Lenovo G560 Review

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When you come across a 15.6-inch laptop with a sub-$700 price tag, you’re probably going to assume that it must be riddled with compromises in order to sell for several hundred dollars less than most other mainstream laptops. The Lenovo G560—which sells direct from Lenovo for $699—comes with its share of concessions. But it doesn’t drop the ball in the areas where it really counts; it dishes out excellent performance and battery such as Lenovo 40Y8314 Battery, Lenovo 40Y8318 Battery, Lenovo 41U3198 Battery, Lenovo ThinkPad R400 Battery, Lenovo ThinkPad T400 Battery, Lenovo 43R1965 Battery, Lenovo FRU 42T4518 Battery, Lenovo ASM 42T4519 Battery, Lenovo ThinkPad X300 Battery, Lenovo ThinkPad X301 Battery life. Further defying expectations, the G560 even comes with a few surprising features, including HDMI and eSATA ports, as well as an ExpressCard/34 slot and an integrated media-card reader.

The G560 is part of Lenovo’s Essential G-Series line of laptops for basic, everyday computing, which is made up of a variety of 14- and 15.6-inch models that share similar designs and features. The G560 measures 1.4x14.8x9.9-inches (HWD), which is typical for a laptop with a 15.6-inch display; its weight of 5.7 pounds, however, puts it a bit on the heavy side for its class. The all-black chassis has a glossy lid with a faint tread-like pattern; but we found that the lid was one of the worst fingerprint-smudge magnets we’ve ever seen.

Instead of a Chiclet-style keyboard, which is all the rage right now, Lenovo chose to use a traditional-style keyboard and even threw in a dedicated mini-number-pad. We liked the sturdy feel of the keys, but as we moved to the right side of the keyboard, it became increasingly mushy as it flexed underneath the weight of our fingers. The keyboard includes brightness and volume keys; but unlike other laptops where these are dedicated keys, on the G560 you must press the Function key to access them. Above the keyboard are dedicated buttons for the OneKey Recovery utility (which can be accessed during boot up or when Windows is running) for system backups and restores, and the Lenovo Energy Management utility for quick changes to the power management settings.

With a 2.13GHz Intel Core i3-330M processor, 4GB RAM, integrated Intel GMA HD graphics, and a 320GB hard drive, the G560 has almost identical specs as the $649.99 Gateway NV5933u. Unlike the NV5933u, which comes with a Blu-ray drive, the G560 comes with a standard DVD±RW drive. Including a Blu-ray drive in an under-$700 laptop is almost unheard of—as such, with such similar components under the hood, the NV5933u might seem like a better choice for anyone looking for an inexpensive multimedia machine. But before you dismiss the G560 outright, consider that it has a number of advantages over the NV5933u—which might have greater appeal to you, depending on your needs.

Two of the G560’s advantages are the eSATA port and ExpressCard slot that the NV5933u lacks. But perhaps the biggest differentiator between the two laptops is that the NV5933u’s meager battery life of 1 hour and 36 minutes is more than an hour behind that of the G560’s 2:45 on our demanding DVD-movie drain test. In fact, the G560’s battery life is even a bit longer than the average of roughly 2:30 for mainstream laptops. In our casual usage, the G560 lasted over 3.5 hours.

As to our other performance measures, the two laptops were a much closer match. On nearly all of our tests, the two laptops performed very similarly, with only two notable exceptions. On the 64-bit PCMark Vantage test, which is a good measure of a system’s overall performance, the G560’s score of 5,059 was a bit faster than the NV5933u’s 4,824. On the primarily CPU-based iTunes encoding test, where we convert 11 MP3 files to AAC files, the G560’s 4 minutes and 2 seconds pulled even further ahead of the NV5933u’s 4:31. Regardless, the overall performance for both laptops is notably speedier than the average performance we’ve seen from mainstream laptops.

Users on a budget who need speedier performance—and are willing to spend another $100—might want to look at the $799, 2.26GHz Core i5-430M–based HP ProBook 4520s. On our other CPU-heavy, media-conversion benchmark—the Windows Media Encoder test—the G560’s encoding time of 5:08 can’t keep up with the 4520s’s snappier time of 4:33. With a score of 6,138 on our Cinebench 10 test—which stresses all the available cores of a system’s processor—the 4520s skates past the G560’s showing of 5,525. The 4520s comes with a significant caveat, however, in that its battery life of just over 2 hours is about 45 minutes shy of what the G560 is capable of.

All three laptops use integrated graphics engines that are built into their Intel processors; and as such they all have very poor 3D graphics performance. On our 3DMark06 test at the laptop’s native resolution, the G560 turned out an unimpressive score of 1,883. For gaming specifically, we ran our Company of Heroes DX9 test at native resolution, and the best the G560 could do was a lackluster 12.1 frames per second (fps). Integrated graphics should be fine for watching HD videos and playing less demanding games such as World of Warcraft, but any game that needs more 3D power will require a system with a discrete graphics chip, such as the $1,249 Sony VAIO F-Series VPC-F113FXH. The VPC-F113FXH garnered a much higher 3DMark06 score of 4,135 and a passable 20.1 fps on Company of Heroes. But as is evident by the VPC-F113FXH’s higher price tag, you’re going to have pay well over $1,000 for a laptop that can be used for real 3D gaming.

With its $699 price tag, the Lenovo G560 is a very good deal for a 15.6-inch laptop. It is powered by decent components and delivers performance and battery life that are above-and-beyond the average for its class. For $50 less you can grab the similarly configured Gateway NV5933u, which adds a Blu-ray drive to the mix; but in doing so you’ll give up the G560’s impressive battery life and its eSATA port and ExpressCard slot in the process. Unless you can’t live without the NV5933u’s Blu-ray drive or don’t care how long the battery lasts, the G560’s is the superior machine and the better value.