The renowned Lenovo brand continues to announce its new line of laptops this year. All new products have one thing in common. For example, earlier all mobile computers of this company had a clear positioning, but for the new model it is already difficult to classify it. This review focuses on the new laptop this season - Lenovo IdeaPad Z560. The company positions it as “A little bit of everything” - or, in our opinion, “A little bit of everything”. The emphasis is mainly on multimedia entertainment.
This model is packed in a dark black box, classic for Lenovo, with an orange handle for transportation. The complete set of this laptop is absolutely standard
• the laptop itself (2260 g);
• 6-section battery (300 g);
• power cord + power adapter (480 g);
• warranty card (warranty period 1 year);
• memo;
• general information guide;
• user's manual;
• a special disk with the Windows 7 operating system;
• discs containing drivers, also software for Windows 7.
Lenovo IdeaPad Z560 laptop is available in retail either with Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit, RUS). or with the DOS operating system. The manufacturer always includes a set of multimedia discs in the complete set of the laptop to restore the computer programs to the factory state. All Lenovo mobile computers are equipped with a convenient, in my opinion, proprietary recovery system. which is called OneKey Recovery.
The heart of the Lenovo IdeaPad Z560 is the latest generation Intel dual-core processor, the Intel Core i5-430M. Each core runs at 2260 MHz. The maximum TDP is 35 watts. The cache of the third level is - 3MB. Processor support: Enhanced Intel, SpeedStep, Execute Disable Bit, Idle State, Intel 64 Architecture, Trusted Execution, Intel Virtualization, etc.
Two crystals are located in a single package. This is the difference between the new processors - this is their two-crystal structure. One crystal is made according to the standard 32nm process technology. This is the processor itself. The second crystal is made according to the technical process already in accordance with the norms of 45 nm, it also contains an integrated graphics core, a PCI Express controller and a memory controller. System logic and complete processor fusion occurs.
An interesting development by Intel is the TurboBoost technology. The essence of this technology is that if your laptop works with one single application, it does not support multicore, and only one processor core deals with all these miscalculations, and the rest are simply wasting energy. This Turbo Boost technology increases the core frequency by partially disabling the inactive cores at the moment. So that the temperature and design capability (TDP) are not exceeded. TurboBoost. If this technology is enabled, the processor automatically detects the maximum frequency. His. the operating frequency in Turbo Boost mode is increased to 2533 MHz.
The Core i5 has a higher clock speed and Turbo Boost technology. Slightly better performance of the Core i5 than the younger brother, the Core i3. This processor under review is approaching the top-end CPU of the generation codenamed Penryn, but despite the high clock speed of the processor. This allows us to say that the performance of the Intel Core i5-430M processor is enough with a margin and is enough for home tasks that start, for example, from browsing the Internet or surfing the web, as well as working with documents, spreadsheets and ending with decoding, encoding multimedia files and of course complex mathematical calculations and computational graphics.
The company uses the Intel HM55 chipset that is already familiar to us from other models for the control chipset. Intel in its new generation of CPUs produces partial fusion of both the processor and the system logic. The RAM memory controller as well as the integrated graphics are on the same die as the processor. This chipset was relieved of its responsibilities. It is worth noting an interesting one of the remaining functions. So this is the built-in sound core, which is called Intel High Definition (HD) Audio.
The Lenovo IdeaPad Z560 laptop has on board two identical memory modules, the volume of which is 4096 MB. DDR3-1066 memory strips and made by Samsung.
Let's compare different types of memory. New DDR3 standard and older DDR2 standard. Despite the higher latencies, the new memory standard has an advantage over DDR2. The first is mainly because it is faster, which allows you to compensate for the timings of high rates. The second advantage, and this is a more important quality in its essence, DDR3 consumes 40-50% less power than DDR2 memory, these are associated with itself as an increase in laptop battery life.
4 GB of memory is enough for all tasks of the laptop. If necessary, the RAM can be increased up to 8 GB, and it is this volume that is the maximum possible. There are two SO-DIMM slots, in principle this is standard and they are both occupied. When upgrading and increasing the amount of RAM, you will have to replace them
The graphics of the Lenovo IdeaPad Z560 laptop consist of two video cards. One video card is integrated into the Intel HD Graphics processor, and the second video card is a powerful discrete system graphics from the GeForce company - GeForce 310M. Switching video cards between each other is carried out dynamically and is supported by the Intel HM55 system logic. In practice, the video card of this laptop is represented by only one graphics core - GeForce 310M.
