lenovo1Lenovo is known for producing value for money laptops and G Series laptops from them won people’s acclaim for that. The budget minded mainstream notebook packs a decent sized 15.6 inch display, Intel Pentium Dual Core Processor and 3 GB DDR3 RAM for a standard configuration. The price of around $500 may seem netbookish but the display size and performance is no nonsense. Let us take a closer look at the laptop to find out if they have omitted anything important to cut down the price.

Design

The laptop is built with total plastic materials which is acceptable for a budget notebook. However, the design looks very classy from the outside with a black weave pattern on it. The plastic body is also strong enough to withstand some pressure and there is hardly any notable flex when we tried to put pressure on some of the key weak design areas such as the back of the screen or the palm rests. Overall, we are quite satisfied with the design or build quality.

Performance

The standard system comes with a Intel Pentium Dual Core T4200 processor clocking at 2.0 GHz with 1 MB L2 cache and 800 MHz FSB. The 3GB DDR3 1066 MHz DDR3 RAM is also enough for all of your necessities of a basic machine like surfing web, playing SD or HD movies and playing some 2D games. The graphics performance of the Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 4500 MHD is also satisfactory unless you are going to play 3D games on it. The 250 GB Western Digital 5400 rpm HDD or Super Multi DVD RW Drive is also quite fast to go with.
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Display

The display has a good size of 15.6 inches showing 1366 X 768 pixels in standard 16 : 9 aspect ratio. The screen is a glossy one showing lots of bright colors and contrast but as with other glossy displays, the display glare on brightly lit environments like in the office makes it very annoying to see things on the screen. The horizontal viewing angle was very good to share the screen with a couple of your friends but the vertical viewing angle is not that much good.

Keyboard

We were always a fan of the lenovo laptop keyboards for their durability and smoothness. This keyboard is no exception to that rule. The keys have good smooth travel and feedback. The light matte finish of the keys also feel good to the fingertips. There were also a numberpad beside the keypad which is very rare to see in notebook keyboards these days.
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TouchPad

The touchpad, on the other hand was not that much impressive. The touchpad sensitivity is on the lower side and it was a little annoying to find that the movement of the cursor on the screen is actually lagging your finger movement on the touchpad. However, the buttons were comfortable with a nice click sound when pressed.

Ports

The laptop has an USB, Optical Drive and the AC Power jack on the right side and a Kensington lock slot, LAN, VGA and another two USB Port on the left. The wireless on/off switch and headphone and microphone jacks are on the front and there are no ports on the back. We do not expect HDMI or a FireWire port from a budget priced notebook but at least another USB Port was expected from a 15 inch notebook. Also, there is no Express card Slot or Memory Card reader slot to be found on it. We have to say that the laptop only has bare minimal ports leaving the place to be wanting for more.
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Audio

We do not expect thumping bass from a budget notebook like this and it turned to be exactly matching our expectation. There was no bass at all but the overall sound is good enough to conduct a webchat. Playing music on the device sounded a bit tiny and a good pair of headphones is recommended as is always.

Battery Life

The system comes with a 5 cell 48 W-Hr battery which is enough for running the system for more than four hours in low to moderate usage with screen brightness turned down. Expect the system to run at least 3 hours with heavy usage and bright screen.
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Pros

  • Very good performance for a Budget notebook
  • Good Design and Build
  • Nice Keyboard

Cons

  • Ports selection is bare minimal
  • TouchPad sensitivity is not satisfactory
  • Average Display

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Conclusion

The Lenovo G550 is a solid budget notebook with decent performance. If you can withstand with the unresponsive touchpad and don’t need more port than what it has, it is recommended for those who are looking for a mainstream computer on budget.