Lenovo 420s Review

Lenovo 420s are the company’s latest notebooks using the latest Sandy Bridge processors by Intel. The 420s comes with a Core i5 or i7 processor and supports up to 8GB of DDR3 RAM. You can configure it with upto  750GB hard disk drive to  make sure you do not  run out of storage for few years to come. The one I got for review came with the Core i5-2410M, 250GB hard disk, and 4GB RAM. Lenovo calls its display as an “Infinity Glass” display which is just another word for edge-to-edge display, something that is common in Macbook Pro notebooks.

This Lenovo notebook looks very attractive in person, thanks to the black matte lid (they call it “Moss Black”) with aluminum accents. The display sports an anti glare finish and packs the usual 1366 x 768 pixels. That said, you can ask Lenovo to outfit it with a 1600 x 900 pixel screen which will allow you to see much more information at a time. Oh, and I love the way they have taken advantage of the real estate available at the taskbar.

Performance-wise, the E420s (Edge 420s) delivered stellar performance and was just a hair slower than the Core i7 2630QM in day to day tasks that include browsing the Internet, playing farmville and playing some HD content on its bright display. If you a person who chooses notebooks on basis of benchmarks, here is how it compares to other processors (Core i3 2310 –  Asus U31SD, Core i7 2630QM – Asus G73SW, Intel Core i7 2620M – Sony Vaio SA Review)

My unit did not come with discrete graphics, so the graphics department was handled by Intel HD 3000 and it still handled everything like a champ. Just do not make it handle the latest PC games, okay?

Keyboard and TouchPad

The keyboard is really, really great and has chiclet layout, unlike the more tranditional ThinkPad style keyboard layout sported by Lenovo B560. The keys’ shape resemble the ones found on the Ideapad Z570 which are also chiclet style. For some reason, the system starts with toggled function keys which can bother some users. Also, it can take sometime for the users to get used to the FN and CTRL key’s position.

Touchpad support multitouch gestures and you will easily be able to rotate and pinch pictures. Size is big enough for most users and does not leave any fingerprint behind. New trackpoint users might take some time get used to it as the default speed set by Lenovo is just too fast. But once you have adjusted it, you will like it.

Battery Life – I was able to get a respectable 5.5 hours on a single charge while doing wireless web surfing. This was under balanced mode. I am sure you will be able to get more than 6 hours under power saving mode.

Verdict – The Lenovo 420s is one amazing machine and delivers an amazing user experience, something at par with the Macbook Pro notebooks. Would I recommend it? Yes, of course.

Also check out:

• iMac 2011 and iMac 2010
• HP Mini 3105m review

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