Lenovo IdeaPad Z560 Review

Lenovo IdeaPad Z560

Review Summary:

The Lenovo IdeaPad Z560 is a good starter or budget notebook for those who want some multimedia capabilities.

Pros

• Excellent keyboard and touchpad
• Stylish look and feel
• Very good build quality

Cons

• So-so battery life
• Low screen contrast

Lenovo IdeaPad Z560 Full Review

 

The Lenovo Z-series IdeaPad is a budget-friendly multimedia notebook aimed to be a tier lower than the popular Y-series. The Z-series comes in two sizes including a 13.6 and 15.6-inch model, both of which offer unique styling and configurations. In this review, we take a look at the 15.6-inch IdeaPad Z560 and see how it stacks up against the competition.

Lenovo IdeaPad Z560 Specifications:

• 15.6-inch 720p (1366 x 768) glossy panel with LED backlighting
• Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
• Intel Core i3-350M dual-core processor (2.26 Ghz, 3 MB Cache)
• Integrated Intel HD graphics
• 3GB DDR3 dual-channel RAM (1GB + 2GB)
• 500GB 5400RPM Western Digital hard drive (WD5000BEVT)
• Broadcom 802.11n Wireless LAN, Bluetooth
• DVD burner combo drive
• 1-year global limited warranty
• 6-cell Li-ion battery (48Wh)
• Weight: 5.7 lbs.
• Dimensions: 14.8" (L) x 9.8" (D) x 0.70-1.40" (H)
• MSRP: $850

Build and Design
The Lenovo IdeaPad Z560 has a stylish appearance with a piano-black glossy cover with chrome "Lenovo" lettering and a brushed metal bezel for the palmrest and keyboard trim. The exterior look is very nice and could almost pass off for a business notebook in the right setting. Inside the Z560 has a nice metal palmrest, a large textured touchpad, and big contoured touchpad buttons. Even the keyboard looks great, sharing the design from the Edge-series ThinkPads with the hybrid ThinkPad and Island-style keys. One interesting feature about the Z560 is the rescue-and-recover button that is recessed and almost hidden. It is the same size as the numlock and capslock indicator lights next to it, but if you press it with a ball-point pen it activates the mode.

Build quality is about average for a notebook in this class, offering a relatively sturdy chassis with durable plastic and alloy components. The screen lid offers adequate protection for the screen, only allowing the LCD to show distortions under heavy pressure. The screen is held down by friction of the screen hinges alone and seems to be held firmly shut when the notebook is hanging at your side. The main body of the notebook feels pretty strong, with no flexing or twisting when you hold the system by the edge of the keyboard. The brushed metal palmrest does an excellent job at resisting flex over the width of the palmrest, with that rigidity stretching up to the keyboard tray and speakers. Overall the body is very sturdy and should hold up well to daily abuse.

Users looking to upgrade the IdeaPad Z560 will find it easy through a single panel on the bottom of the notebook. After removing no less than 10 screws, the plate can comes off to expose the hard drive, wireless card, two pieces of RAM, and heatsink/processor combo. Users looking to pop in their own WWAN device will be disappointed though, as the Z560 has the required connection area, but no soldered on slot.

Ports and Features
Port selection on the Z560 is very nice, although we felt there was some unused space that could have been used to add on other features. All of the main connections are located on the left or right side of the keyboard, including a LAN port, VGA and HDMI-out, two USB 2.0 ports, one eSATA/USB combo port, ExpressCard/34, and audio input/output jacks. The system also featured a SDHC-card slot on the front of the notebook as well as a wireless on/off switch.

Front: Wireless on/off, SDHC-card slot

Rear: Battery

Left: Kensington Lock slot, LAN, VGA, one USB 2.0, eSATA/USB combo, HDMI, ExpressCard/34

Right: Audio jacks, optical drive, one USB 2.0, DC-power input

Screen and Speakers
The IdeaPad Z560 includes a 15.6-inch display with a 1366 x 768 resolution. At the time of publishing this review, only one screen resolution is offered. The display handles 720P HD video content, although it would need to downsize 1080P content to show at the lower resolution. The screen rates about average in terms of color and contrast, with the glossy surface helping to enhance black levels.

We measured the contrast ratio as 128:1 with a peak brightness of 222 nit. The backlight was more than adequate for viewing the display in bright indoor viewing conditions, but with the glossy surface, outdoor viewing isn't possible unless you find a good spot of shade. Vertical viewing angles were average, with colors staying true and accurate when the screen was tilted 10-15 degrees forward or back. Horizontal viewing angles were much better, with the screen staying visible past 60-degrees before the reflections off the surface blocked what you were viewing.

