Lenovo IdeaPad G570 review

£400
Price when reviewed

It’s rare that budget laptops inflame the passions at PC Pro, but when a full-sized laptop costs only £400 we’re willing to make an exception. Lenovo’s IdeaPad G570 delivers its first surprise the moment you slip it from its box. Lenovo has infused the contoured, dark-brown lid with a subtle silver sparkle, and the keyboard’s brushed-metal surround also looks the part.

It’s the same keyboard as that of the IdeaPad Z570, so the Scrabble-tile keys have a scooped-out profile and a light, crisp action that makes the Lenovo perfectly comfortable to work on. Even the small touchpad is excellent, providing smooth cursor control and a pair of discrete buttons.

Lenovo IdeaPad G570

As you’d probably expect, build quality isn’t the match of pricier competitors. The predominantly plastic chassis feels a little hollow when you tap on it and, while the base gives only under duress, we didn’t have to press particularly hard on the lid before it fouled the LCD panel inside and showed through on the display. It’s no worse than many budget laptops, but a decent sleeve will be a worthy purchase if you work on the move.

The upside is that at 2.42kg it’s very light, and with no dedicated graphics to sap the Lenovo’s battery, the IdeaPad G570 clocked an impressive 6hrs 15mins of light-use battery life before giving up the ghost.

The lack of dedicated graphics restricts the Lenovo to more basic games: it managed only 12fps in our Medium Crysis test, but the Core i3 processor has no such issue with other Windows applications. Despite lacking the Turbo Boost of pricier Core i5 CPUs, an overall benchmark result of 0.59 proves it still has plenty of power at its disposal.

Lenovo IdeaPad G570

If there’s one minor weakness in the IdeaPad G570, it’s the screen. Despite being one of the brightest on test, the greyish blacks rob images of the depth and solidity we see on better models. It isn’t a terminal fault, however, and the natural colour reproduction and high brightness partially make up for the poor 171:1 contrast ratio.

It’s always easy to pick fault with budget laptops, and although the IdeaPad G570 lacks some of the niceties of other models here, it has it where it counts. For a very tempting price it packs Core i3 performance into an unusually refined laptop.

Warranty

Warranty1 yr return to base

Physical specifications

Dimensions376 x 249 x 40mm (WDH)
Weight2.420kg
Travelling weight2.8kg

Processor and memory

ProcessorIntel Core i3-2310M
RAM capacity4.00GB
Memory typeDDR3
SODIMM sockets free0
SODIMM sockets total2

Screen and video

Screen size15.6in
Resolution screen horizontal1,366
Resolution screen vertical768
Resolution1366 x 768
Graphics chipsetIntel HD Graphics 3000
VGA (D-SUB) outputs1
HDMI outputs1
S-Video outputs0
DVI-I outputs0
DVI-D outputs0
DisplayPort outputs0

Drives

Capacity500GB
Spindle speed5,400RPM
Hard diskHitachi TravelStar 5K500.B
Optical disc technologyDVD writer
Battery capacity4,100mAh
Replacement battery price inc VAT£0

Networking

Wired adapter speed100Mbits/sec
802.11a supportno
802.11b supportyes
802.11g supportyes
802.11 draft-n supportyes
Integrated 3G adapterno
Bluetooth supportno

Other Features

Wireless hardware on/off switchyes
Modemno
ExpressCard34 slots0
ExpressCard54 slots0
PC Card slots0
USB ports (downstream)4
FireWire ports0
eSATA ports1
PS/2 mouse portno
9-pin serial ports0
Parallel ports0
SD card readeryes
Memory Stick readeryes
MMC (multimedia card) readeryes
Smart Media readeryes
Compact Flash readerno
xD-card readeryes
Pointing device typeTouchpad
Integrated microphone?yes
Integrated webcam?yes
Camera megapixel rating2.0mp
TPMno
Fingerprint readerno
Smartcard readerno
Carry caseno

Battery and performance tests

Battery life, light use6hr 15min
Overall Real World Benchmark score0.59
Multitasking score0.44

Operating system and software

Operating systemWIndows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
OS familyWindows 7
Recovery methodRecovery partiion

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