Future owner of Lenovo IdeaPad y500

I have been looking online at Lenovo for there gaming laptops but reading the reviews, they seem to have a lot of problems? Can someone help me who is a owner of a y500 and give me their reviews on it. Thanks.

 

I love mine.

 

Well, this is a good thread to get started with.

 

You will love it . I have bought 2 already ( for me and for a friend ) no problems with both.

 

Thanks for the replies, I am thinking of getting the one that has the 16GB SSD. Can you tell me what that does? Also is it replaceable that I can put a larger SSD in if I choose to do that?

 

I am also thinking of the graphics card, If I get the dual 650 can I upgrade to the 750 if I need? Or is it better to get the 750? What can I upgrade in the laptop?

 

Hey guys, decided to join up to answer some of your questions.

First off, the 16GB SSD isn't a true SSD. It's an mSATA drive with the purpose for cache use. Yes, it does give a bit of a boost to start times and with some programs. In reality, you are better off swapping out the HDD with a true SSD for, like me, a hybrid drive.

As far as the graphics cards go, It's a laptop, there is no upgrading.

I take that back, picking up the UltraBay graphics card and running in sli would technically be an upgrade.

Hopefully Lenovo will not drop the UltraBay concept anytime soon. As the bay is not standard to the typical CD/DVD rom drives found in laptops. This could be a deal breaker for some people.

To be warned. There are still issues with the trackpad. It will sometimes be a little sensitive and erratic. To the extreme, no responsive. This has been shown to be a grounding issue with the wires on the back of the trackpad. If you're skilled in the ways of laptop repair, or an idiot, you can open it up and relocate the wire with some nice black tape. This issue is not specific with this laptop as Synaptic(sp?) trackpads have had this issue in the past.

If you do pick one up. I suggest the dual graphics, the lowest amount of RAM and the cheapest HDD available. Then proceed to you local pc store (Microcenter for me, avoid BB like the plague it is) and pick up 16GB of awesomeness SODIMM and a better drive. I went with the hybrid as its near SSD speed with 750GB storage space(1TB comming to a shelf near you!) Setup the computer to your liking and start the migration with your choice of sauceware.

I put the old drive in the new drives packaging and stuck it on the top shelf for safe keeping. If there ever happens to be an issue, slap that old girl back in and slam, bam, thank you ma'am. And I'm back in business.

Peace

 

Thanks for the input. A questions with the trackpad, my dads computer has a button on the trackpad to turn it on and off. Does this have anything like that? ( The trackpad is not a deal breaker for me because I plan on using a wireless mouse) Can you list all the upgrades you would do to make the laptop better? I am a idiot in the ways of repairing or upgrading a laptop. Will it void the warranty to upgrade by yourself?

 

There is not a button to shut it off (trackpad) but in the trackpad's settings you can disable it. Also, upgrades as in from Lenovo or after-market upgrades?

 

There is a button to turn the trackpad on and off, it is FN+F6.

 

That's not a button, those are keys

 

What ever upgrades would work. I would guess that after-market upgrades would be cheaper than bought from the company, but all reasonable updates like something bigger than a 16GB SSD.

 

The only realistic upgrades you can count on are upgrading RAM or upgrading the storage for performance or capacity reasons.

Today, the maximum ceiling of ugprades for these components are:
* RAM capacity maxes out at 16GB.
* mSATA storage slot capacity maxes out at 256GB. The only worthwhile performance upgrade is getting a minimum of 128GB SSD, so that you can put your OS / apps / games entirely in SSD storage.
* 2.5" SATA storage slot capacity maxes out at 1TB (5400rpm mechanical HDD). The only worthwhile performance upgrade is getting a minimum of 128GB SSD, so that you can put your OS / apps / games entirely in SSD storage.

Most laptops to date only had one 2.5" SATA storage slot. That forced people to choose between performance / capacity / price.
The Lenovo Y400 / Y500 is pretty nice because it has both a 2.5" SATA storage slot and an mSATA slot. This lets you put a 256GB mSATA SSD in there for performance, and also have a 2.5" SATA 1TB HDD for storage capacity, without costing you a fortune.

Whether you buy these parts from Lenovo or aftermarket is up to you.

 

I am not sure if your list above is specific to Y400/Y500 but:

1) There are 480 gb mSATA drives available
2) There are 1 TB 7200 rpm HDDs available that easily fit any standard 2.5" x 9.5" notebook bay

 

I can't imagine anyone needing 480GB for mSATA. Haha. I am buying the 256GB Crucial one and I know that'll last years!

 

Ah, you are correct. Thanks for the clarifications!

Yes, I would agree with that. Of course, a 480GB SSD is nice to have. But everything you would need your SSD to do (OS, apps, games) can reasonably fit in a 256GB SSD. The only people I'd expect to see actually needing 480GB of SSD space would be people running multiple large Virtual Machines, or pack rats that want to keep every game they own installed on Steam.

The other type of potential buyer where a 480GB / 500GB / 512GB SSD makes sense are laptops with only one storage controller (SATA or mSATA), and you need more overall internal storage capacity than 256GB (to store OS, apps, games, AND some bulk media content).

I was actually one of those people, since I bought a 512GB SSD 2.5" SATA SSD when I first got this laptop. A few days later, I returned that 512GB 2.5" SATA SSD, and replaced it with a 256GB mSATA SSD + 1TB HDD combo, after doing more research on my internal storage connectivity options. If I only had one storage option, I definitely would have stuck with 512GB SSD.

 

I haven't done any research, but I think the mSATA drive is definitely becoming more relevant with every new version of laptops. I feel this is great because it really expands the abilities for people who want to tinker their laptop with a SSD but still have the mass storage of a HDD. I basically just stated the obvious.