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I sometimes avoid reviewing certain products when I know the internet has a

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massive raging hard on for them. If I like it, then I'm not telling anyone

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anything they don't already know. And if I don't like it, then I get to deal with

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a bunch of vitriol just for having a contrary opinion. Not worth it. I don't

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need a few video views that badly. That's actually why I've never reviewed

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the Audio Technica ATTHM50s. I have a pair. They're good for the money, but

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they don't blow me away or anything. So, that along with not having a contact for

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review samples is actually the reason that I hadn't planned on reviewing the

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Lenovo Y50 up until now. I thought everyone knew about it and loved it

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already until I tweeted that I was looking into it and someone said,

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"Lenovo does cases." What? And I was like, "No." So, I resolved to double my

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efforts to get one. And here it is. So, let's get this show on the road.

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The Flash Voyager GTX USB3 drive from Corsair provides SSD- like performance

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and fits comfortably in your pocket. Click now to learn more. Lenovo

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classifies the Y50 as a gaming essentials model. And honestly, I would

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agree with that if it wasn't so darn good at everything else. But let's back

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up for a second. We'll start with a physical tour. The top has a striking

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brushed finish that manages to be clean and professional while hinting at the

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horsepower underneath. And the bottom looks the same, adorned only by a

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subwoofer for the shockingly good JBL designed audio system, as well as a

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large air intake. The front has the usual indicator LEDs for power and

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whatnot. The right side has a Kensington lock, a USB 2 port, an SD reader, a

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headset jack, and a spit of audio output. Then the left side has two USB 3

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ports, an HDMI output that I wish was DisplayPort, a gigabit Ethernet port,

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and a reversible power jack. Back to how to categorize this notebook, though.

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It's not just for gamers. It's more of a sensible option for pretty much anyone

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who doesn't mind the size kind of thing, if if that was a category. Even though

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it is a bit on the big side with sizable bezels around the screen, I feel like it

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compensates by weighing only 5.3 lbs and being a mere 0.9 in thick. Both very

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reasonable values for a 15.6 6 in notebook. And it also helps me forgive

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the size to see Lenovo use that space to equip this bad boy with one of the best

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keyboards that I've ever used on a gaming notebook. It's got a striking red

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backlight and matte wrist rest. Commits no cardinal sins like short shifts or

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backspace keys. Includes a full number pad for productivity. Has correctly laid

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out arrow keys. And most importantly, the tactile feedback is excellent. My

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two complaints are that it lacks mute and media control keys. even with a

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function modifier. And the tops of the key caps are a little bit slippery out

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of the box. But that didn't prevent me from being at full speed within 2

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minutes of using it. Although, given how many business notebooks Lenovo makes, I

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guess it shouldn't surprise me that much that they know a thing or two about how to make a keyboard. It's just a shame

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that this didn't carry over to the touchpad. To be clear, there are some

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really good things about it. It almost never misinterprets multi-touch and

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Windows 8 gestures, a big problem with my XPS that forced me to disable them

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all. The positioning is perfect, allowing me to easily type without

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touching it. And whenever I intentionally brush my palms on it to

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test it, it did a great job of palm rejection. Tracking and the Surface

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finish are all right. But even with all those positives in mind, I wasn't a huge

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fan of using the mouse pad two-handed with clicks often registering as

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downward movements. And the overall fit and finish left a fair bit to be desired

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for me with some noticeable rattling when using Tap to Click. and the

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clickpad functionality on the rest of the pad being extremely inconsistent

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with the middle requiring a little bit of force and the edges

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much more. I guess it makes sense that there would have to be at least a few

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compromises like this on a notebook that costs anywhere from around $1,000 to

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around $1,500 and delivers these kinds of specs, though. The $1,300 model on

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Amazon has a Core i7 2.4 4 GHz quad core, 16 gigs of RAM, a GTX 860M with 2

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gigs of RAM, a 256 gig SSD, and last but not least, a 4K IPS display. I mean,

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think about that. For less than the cost of buying a 4K IPS monitor, you can buy

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an entire notebook with one attached to it. The world is a funny place. Speaking

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of the 4K display, what a great value. My unit even has a touchcreen, although

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a quick search on Newegg didn't reveal an option available like that, so your

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mileage may vary. But back to how it looks, it's beautiful. No, it's not

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perfect. Mine has some noticeable backlight bleed, especially along the

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left edge. But man, that kind of pixel density is amazing, even with my nose 10

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cm from the screen. Correctly scaled text looks astoundingly crisp. Viewing

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angles are easily suitable for sitting and watching 4K videos with a group of

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friends with no one getting a crappy view or lousy colors and doing my usual

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drag Windows around and see how noticeable motion blur is. quick and

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dirty test didn't reveal anything unexpected given that we know it won't

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have the same speed and responsiveness of a TN panel. Now, I've seen a lot of

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people online being very harshly critical of Lenovo's use of a 48 Hz

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display here instead of a 60 Hz one, but to be honest, it doesn't bother me that

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much. 30 Hz is unbearable, but I've used 50 Hz by accident on my computer before.

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And while things do feel a little bit off, and I I'll notice, and I'll change

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it back eventually, it never really bothers me in 2D work. And frankly, in

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games, your IPS panel, slow response time, and GTX 860M are going to likely

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be bigger performance bottlenecks than the maximum refresh rate of your screen

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being 48 hertz, especially if you're gaming at 4K. Which leads us nicely into

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the overall gaming experience, which

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isn't as seamless as I think it needs to be. While more casual games like Dirt 3

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were actually playable at 4K on high settings with minimum frame rates around

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30 FPS, hardcore titles are not going to

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run at that resolution, which wouldn't be a problem except that due to the way

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Intel's driver handles scaling on this display when you're running at native

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resolution, DirectX11 games, the ones that I tried anyway, will run at the

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resolution you set, like 1080p, in the middle of the screen with black bars

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around them. There are a couple of workarounds, but the first is to force

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the lower fidelity DirectX9 render path, which can involve weird config file or

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registry edits. So, not everyone will want to do that. And the second involves

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changing the desktop resolution, which will likely require you to change the

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text scaling, which by default is set to the maximum and will push a bunch of UI

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elements off screen. So then in order to do that, you have to log out of Windows

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and log back in every time you want to

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run a DirectX11 game at 1080p.

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I hope a driver can fix this, but given that the NVIDIA control panel doesn't

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control display scaling in dual graphics mode, and the most recent Intel graphics

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drivers validated for this model are over 3 months old, I don't know if I

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would hold my breath for that fix. But

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and there are some other issues too, like the GPU power limit throttling that

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occurs sometimes when gaming at high settings on battery, causing large frame

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rate fluctuations, even when I set the NVIDIA control panel to prefer maximum

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performance for the GPU. It's not all bad or anything, though. The battery

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lasts for over an hour of straight gaming and about 4 hours doing other

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things, an acceptable result. And the system runs really cool with neither the

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CPU nor the GPU reaching over 70° even

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after an hour straight gaming and only the top of the keyboard between the E

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and Y keys developing a bit of a toasty hot spot. Something that really didn't

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affect me much. The problem is I just don't think these things are enough to

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turn my conclusion into a super positive one. The Y50, at least the 4K model,

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just isn't easy for me to recommend as a gaming notebook. Honestly, it's issues.

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most of which are relating to the cutting edge screen are not Lenovo's

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fault. It's hardware or driver limitations that are beyond their

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control. But for the customer spending his or her own real money on the product

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that says Lenovo on it, I don't know how much that matters. With that said, while

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gaming on the Y50 had problems, other than the frustrating touchpad, it was a

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pleasure to use in every other way. So, I still have no problem recommending it

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as a powerful CUDA capable productivity and multimedia notebook. It delivers

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astounding specs, great build quality, a fantastic keyboard, a rich content

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enjoyment experience, basic gaming functionality, and to my eyes, beautiful

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stealthy looks, and it does it all at a price that real people can afford. So, I

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have to give kudos to Lenovo for all of that. But as a gamer, I feel like option

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one is settling for the 1080p model with the much less beautiful screen. And

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option two is waiting for either a driver fix for this one or a next

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generation product to iron out the wrinkles, which is IMO not a terrible

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choice because once they fix that stuff, this baby is going to be really hard to

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beat. Speaking of hard to beat, audible.com's massive selection of over

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150,000 audio books. Embarrassingly enough, I still haven't gotten around to

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reading The Fault in Our Stars by John Green, someone whose work I admire very

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much. So, when it came time to pick this month's audio book, and I had Sihow open

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in another tab, I was like, "Oh, snap. Hank Green is hosting that. I still

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haven't read his brother's latest critically acclaimed book. Got to pick that up." And that's basically how the

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monthly audiobook membership works. You sign up to get your first book for free,

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and then every month after that, you get one included with your membership and discounts on additional audiobooks.

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Check it out now at audible.com/lininus.

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Guys, thank you for watching. Like if you liked, dislike if you disliked. Leave a comment letting me know what you

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thought of the video, future video suggestions, all that good stuff. Don't

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forget to check out the support us link in the video description. You can buy a sweet t-shirt like this one. You can

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change your Amazon bookmark to one with our affiliate code in it, so we get a small kickback. And if you love us so

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much that you need to contribute to us making more videos about notebooks like

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this, then you can also give us a monthly contribution outright, which we

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will appreciate very much and love you long time for. Thank you. That's not

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very politically correct. Has this show ever been politically correct?

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I think we're done here.

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Heat.