This video card is actually the same as the GeForce G210M, only it has slightly increased operating frequencies. The accelerator has a 40-nm process technology and a GT218 graphics core. The video card has 16 unified pipelines, and its core runs at 625 MHz, pixel shaders at 1530 MHz, and DDR3 memory runs at 790 MHz. The new video card has one more feature - support for Nvidia CUDA technology. This hardware computing architecture developed by nVidia, which is based on the C language, allows the graphics accelerator to manage parallel computing memory. In short, this is the ability to use the GPU for non-graphical calculations. This technology is new and has great potential, and the multi-core GPU accelerates all types of computing.
Unfortunately, the graphics card belongs to the entry-level, but the graphics adapter itself gives good results when testing it. The performance of the mobile GeForce 310M graphics card is roughly equivalent to the performance of the desktop graphics card - the GeForce 7600 GT. We can conclude that undemanding games will show a normal number of FPS for games at medium and high game settings. Of course, but a game like Crysis will only allow you to play with minimal settings. For a game such as Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2, you can play at a resolution of 1280x768 pixels quite comfortably
The Windows 7 operating system for the Lenovo IdeaPad Z560 laptop, which she exhibited, it is clear that the graphics system is a bottleneck for her: it received the lowest score from the OS.
BODY
The new Z-series is similar in design to the previous generation IdeaPad Y550 series. The similarity of the tested laptop can be seen only in the silhouette, and all its elements and materials from which it is made have been significantly changed.
The lid of the Lenovo IdeaPad Z560 laptop is covered with a beautiful thick layer of varnish. Let's just say a varnished surface. There is no pattern under this layer that could even slightly hide fingerprints and smudges that are attracted to the black lacquered lid like metal shavings to a magnet. Of course, in this regard, it is necessary to spend time polishing the beautiful laptop lid. In the upper right corner is decorated with a beautiful logo of the manufacturer's company. It looks very impressive. The laptop lid is secured to the base with two pleasant hinges. These hinges quite well fix the position of the screen, but when closed and closed, the springs are a little lacking.For example, if you turn the laptop up and down, then the lid will open a few centimeters. The manufacturer does not provide other latches in the closed state in the laptop. Also, when transporting a laptop, you need to be careful. Because small objects can get caught between the keyboard and the screen and damage the laptop matrix. You need to know and understand about this. It is advisable not to put small items in a bag with a laptop.
The interior of the laptop is a combination of silver and black plastic. The beautiful stand is made of a sheet of silver aluminum. This decision of the manufacturer seemed very nice and pleasant and, most importantly, it hides all fingerprints and minor scratches. It looks impressive. Under the screen, on one of the hinges for attaching to the other hinge, a plastic grill with fine perforations stretches between them; under it there is a built-in laptop audio system consisting of two stereo speakers. The audio system does not differ in sound quality from similar notebooks from other manufacturers. It is enough for music and games, as well as for video playback. Even at maximum volume, the sound does not distort, but at medium volume the sound is pleasant. Of course, the absence of a low-frequency speaker will affect the volume and depth of sound, but its absence can be used either by external speakers or headphones through the appropriate connector.
At the junction of the work surface and the lattice there is a small button for turning on the laptop. An even smaller orange spot is visible next to it - this is the key for One Key Recovery 7.0. This utility is designed to restore the system. But it is a little unclear why the manufacturer decided to make this button negligible, that you need to take it either with a paper clip or with a sharp object. Why it is so complicated by the manufacturer is not entirely clear.
A little further than these buttons, information diodes glow with a pleasant light, which display the result of the button's activity. There is another indicator located below the touchpad at the bottom end. By these indicators, you can determine the activity of wireless networks, the activity of the charger, indication of the moments to access the hard disk. The bevelled front edge of the notebook makes the indicators easy to read when the lid is closed and when viewed from above. There are four touch keys on the left side of the fixing loop. The first key turns on mute, the second launches a program that expands the color and sound range of the laptop, according to the manufacturer. There are 3 modes available: "Movie", "Normal", "Auto Select". The third button schematically displays the image of the fan and, if necessary, reduce the rotation of the cooling system fan. Each time you press this button, the corresponding icons are displayed on the screen. Looks pretty funny, but nothing more.
