Lenovo IdeaPad G560 – The G565’s look-alike younger sibling Review

The Lenovo IdeaPad G560 is a feature-rich low-end laptop, meant to meet the basic needs of businessmen and executives. The addition of eSATA and HDMI ports provide value for money, while the presence of special multimedia buttons embossed on a glassy surface adds a touch of class to the design aesthetics of the laptop. It makes a decent buy at Rs. 31,990 with basic multimedia and executive style features. However, its weak performance across all the tests including gaming, will disappoint the performance hungry freaks and gamers.

[RELATED_ARTICLE]The Lenovo IdeaPad G560 is quite bulky weighing in at about 2.63 kgs. Inheriting the most characteristic features from its elder sibling – the G565, the G560 also incorporates subtle changes such as capslock & numlock status indicators, as well as mute, volume up/down and video recording buttons located at the top of the keypad. It is a welcome change to see the addition of eSATA and HDMI ports which were missing on the G565. The special status LED indicators, the Wi-Fi on/off switch and the multi-format memory card reader add value for money.

Read on to know more about the features and keypad ergonomics in the next page…

[RELATED_ARTICLE]The wide touchpad with scroll bar function integrated to it enables quick and efficient navigation while browsing a document or a webpage. The split mouse buttons partitioned within the touchpad layout like always play a significant role, but their performance is quite sluggish and unresponsive at times. The sturdy feel of the keypad keys inhibits quick typing and often lacks sufficient tactile feedback resulting in incorrect user input. Also, the cramped up key-spacing due to underutilized keypad space inhibits quick and efficient typing, while also hindering comfortable keypad navigation. Like its elder sibling, the only bonus is the special function keys marked in saffron with two function “Fn” operator keys for quick dual-hand and multimedia operation. We weren’t impressed by the G560’s keypad build quality & ergonomics, which had been the case with its elder sibling too.

Read on to know the performance, Our Take, ratings, specifications and performance test results in the next page…

Performance

[RELATED_ARTICLE]The Lenovo IdeaPad G560 showcased neck-to-neck performance with its elder sibling in the PC Mark Vantage synthetic benchmark test, although falling short in the overall score. It is rather disappointing to note that it failed to pass the TV & Movies test, like its elder sibling – the G565. It is very much on the expected lines that the big brother (G565) dominated across all the synthetic benchmark tests including the SiSoft Sandra 2010 Pro and the 3D Mark 2006 tests. We found a mixed bag of results in the real-world tests, where the G565 had a better outing in the battery-life test. While the G560 outplayed the elder sibling in the speaker quality and HD movie test by a small margin. However, the G560 delivered extremely lower frame rates than the G565 across Doom 3 & FarCry 2 game benchmarking, due to the lack of a graphics solution. The game benchmarks clearly indicate that the Lenovo IdeaPad G560 is not suitable for casual gaming, while the G565 does a decent job by virtue of a dedicated graphics solution.

Our Take
The Lenovo IdeaPad G560 is a feature-rich low-end laptop, meant to meet the basic needs of businessmen and executives. The addition of eSATA and HDMI ports provide value for money, while the presence of special multimedia buttons embossed on a glassy surface adds a touch of class to the design aesthetics of the laptop. It makes a decent buy at Rs. 31,990 with basic multimedia and executive style features. However, its weak performance across all the tests including gaming, should disappoint the performance hungry freaks and gamers.

Ratings
Features: 6
Performance: 5
Build Quality: 6.5
Value for money: 7
Overall: 6

Specifications: Processor: Intel Pentium P6100 (2.2GHz); Memory: 2GB DDR3 533MHz; Chipset: Intel HM55 Express; Integrated Graphics card: Intel HD graphics; Hard drive: 500GB; Display: 15.6-inch LED backlit, Screen resolution: 1366 x 768; Weight: 2.63 Kilo-grams;

Contact: Lenovo India
Phone no: 1800 425 2666
E-mail:pmatthan@lenovo.com
Website:www.lenovo.com
Price: Rs. 31,990
 

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Vinod Yalburgi