Lenovo IdeaPad U260 User Review

Lenovo IdeaPad U260

Pros

• Good performance
• Nice design, solid feel
• Good display, keyboard

Cons

• Battery life not all-day
• Standard warranty only 1 year
• Limited configuration options

Lenovo IdeaPad U260 User Full Review

 

Lenovo's IdeaPad family of notebooks is the company's multimedia/entertainment series, as opposed to the business-optimized ThinkPad line or the budget-oriented Essential line. The editors at NotebookReview.com didn't have an overwhelmingly positive opinion about the 12.5-inch Lenovo IdeaPad U260, but contributor Daniel P. Dern wanted to chime in with his own take on the ultraportable U260.

The IdeaPad U260 is Lenovo's (and, according to the company, the industry's) first 12.5-inch (widescreen display) laptop. The U260 has no internal hardware configuration options to alter the base MSRP of $1,199.00, not even a solid-state disk (SSD) instead of the hard drive. You can, of course, add service or warranty options, along with third-party software and peripherals, which will bring the system price up.

Remember, the base warranty is for just one year. Upgrades start at $39, up to $229 for the 3-year In-Home Warranty + 3-year LenovoCare Notebook Protection. Having had in-home service for my old IBM ThinkPad -- including a round by Lenovo after IBM sold them the trademark and product line -- I can speak positively to service quality, and the great convenience of not having to pack the notebook up for shipping and trust it won't get whacked by shippers or remote fixers.

Before buying, start by checking the Lenovo site for sales; I've seen prices of $999 and even $849 on various days. As for whether that price is good, a bargain, or bad, remember that notebooks aren't always comparable commodities, even with the same weight and size class.

Build and Design
Lenovo's IdeaPad family is intended for style-conscious users, compared with the quietly professional-looking, all-black business-oriented ThinkPad family. The unit feels reassuringly solid, without being too heavy -- even with the small lightweight AC adapter and its cords, you can carry this around all day without any strain or inconvenience. And the chassis feels solid; when I carefully twisted the edges, it didn't seem to bend.

The IdeaPad U260 has a magnesium-alloy shell, with "metallic brushed" and "textured patterns etched into the cover," according to Lenovo. Translation, it feels smooth but not slippery. The U260 comes in either Clementine Orange or Mocha Brown color, has rounded corners, and the top is blank except for a small silver Lenovo logo. The inside is black except for keyboard markings and the light-up indicators. Speakers are at the top just inside the hinges -- nearly invisible if you don't look carefully for the grill areas.

The bezel around the 12.5-inch display is about half an inch on each side. The 1.75-inch by 3.25-inch two-button touchpad is centered next to the lower edge of the base, making for comfortable typing. The display lid opens smoothly -- up to 140 degrees, it won't lie flat. The only other design feature I'll mention at this point is that the U260 includes Lenovo's Active Protection System that protect the hard drive from shocks.

Ports and Features
The U260 has two USB 2.0 ports (one on each side), Ethernet, Ethernet, HDMI and VGA, audio, and a security lock slot. There's a physical Wi-Fi on/off slide switch, and a light-up indicator above the keyboard. The power button is just above the keyboard, on the middle of the left side, and lights up clearly to confirm that power is on. There are no slots for SD cards or other media and the ports are all on the sides; the front and back are solid. Cooling vents are on the bottom towards the back.

The U260 also has an integrated 0.3MP camera, at the center top, which, among other things, can be used for VeriFace facial-recognition login, using your face instead of a keyboarded password. (Caution: VeriFace apparently can be fooled by a picture, like one displayed on a phone.

VeriFace works reasonably well except in too-low light (you can bypass this on a per-event basis and use password login instead -- or turn all login security.) If you're not an authorized user, VeriFace also lets you then record a video/audio message for a specified user.

VeriFace takes and saves pictures of unauthorized users -- if you do try to login via VeriFace, it warns you that it's taking your picture and sending it off (assuming it can).

Keyboard and Touchpad
The keys on the IdeaPad U260's keyboard, like other Lenovo IdeaPads I have tried, are flat or nearly so, versus the nice bevel common to Lenovo ThinkPads -- necessary to help provide a thin-as-possible profile.  The arrow keys are at the bottom right, and the HOME/END/PageUp/PageDown keys are a column at the right of the main body of keys. The top row of keys is ESC, F1 through F12, PrtSc, and Delete, with nearly all of these, the arrow keys and the right-hand column doing the standard double duty with Function (FN) key meanings as well.

