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Lenovo Ideapad U550 374959U :Review

Posted to Notebooks 2010-06-09

Lenovo Ideapad U550 374959U: Review

The Lenovo Ideapad U550 374959U is a member of the portable range of Lenovos new Ideapad range. It comes with Windows 7 Home premium 32bit installed, a 15.6inch High Definition display capable of a maximum 1366x768 resolution, and 4GB of DDR3 SDRAM. Lenovo have a vast array of laptops available in their stable and are experienced at offering value for money to the consumer.

The 15.6inch HD widescreen display has a built in 1.3megapixel camera for web cam chats and picture capture. There is a fingerprint reader provided next to the multitouch touchpad for added security when you are moving around with your laptop. Given the portable category in which this unit sits, it is unlikely to support any intense graphic design or gaming, with other categories in the Lenovo range looking after these areas. Only a one year warranty is provided, with the option of extending this at a further cost.

Rating:

3.0 out of 5

Features

Additional specifications for the U550 include Intel 4500MHD integrated graphics card and an Intel 1.30GHZ dual core processor (which should not be confused with the higher end Core 2 Duo processor). There is a 250GB hard drive and the laptop comes with DVD recording capabilities, as well as 802.11g Wi-Fi connectivity capability. Unfortunately there are no additional customization to the parts you can include in this laptop, meaning you are stuck with the hard drive size and graphics card that come bundled with this model.

Ergonomics

The U550 374954U offers Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit version, which means the Lenovo U550, will benefit from newly designed 64bit applications, which are becoming more prominent now. The fingerprint reader is conveniently located on the base of the laptop so it can be easily accessed, however, it does have trouble at times picking up the correct user and requires a number of retries.

Summary

Lenovo have produced a range of portable laptops here that are very strictly designed, aimed at a particular sector of the market. They lack any upgrade options which ultimately pushes buyers into other categories of laptops that they offer. This is not a problem as there are many options to choose from, but if you prefer to customize your new laptop to just the way you like, it will be worthwhile shopping around first.

Pros

Thin and light design
HD graphics and HDMI output
DDR3 memory for smoother application performance
Long battery life
Fingerprint Reader for easy and secure log-in and password management

Cons

There are no cons for this product