 Graphics With 512MB Memory
  • Gigabit Ethernet, 802.11b/g Wireless
  • Three USB 2.0, eSATA, HDMI, VGA, ExpressCard/34, 6-in-1 Card Reader
  • 15.2″ x 10″ x 1.5″ @ 6.1 lbs.
  • Vista Home Premium

Overall, for the flexibility inherent in this laptop and given the possibility of a model under $650, this isn't a bad laptop to consider if you're on a budget.

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