Lenovo Y700 Review

The Lenovo Ideapad Y700 15.6-inch laptop strikes a balance between performance and price to offer good multimedia and mainstream gaming thanks to its sixth-generation Intel Core i7-6700HQ 2.60GHz processor and a 4GB Nvidia GeForce GTX 960M graphics card.

This is not the best graphics card around but gamers can be rest assured that they will be able to play demanding games. The laptop however has a short battery life hence you should always be ready to plug in your charger.

That said, our Best Cheap Gaming Laptops list highlights some of the best gaming laptops available in the market and can be had for little money. Check it out if shopping for a gaming laptop while attempting to balance between a tight budget and the best performance.

Lenovo Y700 Specs

 Design

The gaming monster measures 15.24 x 1.02 x 10.91 inches and weighs 5.7 pounds. This is a bit heavy for a consumer notebook, but then it is in line with other gaming laptops such as the Alienware 15 which weighs 7.1 pounds.

It has a stiff hinge that calls for two hands to have it open, a feature that is common in the notebook design. The laptop has a 4-cell 60 Watt Hour battery that can give you up to 5 hours of battery life but expect less if you are gaming hence you should not stray far away from the sockets.

Connectivity

The laptop has good connectivity as it comes with one USB 2.0 port and two USB 3.0 ports for the transfer of your data. Notably missing is a Type-C port which is a forward-looking feature seen on recently released laptops.  It also has a 4-in-1 SD & MMC media card reader, a full-size HDMI port for connecting to a larger screen, a Gigabit Ethernet jack and has a built-in 802.11ac Wi-Fi for wireless networking and Bluetooth 4.0 technology.

There is also a Kensington Lock Slot and a combo mic/headphone audio jack. There is no built-in DVD optical drive perhaps in a bid of making the laptop as light as possible. There is a 720p webcam above the display with dual microphones that you can use to make video calls using programs like Skype.

Display

The Lenovo Y700 comes with a 15.6-inch matte display with a standard 1,920 x 1,080-pixel resolution. The display has an in-plane switching (IPS) technology that allows for wide viewing angles of up to 178-degrees off-center. The display is a touch-screen, something that is rather misplaced when it comes to a gaming laptop, they could have rather invested more on a spacious solid-state drive.

Most laptops stumble when it comes to speakers thereby making the listening experience less enjoyable. But Lenovo seems to have perfected this as the Lenovo IdeaPad comes with 2x 2-watt JBL speakers and a 3-watt subwoofer that are loud with a rich sound. The sound does not distort even at high volume levels.

The laptop has a full-size keyboard that has red backlighting, a numeric pad, and a trackpad that is spacious with integrated click buttons. The typing experience on the keyboard is good, however, being a gaming laptop it could have done better if it had a deeper travel length on the keys.

The Lenovo Y700 laptop is powered by a sixth-generation Intel-Core i7-6700QH 2.6 GHz processor with a Turbo Boost to 3.5GHz. The Skylake chip scores where it matters as it is fast, super responsive, and gets to accomplish its tasks seamlessly. There is 12GB of DDR3L RAM stacked in the laptop that allows the system to quickly access frequently-used files and data, as well as ensures there is smooth multitasking.

The machine uses an integrated NVIDIA GeForce 960M Graphics card, an upgrade from the GTX 860M graphics card in the Lenovo Y50. The GTX 960M is not powerful enough to handle games at 4K UHD resolution, especially modern-day games but it is perfect for handling 1080p gaming with medium-high graphic settings. The system has a 256GB SSD that offers quick boot time, loading of games, and access to your data.

The hardcore gamers can at least feel at home as the machine is capable of handling almost anything thrown its way at medium settings courtesy of the Nvidia GeForce GTX 960 GPU with 4GB of VRAM Graphics card. The laptop played Battlefront: Hardline and Shadow of Mordor smoothly on high settings with 60fps. It was able to play recently released games like Just Cause 3 with the game running at frame rates of between 45-55fps.

It also plays The Division well at medium settings running at between 55-60fps. The fans on the Lenovo help to keep it cool, when playing games, you can hear them spin but they are barely heard if you increase the speaker volume.

Verdict

The Lenovo Y700 is a great laptop with a sleek, solid, and sexy build-up quality. It has a beautiful screen and a nice keyboard for typing but lacks the oomph needed to overthrow the gaming warriors due to its mid-range graphics chip. It has a vibrant and bright screen however you are likely to experience some glare due to the semi-glossy panel and has a 10-point touch that works well.

The Lenovo Y700 combines impressive audio and a bright display to offer some good gaming performance and multimedia but if in need of a gorgeous display, customizable lighting, and longer battery life then you could consider the MSI GV62 8RD-275 with a few more bucks.

However, if you want to get value for every cent you spend on a gaming laptop, then it is worth considering our Editors’ Choice, the Acer Predator Helios 300 gaming laptop.