First Impressions of my new Ideapad Y730

Just got my Ideapad Y730 (well this past wednesday) and i would like to post my fist impressions. I'll update with pics soon.

Intel® Core™ 2 Duo Processor P7350 ( 2GHz 1GHz 3MB )
Genuine Windows Vista Home Premium 64
17.0 WXGA+ TFT with integrated camera LCD Glossy 1440x900
ATI Mobility Radeon 3650 512MB
3 GB PC3-8500 DDR3 SDRAM 1066MHz
320GB 5400
DVD Recordable (Dual Layer) 24X Max
Bluetooth Version 2.0 + EDR
Intel Wireless Wi-Fi Link 5100
Industry Standard Touchpad
8.05 lbs
6 Cell Lithium-Ion


First of, this is a very nice looking system (imo) and the packaging was actually decent enough too mention. inside the usual brown shipping box was a full color retail box. When I openned the box I was surpprised to see the following:

PRINTED manual for the system
PRINTED manual for the one key reccovery
swappable caddy the second hard drive (usually separate) in addition to the cover should you decide to keep it internal.

TOUCH CONTROLS
Getting past the packaging, I got to the touch controls for mute, mode, dolby settings (more later) as well as the playback bbutons. thy all worked as expected, unlike other systems with shoddy touch functions. It is nice to have actual buttons for the volume as I hate touch sliders and buttons for volume(IMO)


KEYBOARD
The keybord is kind of a mixed bag. while it does have a good tctile feel, it seems to stutter while typing. I rad abouut this before but was surprised it is still present. I DID read good news tho that it will work itsellf out when it gets more "broken in".. whatt I mean by stutter is that sometimes pressing a key once will mak a letter come out twice. as in hello my namee iss locust. but, although i ave only hadd it for a day, there are less and less letters doing this than when I first got it. While this does not excuse the keyboard maker's OBVIOUS lack of care for a working keyboard (or lenovo's lack of folloowing up wwith them), it IS good to see it slowing going away.

KEYBOARD UPDATE 12/4/08 the keyboard is improving in quality in that it is now rare enough with the double letters on keypress that i am confident it wil permanently go away soon.


there is SOME, I reppeat, SOME keybord flex, but nothing anywhere near a dell studio 15 (only thing i hve compared it to myself).

It's most evident on the numberpad and the number 2 above the letters., but it is not noticable unless you LOOK for it. under normal use it feels good and stable. I'm sorry to say MAYBE more stable and firm than a thinkpad t400 keyboard...(again IMO)

DISPLAY
apart from the stuttering keyoard out of the box (hopefully temporary for me), the wxga screen with flush "glass" actuallly looks ok. my screen hs nice colors an the only reflection that bothered was an unshaded window directly behind me, but tilting the screen a little back moved it away. (thats a consequence of flush screens not just this one.) Viwing anglles were good ffor vertical and horizontal. With very litle light lleakage near the bottom.

SPEAKERS
The Dolby 4 pc speakers and subwoofer deliver pretty good sound for laptop. it is a noticable difference from a regular 2 sppeaker setup. now the whole Dollby thing works like this. two speakers aare mounted above the keyboaard and two below the pallmrest on the edge. thhey can be setup as two channel or four channel. either configuraton used the subwoofer so it will be a matter off prefference as to which you choose.

TOUCHPAD AND TEMPS
the touchpad is great with a nice texture that is very responsive. while I am in this part of the system, let me comment on the heat in the pallmrest area. the left palmrest area gets noticeably warm, but accordding to hard monitor (HWMON) having had the system on with HIGH PERFORMANCE for the last 11 hours while installing soft ware and browsing the web, the cpu neveer got higher than 62C hard drive was an even 51C and vvideo card (while viewing 720p videos) nevr got above 61C. I am however installing World of warcraft andd counter strike source and WILL update temps later.

when the fan kicks on, it starts out loud for few seconds then slows down to low hum and sometimes even shuts off for minutes at a time. I hvent checked te BIOS out yet to see if there are any settings that pertain to heat or the fan.

UPDATE REGARDING GAMING TEMPS 12/4/08 i did not forget about updating temps. I was playing world of warcraft on the laptop for 9 hours (yeah yeah i know ....never again lol) and i forgot to take the screenshot of hardware monitor but the temps did not go above 72C for the graphics but , surprisingly, the processor temps reached 75C. I did run it on high performance though for all 9 hours on a desk.

My vista experience ratiing is 5.0 and goes as follows:

Processor 5.0
Memory 5.9
Graphics 5.9
Gaming Grapphics 5.2
Primary Hard Dissk 5.3

I was pleasantly surprised that of al things the CPU was the bottleneck. but I couldn't justify a $100 increase for the p8400 from a p7350

Overall, I am temporarily satisfied (pending keyboard works itself out) wiith this system and so far am glad I purchased. if you have any questions please ask.

(PS REGARDING BATTERY LIFE I'll try to update ovver the weekend giving a high performance profile full screen brightness battery drain while surfing the net)

PPS: unlless GPPUID is mistaken the ati 360 in this system is GDDR3!!!

