If you are under a tight budget, the Lenovo Y700 will not disappoint you, if you are willing to compromise on its moderate battery life. Serious gamers can give this one a skip and consider the MSI GE62VR 6RF that is comparatively expensive, but features a Pascal based NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 GPU.
The Lenovo Y700’s brushed aluminum body is bathed in black with pattern lines running across. The area around the hinge has an angular shape towards the edges which bends downwards.
You also have a black mesh over a red base spilling over to the back on both ends with a spiral design on the center that houses the main vents. The hinge is sturdy and holds the display in place, eliminating any flex. On the front, you have four activity indicators for power, hard drive, trackpad and battery.
On opening the laptop, the tapered angular edges are more prominent. You have the same black mesh design continued to the top of the edges which house the speakers. The soft rubberised plastic around the keyboard and the trackpad has a very pleasant feel to it. The brushed aluminium bottom houses a subwoofer, a large area covered with vents for cooling, and rubber grips. Weighing in at under 3kgs, the laptop is deceptively heavy.
With large build, comes no compromise on ports. Lenovo Y700 bundles in 2 x USB 3.0, 1 x USB 2.0, 1 full sized HDMI, 1 x Gigabit Ethernet, Kensington security lock, 2-in-1 combo audio jack, full sized SD card reader, 802.11ac Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.0 connectivity. Coming from Lenovo, the Y700 features its proprietary reversible charging port and the OneKey Recovery.
With USB Type-C ports becoming more common these days, we would have welcomed the inclusion of one along with the option for another video output.
With a 1920 x 1080 resolution on this full HD screen, the Lenovo Y700’s 15.6-inch IPS display boasts a refresh rate of 60Hz. The bezels are thicker than one would have preferred, but the display included is a frameless one, like the kind seen on touchscreen displays.
The display is an IPS one so you don’t have to worry about colour shift. The display is adequately bright, however you can see minor bleeding towards the top right and bottom left. Overall, it's a pleasant display, however, it would have been great if Lenovo would have included a G-Sync option. Lenovo has since added a 17.3-inch screen option and the website offers an Ultra-HD option as well.
Lenovo has bundled in a full-sized island style keyboard with a number pad to the right. While they haven’t gone for mechanical or hybrid options with the Y700, the keyboard has good tactile feedback and an acceptable level of key travel. The keyboard is backlit and comes with two brightness levels.
The trackpad is also placed at a comfortable position and comes with support for all Windows 10 gestures. There were no unexpected cursor jumps and the matte surface is quite precise. The trackpad integrates the left and the right click buttons which, while fairly responsive, we would have preferred two separate buttons.
The Y700 has Intel’s RealSense 3D camera which comes with a depth sensor so you can use your hand or facial expressions to interact with the laptop.
The Lenovo Y700 scored considerably better than the Dell Inspiron 15 7559 in all the 3DMark tests. The laptop comfortably handles popular as well as resource hungry games at 1080P resolution at 30fps without breaking a sweat.
The dual speaker setup along with a bottom-facing subwoofer setup powered by JBL is one of the strong points of the Lenovo Y700. The speakers are loud, clear and distortion free even at the highest volume. Lenovo has also bundled Dolby’s Audio software which comes with five audio presets and a personalised equalizer.
The 4 cell 60WH battery lasted for two and half hours in our battery tests under high performance and full brightness. This is the only test where the Lenovo Y700’s direct competitor – the Dell Inspiron 15 7559 outlasted it, by 28 minutes. Lenovo claims that the battery lasts upto 5 hours, but for that you might have to compromise on brightness levels and stick to some power saving tips.
The laptop’s average temperature remained below 52 degrees, and didn’t go over 60 degrees when under heavy loads and during long gaming sessions. The laptop isn’t too noisy but can get a little warm around the center of the keyboard.
Priced at Rs.105,890, the Lenovo Y700 offers you a good IPS display, excellent day-to-day task and multimedia performance, acceptable entry-level gaming results and a solid as well as stylish build. If you are under a tight budget, the Lenovo Y700 will not disappoint you, if you are willing to compromise on its moderate battery life. Serious gamers can give this one a skip and consider the MSI GE62VR 6RF that is comparatively expensive, but features a Pascal based NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 GPU.
Processor: Intel Core i7 6700HQ Processor
Display: 15.6-inch Full HD IPS Anti-Glare display
Discrete Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960M 4GB
Memory: 16GB
Operating System: Windows 10 Home
Storage: 128GB SSD + 1TB HDD
Audio: 2 x JBL Speakers with + Subwoofer and Dolby Home Theater