The bad: Generic design and a cost that's not much different from other competing items with similar specs; lacks USB 3. 0.
The underside line: While you could credit the Lenovo IdeaPad V470 with as being a soundly built 14-inch laptop at a reasonable cost, it's not inexpensive enough or well-featured enough to prevent feeling anonymous in a laptop buyer's market.
Evaluation:
Our idea of what a laptop consists of is changing with time. A solid, no-nonsense machine? Rather, we're starting to anticipate either spectacular value, or exceptional design from the portable computers. The Lenovo IdeaPad V470 , sadly, displays neither.
Does that make the Lenovo IdeaPad V470 a poor laptop? No. It's just merely mediocre. At $599, the entry-level Core i3-equipped model is really a bulky, generic machine, with an exceptional keyboard. In contrast to a $549 Dell Inspiron 14z, the Lenovo IdeaPad V470 is actually $50 more and swaps USB 3. 0 to have an eSATA port, while adding a fingerprint reader. The Lenovo IdeaPad V470 is geared to a casual small-business crowd: this is a consumer IdeaPad with flashes of ThinkPaddiness about this. A sturdier build and brushed-metal touches are valued, but the Lenovo IdeaPad V470 feels about as natural and fun as a set of clodhopper shoes.
Sturdy, it is. But do you actually crave an affordable, thick, "business-esque" 14-inch laptop? Right here you go. Otherwise, we'd recommend shopping for additional solutions. There are plenty out there.
A metal case and brushed-metal trim provide the IdeaPad Lenovo IdeaPad V470 a more professional, polished, sharper-edged look than a lot more glossy plastic IdeaPads I've seen lately, but the end result is a double-edged sword. While the Lenovo IdeaPad V470 does end up getting an angular, clean look that's theoretically more "professional, " the thick metal design feels a little outdated, as if this laptop time-traveled from a Starbucks function meeting in 2005.
The centerpiece of any Lenovo laptop experience is commonly the keyboard, so I'll skip right ahead and obtain to it. I love ThinkPads, despite their frequently ugly designs, for their keyboards. Crisp and lightly concave keys with lots of travel make for truly spot-on writing with minimum errors. That raised chiclet keyboard is incorporated about the Lenovo IdeaPad V470 , and most importantly, it works nearly as crisply (ThinkPad fans will dsicover an ever-so-subtle difference). Some may prefer this more, since it doesn't have the annoying red-rubber trackpoint that sits just like a doorstop between the G, H and B keys of all ThinkPads. One letdown: this keyboard isn't backlit. An additional: a right-side column of page up/down keys cramps use of the Enter/Shift keys.
The Lenovo IdeaPad V470 's touch pad is actually small. Very small. Discrete buttons underneath do the task, but the whole experience is several years off-base in the trend of larger multitouch touch pads we've seen with an increasing basis. Old-laptop traditionalists will be pleased. Other people, like myself, will be annoyed. Two-finger gestures are extremely difficult to pull off.
The actual 14-inch glossy display is bright, but particularly sharp when viewed from any kind of angle. Its 1, 366x768-pixel resolution is standard for that size. The 2. 0 megapixel webcam takes HD-quality movie for Web chats, an increasingly common standard. Speaker volume about this IdeaPad is high: the speaker grilles above the actual keyboard boom out for watching videos, but they are better for spoken-word than for rich, varied songs.
The IdeaPad Lenovo IdeaPad V470 , like many Lenovo laptops, has an array of customization options. At $599 (currently $509 by having an additional promotion on Lenovo's Web site), our configuration features a second-gen Intel Core i3 processor, 4GB of MEMORY, and a 500GB hard drive. None of they are surprising specs, although we've seen Core i5 laptops for as little as $550--some of them made by Lenovo. This laptop computer lacks USB 3. 0, but it does possess a USB 2. 0/eSATA combo jack for high-speed information peripherals. Bluetooth also comes standard.
You could customize your Lenovo IdeaPad V470 in a multitude of ways, spending all the way up to $899 for just one with a quad-core Core i7 processor, 6GB associated with RAM, and a 750GB (but 5, 400rpm) hard disk. Some versions also have Nvidia GeForce 520M devoted graphics; ours, and most Lenovo IdeaPad V470 models, only include Intel HD 3000 integrated graphics.
This particular model's two. 2 GHz Intel Core i3-2330M CPU is a good entry-level processor in Intel's 2011 Sandy Bridge Primary i-series lineup. Its performance is still good for that average user, but benchmarks reveal it's noticeably reduced at both single- and multitasking. I kept multiple windows open streaming video and doing other projects and also the laptop fared fine, although the left-hand-side fan started to get noisy and warm. The included integrated graphics is going to be fine for basic, casual gaming and other media-oriented duties, enough for a basic user to get through (basic video editing, photo processing, and so on).
Lenovo includes a standard one-year warranty using the Lenovo IdeaPad V470 . On Lenovo's Web site, that base warranty could be extended at time of purchase up to 3 years for an additional $99, or $160 with unintentional damage protection and in-home service. Webchat and an easy-to-find 24/7 toll-free number are available on Lenovo's Web site, along with software downloading and documentation.
Here's the real question: will a small company customer, or even an average user, find a laptop such as the Lenovo IdeaPad V470 an attractive option? Most most likely not: a thin MacBook Air might be a much better bet for style, and there are plenty of equally affordable Core i3 laptops available on the market to compare against that offer equivalent bang for that buck. Lenovo's construction quality, keyboard, and a fingerprint reader would be the Lenovo IdeaPad V470 's biggest draws. They're not enough to get this to laptop transcend being an utterly average, albeit extremely functional, machine.
System configurations
Toshiba Satellite L755-S5214
Home windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit) w/ SP1; two. 1GHz Intel Core i3-2310M; 4GB DDR3 SDRAM 1, 333MHz; 64MB (Devoted)/1, 696MB (Total) Intel GMA HIGH DEFINITION; 500GB Hitachi 5, 400rpm
Lenovo Ideapad V470
Home windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit) w/ SP1; two. 1GHz Intel Core i3-2310M; 4GB DDR3 SDRAM 1, 333MHz; 64MB (Devoted)/1, 696MB (Total) Intel GMA HIGH DEFINITION; 500GB Hitachi 5, 400rpm
Sony Vaio VPC-EB44FX/WI
Home windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit) w/ SP1; two. 53GHz Intel Core i3-380M; 4GB DDR3 SDRAM 1, 333MHz; 128MB(Devoted) Intel GMA HD; 500GB Toshiba 5, 400rpm
Asus U31SD-A1
Home windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit) w/ SP1; two. 1GHz Intel Core i3-2310M; 4GB DDR3 SDRAM 1, 333MHz; 1GB NVIDIA GeForce 520M or 64MB(Dedicated) Intel GMA HD; 640GB Traditional western Digital 5, 400rpm
HP ProBook 5330m
Windows 7 Expert w/ SP1; 2. 1GHz Intel Core i3-2310M; 4096MB DDR3 SDRAM 1, 333MHz; 64MB (Devoted)/1, 315MB (Total) Intel GMA HIGH DEFINITION; 500GB Toshiba 7, 200rpm.