The onboard speakers are located right above the keyboard on the Z560, instead of lap-firing speakers we tend to see on many newer notebooks. This location prevents clothing or soft surfaces from blocking the speaker outlet and muffling sound coming out. The speaker quality was about average for a mainstream notebook, although the performance wasn't up to the standards of some of the nicer multi-speaker notebooks we have reviewed. Peak volume levels were fine for watching a movie or listening to music in a small to mid-size room.

Keyboard and Touchpad
The keyboard on the IdeaPad Z560 is a cross between a standard and island-style keyboard. It offers shaped and contoured keys to make it easy to center your fingertips while typing, but with the larger key-spacing offered by island design. This brings the best of both worlds and makes the Z560 a dream to type on. Even as a long-time fan of the traditional ThinkPad keyboard, I have started to sway and actually prefer this design. We first got a look at this design with the ThinkPad Edge-series and loved it ever since. The typing feel is great with long-throw keys that give off very little sound when fully pressed. The keyboard support is excellent, showing no signs of flex even under strong typing pressure.

The IdeaPad Z560 offers a spacious Synaptics touchpad supporting multi-touch gestures. This particular model offers pinch zoom, pivot rotate, two finger scrolling, three finger flick and three finger press. Sensitivity out of the box is great, needing no adjustment to be perfectly usable. The textured touchpad was very easy to use, without the rough uneven feel on the newer ThinkPads and not completely glossy like what's on most consumer notebooks. The two touchpad buttons located below the touch surface are very nice. They both offer long travel with excellent soft feedback.

Performance and Benchmarks
The IdeaPad Z560 offers fairly good performance, even with an assortment of low to mid-range components. Our review system included a Core i3-350M processor, 3 GB of DDR3 memory, and a 500 GB, 5400 RPM hard drive. At the time of this review, only Intel HD integrated graphics are offered with the Z560, although NVIDIA graphics are an option on the smaller Z360.

For average daily use the system was more than capable and responded quickly to commands. Boot times could have been improved with a faster hard drive or SSD, but for a budget-oriented system it was pretty fast. The system had no trouble handling office productivity applications or watching HD videos. The Core-i3 processor and GMA HD graphics proved to be more than capable for decoding locally-played 720P and 1080P video and streaming HD content from YouTube and Hulu. The one area this system didn't perform well in was gaming , which was expected without a dedicated graphics card.

wPrime processor comparison results (lower scores mean better performance):

PCMark05 measures overall system performance (higher scores mean better performance):

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

3DMark06 measures gaming performance (higher scores mean better performance):

CrystalDiskMark storage drive performance test:

Heat and Noise
The Z560 handled its thermal output quite well, using its size and low-end configuration to its advantage. Under the strain of back to back to back 3D benchmarks, the case temperature reached a peak of 88 degrees Fahrenheit. Under normal use the case temperatures warmed slightly above room temperature, with the fan staying off. Under higher loads the fan would occasionally turn on, but still stay at a very low speed to slowly bring cool air through the case.

Battery Life
For unplugged access in the classroom or away from home, the Z560 includes a 48Wh 6-cell battery. This capacity is average when compared to other multimedia systems on the market, although some brands may offer an extended battery as an option. In our battery test with the screen brightness reduced to 70%, wireless active, refreshing a webpage every 60 seconds, and Windows 7 set to the Balanced profile, the Z560 stayed on for 3 hours and 6 minutes. For a system with our configuration, this time was well below what we were hoping to measure.

Conclusion
The Lenovo IdeaPad Z560 offers the look and feel of a multimedia notebook, but at a lower price compared to the gaming oriented Y-series model. Offered in 13.3 and 15.6-inch sizes, the Z-series offers a wide range of configurations options to fit any buyer. Both models are offered with integrated or dedicated graphics options, although at the time of publishing this review only Intel HD graphics was an option for the Y560. Performance even with the lower-end Intel Core i3 processor was great and when combined with a super comfortable keyboard and touchpad the Z560 is a very nice all-around performer. Overall of you just need a system to handle the basics and still perform well to entertain, the Z560 is a perfect fit.

Pros:

• Excellent keyboard and touchpad
• Stylish look and feel
• Very good build quality

Cons:

• So-so battery life
• Low screen contrast

Individual Ratings: *
Software & Support 
Upgrade Capabilities 
Usability 
Design 
Performance 
Features 
Price/Value Rating 

* Ratings averaged to produce final score