PPPS: something I just noticed is tht the vga port has a switch next too it that says IN/OUT I wonder if this system can be used as display for something else... I have nothing to hook up right now but If I'll try my desktop tomorrow. (not home) UPDATE: YES IT CAN WORK AS A DISPLAY FOR SOMETHING ELSE> meaning this is the first laptop (that i know) that can function as a display for a videogame console lol a plus for college dormroom packing.

 

Thanks for posting this. I am considering the very same laptop. (40532CU). I initially looked at the 40532FU. Same as yours but with 2GB RAM, T5800, Vista 32 as I'm able to get that model with a very deep discount. But I think I'll spend the extra $200 to get the Centrino 2 chipset. I'm likely to keep this laptop for quite a few years, so the extra cost is not that big of a deal.

 

Nice review.

I like my Y730 and really liked the second hard drive caddy that was included. I ordered a second hard drive the day it arrived! Nice that it's hot swap and can be used as an external drive!

Still wish they had a fingerprint reader.

 

yeah little touches like that make me forgive the hot palm rest lol. i updated the temps in the original post during a marathon WoW session but forgot to take a screencap. of Hardware monitor.

 

keep a lookout for lenovo coupons online they will have decent ones for ideapads and if interested check out fatwallet for a possible rebate AFTER coupon. i got one pending now for 10% cashback AFTER coupon price. yeah theres live.com but its sketchy to get rebate with a coupon use.

 

Can you elaborate on using it as an external drive? Do you have an external enclosure that you're putting it in when you take it out of the laptop?

 

The hard drive caddy just pops out and you can plug a usb cable into the caddy.

 

Nice, I'll have to take a look at that.

 

Use the USB cable that comes with the laptop. I tried another usb cable and it didn't work.

 

could u imagine tripple hard drive laptop lol.

 

i will post some pics tonight of the system. sorry i have been very busy lately. also, I am getting an exchange (just mentioning because its part of the FIRST impression of an ideapad) because for some reason the fan was not kicking in (maybe thats why it was loud then low then even off at times. ) the system would overheat to the point where it stuttered then shut down. but anyhow, I have a replacement coming to me. I firmly believe it was just a fluke or a dud because it is very rare for that kind of thing to happen on a new system. only bad thing is that I will have to re-BREAK IN the new keyboard lol.

 

UPDATE!!! A GREAT ONE FOR ALL ( and me soon lol) Lenovo released an update for the bios to shut off the jingle if you so desire lol

 

Awesome! Thanks for letting us know. I love how they describe the volume settings:

"Boot Logo Volume: 0 (Closed Volume),1(Middle Volume) or 2(Large Volume)"

I'm also curious how difficult it was for you to get your laptop replaced. I had mine replaced too but I had to make a ton of calls and fight for it.

 

it was fairly difficult because the level one lenovo import customer service refuses to budge from the script. I explained that I was READING the return/EXCHANGE policy from their site but they said (all three word for word) it was either repair or return plus 15% fee. I asked how come I should lose 15% for receiving bad merchendise and asked for a supervisor . after three disconnects while on hold waiting for "supervisrs", i finally got resolution by going above them. they really need to update those scripts to include customer satisfaction. I asked for exchange and was initially denied. then I asked for return. and they said I needed a tech case# to avoid the fee. I called tech and explained the problem. then I sales again and was told THEY NEEDED TO CONFIRM I CALLED TECH. I gave them the tech case number and they had me on hold forever. then came back and said since tech said it could be repaired so I did not qualify for a return. I got mad and said WELL ANYTHING ON A LAPTOP CAN BE REPLACED!!!!!! (in this case the mobo) he said YES SO PLEASE SEND IT IN FOR REPLACEMENT OF THE PART OR YOU WILL BE CHARGED 15%. I would normally have no issue wih this but who knows if the heat might shorten the life of the ram, cpu or other components.

Long story short..... I did everyting I was asked to get the return and was still denied the ability to return without restocking. I was so mad I was gonna return it, but I got hooked up with a real supervisor in the US and had everything go smooth as ice from there on. I even decided to take the exchange again rather than return because they were VERY helpful.

LMAO when I read that i couldnt stop laughing. Looking foward to updating the bios on my new system when it comes.

 

one more thing, for any doubters here, Mark@Lenovo (here.. aka Mark_Lenovo at lenovo forums) is beyond helpful. and he is honestly the reason I kept my thinkpad t400 and am keeping the replacement Ideapad Y730. so if you see him post advice or something please by all means follow through. he's the one who helped with my issue.

 

Deja-vu! Seriously. At least they stay on script. I could write the exact same story word for word.

Next time anyone asks about the speakers in the Y730, we need to say it has "large volume"!

 

Where is the 'little volume'?

Anyone update their bios yet? Who will be the guinea pig?

 

i'll do it just to see the volume options in the bios when I get the replacement system.... hmm coem to think of it maybe I'll use the scarred one lol. if that bricks it will save my new one lol im working but ill do it tonight on the guinea pig.