The typing portion of the keyboard (i.e., excluding the right-hand column of Home/End/Page-Up/Page-Down keys) is 10 inches compared to 11 inches on a standard desktop keyboard. Lenovo says it's a "full-sized keyboard," but my measurements, arithmetic and typing (I'm a 60+ word-per-minute touch typist -- on a full-sized keyboard) disagree.

This makes the keyboard more than adequate for prolonged text entry or other keyboarding, but takes a little more thought and attention to touch-type without making too many errors. If I were going to be doing lots of typing (which my work entails), I'd consider a different machine -- but if this was the machine I had to work on, it wouldn't be a serious impediment.

Typing on the keys is quiet. The feel is good, especially given the thinness of the machine. The touchpad is large and responsive, and the touchpad buttons are good-sized -- half an inch by 1.5 inches each.  Unlike its ThinkPads, Lenovo IdeaPad do not have the little red "eraser-nub" pointing stick in the middle of the keyboard.

According to Lenovo the keyboard has a "breathable surface" that helps the notebook stay cooler while maintaining "spill resistance."

Screen and Speakers
The IdeaPad U260 has a 12.5-inch 16:9 HD widescreen display with 1366x768 resolution. That's big enough for much of what I'd do, like Office and web activity, while keeping smaller views open of IM buddy lists. The display has an anti-glare coating, and the machine includes an Ambient Light Sensor that "automatically adjust[s] screen brightness based on ambient light conditions."

Display circuitry includes Intel Clear Video tech which Intel claims enhances video playback with sharper images. The display quality is quite good, for everything from web browsing and Microsoft Office through watching HD movie trailers. The display has an LED backlight panel to help with battery life.

The U260's two speakers provide decent sound, good enough for listening to Pandora or Spotify or NPR for "background work radio." The sound is, unsurprisingly, "bright" -- high on treble, not much bass.

Specifications for the Lenovo IdeaPad U260 review unit include:

• 12.5" high-definition AntiGlare (1366x768) 16:9 widescreen display with integrated 0.3MP camera
• Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
• Intel Core i5-470UM Processor (1.33GHz 800MHz 3MB) with Intel Turbo Boost Technology
• 4GB PC3-8500 DDR3 SDRAM 1066MHz
• Intel GMA 4500 MHD graphics processor
• 2 1-watt speakers with Dolby Advanced Audio surround sound
• 320GB 5400rpm hard drive
• Multi-touch 2 button glass touchpad
• Intel Wireless Wi-Fi Link 1000 (802.11 b/g/n), 10/100/1000M LAN; Bluetooth
• 4-cell Li-Polymer battery
• Weight: Starts at 3.0 lbs
• Dimensions  12.5 x 8.1 x 0.71 inches
• Bluetooth Version 2.1 + EDR
• breathable redesigned keyboard
• One-year warranty
• MSRP $1,199.00

Performance and Benchmarks
The Lenovo IdeaPad 260 has a dual-core Intel Core i5-470UM Processor with Hyper-Threading technology so it acts more like a quad-core processor. The "UM" at the end of the processor name means it's the CULV (Consumer Ultra-Low-Voltage) version. CULV versions are supposed to be much more energy efficient; although this also usually means less speed, the combination of Hyper-Threading and Turbo Boost should deliver a net gain. Using a CULV also helps enable a thinner, smaller chassis -- and should also result in better battery life. Whether this does improve battery life is hard to determine without being able to swap in a non-CULV version of the processor, of course.

With this dual-core processor and four gigabytes of RAM, the Lenovo IdeaPad U260 should handle most anything you'll throw at it ... short of the latest 3D games. It's certainly quite adequate for Office and web browsing, and for basic multimedia consumption. AddGadget.com's free "All CPU Meter" showed overall CPU usage generally between 15 and 30, although sometimes hitting up to 80% during installs or when I had a bunch of stuff going on.

Wprime processor comparison results (lower scores are better):

PCMark Vantage measures overall system performance (higher scores are better):

3DMark06 measures overall graphics performance (higher scores are better):

CrystalDiskMark storage drive performance test: