Lenovo Y50 - 4K Performance All-around Notebook
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2015-05-07
·
2,063 words · ~10 min read
0:00
I sometimes avoid reviewing certain products when I know the internet has a
0:04
massive raging hard on for them. If I like it, then I'm not telling anyone
0:08
anything they don't already know. And if I don't like it, then I get to deal with
0:11
a bunch of vitriol just for having a contrary opinion. Not worth it. I don't
0:15
need a few video views that badly. That's actually why I've never reviewed
0:18
the Audio Technica ATTHM50s. I have a pair. They're good for the money, but
0:23
they don't blow me away or anything. So, that along with not having a contact for
0:27
review samples is actually the reason that I hadn't planned on reviewing the
0:31
Lenovo Y50 up until now. I thought everyone knew about it and loved it
0:34
already until I tweeted that I was looking into it and someone said,
0:38
"Lenovo does cases." What? And I was like, "No." So, I resolved to double my
0:44
efforts to get one. And here it is. So, let's get this show on the road.
0:54
The Flash Voyager GTX USB3 drive from Corsair provides SSD- like performance
0:59
and fits comfortably in your pocket. Click now to learn more. Lenovo
1:02
classifies the Y50 as a gaming essentials model. And honestly, I would
1:07
agree with that if it wasn't so darn good at everything else. But let's back
1:12
up for a second. We'll start with a physical tour. The top has a striking
1:16
brushed finish that manages to be clean and professional while hinting at the
1:20
horsepower underneath. And the bottom looks the same, adorned only by a
1:24
subwoofer for the shockingly good JBL designed audio system, as well as a
1:29
large air intake. The front has the usual indicator LEDs for power and
1:33
whatnot. The right side has a Kensington lock, a USB 2 port, an SD reader, a
1:37
headset jack, and a spit of audio output. Then the left side has two USB 3
1:41
ports, an HDMI output that I wish was DisplayPort, a gigabit Ethernet port,
1:45
and a reversible power jack. Back to how to categorize this notebook, though.
1:50
It's not just for gamers. It's more of a sensible option for pretty much anyone
1:54
who doesn't mind the size kind of thing, if if that was a category. Even though
1:57
it is a bit on the big side with sizable bezels around the screen, I feel like it
2:02
compensates by weighing only 5.3 lbs and being a mere 0.9 in thick. Both very
2:06
reasonable values for a 15.6 6 in notebook. And it also helps me forgive
2:10
the size to see Lenovo use that space to equip this bad boy with one of the best
2:15
keyboards that I've ever used on a gaming notebook. It's got a striking red
2:19
backlight and matte wrist rest. Commits no cardinal sins like short shifts or
2:24
backspace keys. Includes a full number pad for productivity. Has correctly laid
2:28
out arrow keys. And most importantly, the tactile feedback is excellent. My
2:34
two complaints are that it lacks mute and media control keys. even with a
2:38
function modifier. And the tops of the key caps are a little bit slippery out
2:42
of the box. But that didn't prevent me from being at full speed within 2
2:46
minutes of using it. Although, given how many business notebooks Lenovo makes, I
2:49
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
2:53
that this didn't carry over to the touchpad. To be clear, there are some
2:58
really good things about it. It almost never misinterprets multi-touch and
3:02
Windows 8 gestures, a big problem with my XPS that forced me to disable them
3:06
all. The positioning is perfect, allowing me to easily type without
3:10
touching it. And whenever I intentionally brush my palms on it to
3:13
test it, it did a great job of palm rejection. Tracking and the Surface
3:17
finish are all right. But even with all those positives in mind, I wasn't a huge
3:23
fan of using the mouse pad two-handed with clicks often registering as
3:28
downward movements. And the overall fit and finish left a fair bit to be desired
3:32
for me with some noticeable rattling when using Tap to Click. and the
3:36
clickpad functionality on the rest of the pad being extremely inconsistent
3:40
with the middle requiring a little bit of force and the edges
3:46
much more. I guess it makes sense that there would have to be at least a few
3:49
compromises like this on a notebook that costs anywhere from around $1,000 to
3:53
around $1,500 and delivers these kinds of specs, though. The $1,300 model on
3:58
Amazon has a Core i7 2.4 4 GHz quad core, 16 gigs of RAM, a GTX 860M with 2
4:02
gigs of RAM, a 256 gig SSD, and last but not least, a 4K IPS display. I mean,
4:09
think about that. For less than the cost of buying a 4K IPS monitor, you can buy
4:14
an entire notebook with one attached to it. The world is a funny place. Speaking
4:18
of the 4K display, what a great value. My unit even has a touchcreen, although
4:23
a quick search on Newegg didn't reveal an option available like that, so your
4:26
mileage may vary. But back to how it looks, it's beautiful. No, it's not
4:31
perfect. Mine has some noticeable backlight bleed, especially along the
4:34
left edge. But man, that kind of pixel density is amazing, even with my nose 10
4:40
cm from the screen. Correctly scaled text looks astoundingly crisp. Viewing
4:45
angles are easily suitable for sitting and watching 4K videos with a group of
4:48
friends with no one getting a crappy view or lousy colors and doing my usual
4:53
drag Windows around and see how noticeable motion blur is. quick and
4:57
dirty test didn't reveal anything unexpected given that we know it won't
5:01
have the same speed and responsiveness of a TN panel. Now, I've seen a lot of
5:06
people online being very harshly critical of Lenovo's use of a 48 Hz
5:10
display here instead of a 60 Hz one, but to be honest, it doesn't bother me that
5:15
much. 30 Hz is unbearable, but I've used 50 Hz by accident on my computer before.
5:20
And while things do feel a little bit off, and I I'll notice, and I'll change
5:24
it back eventually, it never really bothers me in 2D work. And frankly, in
5:29
games, your IPS panel, slow response time, and GTX 860M are going to likely
5:35
be bigger performance bottlenecks than the maximum refresh rate of your screen
5:39
being 48 hertz, especially if you're gaming at 4K. Which leads us nicely into
5:44
the overall gaming experience, which
5:47
isn't as seamless as I think it needs to be. While more casual games like Dirt 3
5:53
were actually playable at 4K on high settings with minimum frame rates around
5:57
30 FPS, hardcore titles are not going to
6:00
run at that resolution, which wouldn't be a problem except that due to the way
6:05
Intel's driver handles scaling on this display when you're running at native
6:09
resolution, DirectX11 games, the ones that I tried anyway, will run at the
6:14
resolution you set, like 1080p, in the middle of the screen with black bars
6:19
around them. There are a couple of workarounds, but the first is to force
6:24
the lower fidelity DirectX9 render path, which can involve weird config file or
6:28
registry edits. So, not everyone will want to do that. And the second involves
6:32
changing the desktop resolution, which will likely require you to change the
6:36
text scaling, which by default is set to the maximum and will push a bunch of UI
6:40
elements off screen. So then in order to do that, you have to log out of Windows
6:44
and log back in every time you want to
6:47
run a DirectX11 game at 1080p.
6:50
I hope a driver can fix this, but given that the NVIDIA control panel doesn't
6:55
control display scaling in dual graphics mode, and the most recent Intel graphics
6:59
drivers validated for this model are over 3 months old, I don't know if I
7:03
would hold my breath for that fix. But
7:06
and there are some other issues too, like the GPU power limit throttling that
7:11
occurs sometimes when gaming at high settings on battery, causing large frame
7:15
rate fluctuations, even when I set the NVIDIA control panel to prefer maximum
7:19
performance for the GPU. It's not all bad or anything, though. The battery
7:23
lasts for over an hour of straight gaming and about 4 hours doing other
7:27
things, an acceptable result. And the system runs really cool with neither the
7:32
CPU nor the GPU reaching over 70° even
7:35
after an hour straight gaming and only the top of the keyboard between the E
7:39
and Y keys developing a bit of a toasty hot spot. Something that really didn't
7:43
affect me much. The problem is I just don't think these things are enough to
7:48
turn my conclusion into a super positive one. The Y50, at least the 4K model,
7:53
just isn't easy for me to recommend as a gaming notebook. Honestly, it's issues.
7:59
most of which are relating to the cutting edge screen are not Lenovo's
8:03
fault. It's hardware or driver limitations that are beyond their
8:06
control. But for the customer spending his or her own real money on the product
8:12
that says Lenovo on it, I don't know how much that matters. With that said, while
8:16
gaming on the Y50 had problems, other than the frustrating touchpad, it was a
8:21
pleasure to use in every other way. So, I still have no problem recommending it
8:26
as a powerful CUDA capable productivity and multimedia notebook. It delivers
8:31
astounding specs, great build quality, a fantastic keyboard, a rich content
8:36
enjoyment experience, basic gaming functionality, and to my eyes, beautiful
8:40
stealthy looks, and it does it all at a price that real people can afford. So, I
8:45
have to give kudos to Lenovo for all of that. But as a gamer, I feel like option
8:50
one is settling for the 1080p model with the much less beautiful screen. And
8:54
option two is waiting for either a driver fix for this one or a next
8:58
generation product to iron out the wrinkles, which is IMO not a terrible
9:03
choice because once they fix that stuff, this baby is going to be really hard to
9:08
beat. Speaking of hard to beat, audible.com's massive selection of over
9:12
150,000 audio books. Embarrassingly enough, I still haven't gotten around to
9:16
reading The Fault in Our Stars by John Green, someone whose work I admire very
9:20
much. So, when it came time to pick this month's audio book, and I had Sihow open
9:23
in another tab, I was like, "Oh, snap. Hank Green is hosting that. I still
9:28
haven't read his brother's latest critically acclaimed book. Got to pick that up." And that's basically how the
9:32
monthly audiobook membership works. You sign up to get your first book for free,
9:36
and then every month after that, you get one included with your membership and discounts on additional audiobooks.
9:41
Check it out now at audible.com/lininus.
9:44
Guys, thank you for watching. Like if you liked, dislike if you disliked. Leave a comment letting me know what you
9:48
thought of the video, future video suggestions, all that good stuff. Don't
9:52
forget to check out the support us link in the video description. You can buy a sweet t-shirt like this one. You can
9:56
change your Amazon bookmark to one with our affiliate code in it, so we get a small kickback. And if you love us so
10:01
much that you need to contribute to us making more videos about notebooks like
10:05
this, then you can also give us a monthly contribution outright, which we
10:08
will appreciate very much and love you long time for. Thank you. That's not
10:13
very politically correct. Has this show ever been politically correct?
10:18
I think we're done here.
10:37
Heat.