When you press this button, the noise and fan speed are noticeably reduced. The performance of the entire system is automatically degraded. And the fourth touch button is responsible for the Energy Management utility. This utility is designed to adjust the power consumption of your laptop. All indications and buttons are backlit in white, and touch keys, when pressed, start to glow a little brighter.
The screen has a glossy bezel. Along the entire perimeter of the screen, there are 8 rubber inserts designed to prevent the matrix and keyboard from touching when the laptop is closed.
In the center of the screen frame there is a hole for the webcam, which has a maximum resolution of 1.3 megapixels. It is not swivel and the camera adjustment will have to be used when turning or tilting the top cover. There is an LED near the camera, which signals the activity of the webcam. Even with sufficient ambient light, camera noise can be felt. Its quality was not impressed. Although this webcam will be enough for Skype videoconferencing conversations and similar programs.
The base of the laptop is made of thick, durable and rough to the touch plastic.This part is striking. The ventilation holes are not just cut-outs, but carved grilles.
Laptop components like hard drive, wireless modules, cooling system are hidden under one cover. The bottom is almost impossible to sell and is made of hard plastic. Hard plastic lends itself to twisting. As for the lid, everything is as usual. Due to the fact that the lid is not very thick, it can be pressed, but it is impossible to press it to the matrix. The build quality of the laptop is very good, the laptop case itself does not creak and no matter how you take it. The gaps between all elements are minimal and uniform.
KEYBOARD AND TACHPAD
The Lenovo IdeaPad Z560 laptop keyboard is a redesign of another laptop device in its Lenovo ThinkPad Edge lineup. The keyboard design is exactly the same - but with separate buttons.
The technical component of the keyboard is very pleasing. It does not bend at all, and each key has a concave shape inward. In fact, when you hit the center of a key, you match the convex portion of your fingers to the concave surface of the tip of the key.
The keyboard layout is now completely standard. Now even the Fn button and the Ctrl button are in the usual position. For us, it seemed a bit inconvenient to combine the arrow block with the keyboard array, and at the same time the manufacturer had to shorten the right Shift a little. Another important feature of this laptop is the presence of a full-fledged numeric keypad. Although quite rare there are models with a 15-inch screen and a numeric keypad. Of course, in order to accommodate this block, it was necessary to sacrifice the size of the keys. The buttons located in the digital block are about a third less wide than the main ones, so those who have big fingers will find it rather inconvenient to work.
The symbols on the buttons are white. Those keys that can be triggered with the Fn button have orange symbols. The key travel is approximately 3 mm, pressing is soft and pleasant, and the moment when the keys are triggered is clearly marked. At the same time, typing is very comfortable and convenient, while your hands do not get tired even after a long time with typing. Of course, you have to spend time adapting to the keyboard and input device.
The touchpad is pretty big. It has a size of 83x42 mm. The sensory part is recessed by about two millimeters into the working part and at the same time it is limited by a thin beautiful chrome frame with transition borders. This allows you to control the position of your finger precisely on the inside of the touchpad. The touch surface has an accumulation of many small and convex points. There is also no multitouch technology. It's pretty and not critical. The buttons under the touchpad are very soft when pressed. If necessary, the touchpad can be disabled using the Fn + F6 key combination.
PORTS AND COMMUNICATIONS
Our laptop Lenovo IdeaPad Z560 has on board the usual set of interfaces for a multimedia laptop. Connectors and ports are located at the ends of the bottom panel.
On the right side:
- one USB port
- connector for charger,
- optical drive,
- two audio connectors: one for a microphone, the other for a headphone.
On the front end part you can find only the Wi-Fi module activity switch, as well as a slot for working with memory cards.
On the left side are located:
- ExpressCard slot,
- HDMI,
- VGA,
- eSATA, combined with USB,
- USB connector,
- socket of the built-in network controller,
- Kensington Castle.
The back cover is completely devoid of connectors due to its fastening feature.
The ergonomics of the connectors are very good, devices and wires do not interfere with each other, even though all ports are used at the same time.
