Lenovo IdeaPad Y650

Of all the 16-inch media centers—laptops with 16-inch widescreens—the Lenovo IdeaPad Y650 ($1,299 direct) is easily the least burdensome on your back. It's an alternative for those who don't want to spend the money or make the switch to an Apple MacBook Pro 15-inch (Dual Graphics) but salivate over its lightness. The Y650 is designed with mobility in mind when others (ahem, other Windows laptops) with similar screens are at least a pound heavier. Yet it can also fill the void left by an old desktop. Part for part, though, the Y650 is a bit overpriced; there are better values out there. Then again, you can always wait around until there's a good Lenovo sale.
Design is the Y650's greatest strength, as it aims to be as thin as Apple's 15-inch MacBook Pro (0.95 inch thick). Though with measurements of 15.3 by 10.3 by 1 inches the Y650 didn't quite make it, the 1-inch thickness is nothing to be ashamed of. Media centers like the Dell Studio XPS 16, the HP HDX16t, and the Gateway MC7803u are well over an inch thick, and they're heavier, to boot. The Y650 is the lightest 16-inch laptop I've seen so far, as its 5.5-pound frame matches that of the 15-inch MacBook. Take the three Windows systems mentioned above and throw the Acer Aspire 6930G-6723 (7.2 pounds) and the ASUS N50Vn-B1B (6.7 pounds) into the lineup and the Y650 is easily a pound lighter than any of these competitors. Concessions were made to get to this point, though: The Y650's battery (42 Wh) is small relative to those of its peers, and it uses integrated graphics (eliminating clunky fans) and a standard screen instead of a glass one.

When it comes to design, the Y650's use of colors and materials is an interesting change of pace. The lid is made out of a matte substance that has the feel of rubber, which does an effective job of warding off fingerprints and smudges. It's also textured ever so slightly with interconnecting polygonal shapes, which you won't notice until closer inspection. Though not as cutting-edge as the aluminum Apple laptops or the decked-out Dell XPS 16, the Y650 offers its own take on design, and it works for the most part. The choice of colors goes against the grain, as the black lid contrasts sharply with the glossy white interior. Softening the effects of the black-to-white transition are copper-colored accents that line the sides of the screen and the bottom half of the system. The splash of copper gives the Y650 the needed color depth to break up the completely black exterior.

The Y650's 16-inch LED widescreen is right on trend for many of the latest media-center laptops, including the Dell XPS 16, the HP HDX16t, and the Gateway MC7803u. Laptops like the ASUS N50Vn-B1B and the MacBook 15-inch use the traditional screen ratio (16:10), which allows more space from top to bottom. The Y650's is a wider format (16:9), which doesn't necessarily mean more screen real estate than traditional ones, but the high-definition community and the film industry would agree that it's a better fit for them. A glass screen that extends to the edge (actually covering the plastic borders), like those found on the Dell XPS 16 and the Gateway MC7803u, gives a system a cleaner, more elegant look than a standard screen that stops abruptly at the plastic borders. But by forgoing glass, the Y650 eliminated the associated heft. The 1,366-by-768 resolution, however, is less than I'd like to see on a 16-inch screen. Options for higher resolutions could have sweetened the pot.

Lenovo keyboards are generally very responsive and comfortable to use, and the one found on the Y650 is no exception. The touchpad is as enormous as the one on the 15-inch MacBook, and, yes, there are dedicated mouse buttons (unlike with Apple systems, in which the lone mouse button is integrated into the touchpad). Like the one on the MacBook, the Y650's touchpad has multitouch capabilities, meaning that you can pinch, pan, and scroll through various file formats by using two fingers. Unfortunately, I found this trait more irritating than useful. While navigating with my thumb and index fingers, the middle and ring fingers have a tendency to make contact with the touchpad (as it is fairly large), triggering multitouch commands and making the mouse cursor "jump." Fortunately, you can disable this feature in the Synaptics software (touchpad driver) in the Windows Control Panel.

I have a few minor complaints about the feature set. The Y650 doesn't have a FireWire port, for one, and it has only two USB ports when others are including three or four. These aren't deal breakers though, by any means. What the Y650 could have done is make the eSATA port double as a USB port when eSATA's blazing transfer speeds aren't being used. The Y650 has an HDMI port, and a dual-layer DVD burner is located on the front bezel. Two JBL speakers sit on each side of the keyboard, and their sound quality was a smidge better than those of the ASUS N50Vn-B1B and the Gateway MC7803u. Like most of its peers, the Y650 includes a one-year warranty that covers parts and labor.

The 2.4-GHz Intel Core 2 Duo P8600 and 3GB of DDR3 memory carried the performance load on benchmark tests. With its faster CPU, the Y650 outperformed the Acer 6930G-6723 and the Gateway MC7803u on the video-encoding and CineBench R10 tests. Since they share similar parts, the ASUS N50Vn-B1B's results were about even with those of the Y650. If you're heavily into games, however, this particular configuration is not for you. Although the Y650 performs admirably when you're watching movies, editing photos, and encoding videos, the Intel integrated graphics chipset doesn't have the 3D prowess of those that bear the Nvidia or ATI moniker. The Acer, Gateway, and ASUS all have discrete GPUs for gaming. On Lenovo's Web site, the Y650 is available with Nvidia chips, but opting for graphics power will put a strain on the small battery. The 42-Wh battery is the smallest of all the laptops mentioned in this review. Still, it scored 3 hours 5 minutes on MobileMark 2007, which is about as much as the ASUS N50Vn-B1B (3:07). Now, the ASUS uses a bigger battery, but its discrete GPU is a battery guzzler. Configuring the Y650 with an Nvidia chip is certain to bring battery life down to in the area of 2 hours. As of this review, Lenovo isn't offering any extended batteries as options.

A big widescreen and a frame as portable as the 15-inch MacBook Pro's are great selling points and qualities that people yearn for in a media center. The Lenovo IdeaPad Y650 places design on a pedestal, even if that means sacrificing one or two ports. Unfortunately, when it comes to everything else, the Y650 just doesn't hold up to the competition. The Acer Aspire 6930G-6723, Gateway MC7803u, and ASUS N50Vn-B1B all include more system memory (4GB), 3D graphics cards, and big batteries, and they do so at a lower price point. If weight, however, outranks everything else on your list, the Y650 is one of the most portable media centers around.