The built-in Wi-Fi adapter is responsible for wireless communications, as well as the Bluetooth 2.0 module. There is only one manufacturer - Broadcom.
DISPLAY
The screen, which is installed in the Lenovo IdeaPad Z560, has a diagonal of 15.6 ". HD-Ready resolution - 1366x768 pixels. Ideal for watching videos and movies:the screen area is used. This area at this resolution has no black stripes around the edges. Aspect ratio 16: 9 .LED backlight is used to increase the brightness of the screen, so it also saves battery even at the expense of low power consumption. The screen has a glossy surface. This visually makes the picture juicier and brighter, but at the same time it adds distracting reflections.
The image on this screen is very good, but to be honest, it falls short of excellent due to the fact that it has a low contrast. Even any game or movie will look great. The horizontal angles are maximum. There is no good to say about vertical angles: they are much smaller than horizontal ones.
OPTICAL DRIVE AND HARD DISK
Slimtype DVD A DS8A4S is installed and used with optical drives for work in a laptop. In terms of characteristics, the drive is at a decent level. Support for CDs, DVDs, as well as writing and reading. It can also work even with DVD-RAM format.
There is technology such as UnderRun Buffer underrun protection and test recording capability. It is also possible to record used data up to 8.5 GB for dual layer DVD-R media.
This laptop uses a hard drive for storing information from Western Digital, 2.5 "form factor, the spindle speed is standard for laptops 5400 rpm, has a SATA interface and a disk capacity of 320 GB.
The hard disk with HDTune utilities showed pretty good results. It belongs to the WD Scorpio Blue family and uses proprietary technologies:
WhisperDrive is a hard drive head movement technology that makes it one of the quietest in the class. Also has a search optimization algorithm that reduces power consumption.
ShockGuard - This technology protects the mechanics and surface of the plates from impacts.
SecurePark - this technology when the drive spins up, stops or is turned off. Increases the reliability of the hard drive in the long term.
Approximately 15 GB is allocated on the hard disk partition for storing the system copy of the laptop. The rest is available to the user.
HEAT RELEASE
Lenovo IdeaPad Z560 is audible even when the status is idle. If the load increases, the cooler switches to a new high-speed mode, and if the load on the system increases, the cooling system turns on the fan to the maximum mode. The most important thing is that the sound does not instill and you quickly get used to it. Also, do not forget about the proprietary mode of lowering the rotation speed of the cooling fan. The air intake grilles are located on the bottom of the laptop and its case. The rubber feet on which the laptop is located lift it quite well from the table and circulate hot air through the holes without any problems.
The hottest point in the laptop is near where the blover is located and this is confirmed by the test. At the same time, the laptop remains quite warm, but not hot. In this regard, you can comfortably sit with him either at the table or sitting and watching a movie, for example, on your knees.
BATTERY
The Lenovo IdeaPad Z560 laptop uses a 6-cell Li-ion battery. Which has a capacity of 48 W * h (11.1 V, 4400 mAh). The battery is, in principle, standard for this class of laptop. The power supply for charging has a power of 90 W (20 V, 4.5 A).
1) Classic mode, 100% brightness of the matrix backlight, "Maximum performance" mode, Result: 1 hour 4 minutes.
2) Reading mode, 40% brightness of the matrix backlight, "Energy saving" mode, Result: 3 hours 37 minutes.
3) Playback HD 720p, 100% brightness, 100% volume, "Balanced" mode, Result: 1 hour 57 minutes.
OUTPUT
The Lenovo IdeaPad Z560 model is a collective image: the body inherited from the discontinued Y550 series, the working metal area - from the new G560 series, and the keyboard itself is nothing more than the ThinkPad Edge series.
Lenovo IdeaPad Z560 has a stylish and beautiful design.Its main advantages include a high-tech processor, good build quality and a practical workspace. The graphics adapter, which is from the series of the latest generation GeForce 310M, can be attributed to the entry level. Unfortunately, games will run at low screen resolutions. Sure,. Lenovo IdeaPad Z560 is a work tool first and foremost, and only then refers to the multimedia center.
Pros:
- a practical, beautiful working metal area;
- high-performance processor of the new generation;
- comfortable keyboard with a digital block;
- ExpressCard slot.
Minuses:
- webcam of poor image quality;
- laptop cover, covered with gloss.
