Pros: Affordable price, solid build, upgradable 4 GB of RAM, Windows 10 pre-installed.
Cons: Not built for gaming.
There are two kinds of people: those who need a powerhouse laptop and those who don't. This laptop is for the latter and it's just one more within an ever emerging trend of laptops that seek to catch the "chromebook market" and point them towards a cheaper yet more "complete" windows alternative.
Today we're going to take a moment to review the Lenovo G50 - 80E301Y7US, a very cheap laptop that stands out thanks to its upgradable RAM, AMD E1-6100 processor and, of course, its integration of Windows 10 right off the bat that saves you the hassle of buying a Windows 8 laptop and having to do a manual upgrade.
Lenovo G50 - 80E301Y7US, An affordable laptop for everyone
Display and Build
Let's not beat around the bush, the Lenovo G50 - 80E301Y7US isn't a particularly attractive laptop in terms of design. It pulls of a sober look that doesn't seek to impress us but rather show us that it's just another laptop in the lineup. This is not necessarily a bad thing since most people quite simply do not care if their laptop is "pretty" or not, as they would with other devices.
Lenovo's new launch offers a standard 15.6 inch LED display with a resolution of 1366 by 768 pixels. It's not the Full HD resolution that you can find in other slightly more expensive models but it's still within the norm of what you'll find in most laptops in the market.
The weight and thickness of this model also moves within the boundaries of what's "normal" for a 15.6 inch laptop. That is: 5.5 pounds and 0.98 inches.
What's the processor like? How does it deal with multitasking?
For most people these will be the most important questions when they look to buy an affordable laptop such as this one. It's something that must be considered carefully since it will determine the "fate" of the laptop.
In this specific case we've got an AMD E1-6010 processor that clocks in at 1.35 GHz running on two cores with 1 MB of cache. If you come from Intel processors, this would be comparable in terms of performance to what you can expect from an Intel Celeron N2840.
Translation; a CPU aimed at domestic use like browsing the web, chatting with friends, watching movies and so forth.
In regards to the system memory, the 80E301Y7US arrives with 4 GB of RAM which quite honestly is what we expected given that we're talking about a budget laptop. The RAM may be upgraded but if you're going to use this laptop mainly to do the things mentioned above you need not bother since 4 GB should fit the bill quite fine.
All in all, the combo set up by the processor and RAM offer us a very clear view of what Lenovo's intentions were when creating this laptop, AKA; it was looking to create a domestic laptop ideal for simple computing tasks like browsing the web, editing documents and such.
Will it play games?
As you might've expected given the price point and the processor in place, this is not a gaming laptop. Far from it, it comes with an AMD Radeon R4 integrated graphics card and it might play well with games such as minecraft at minimum setting but overall I wouldn't buy this laptop with games in mind.
How many movies can I save? How's the battery life?
Storage for the Lenovo G50 - 80E301Y7US is within what we can expect for an entry level machine such as this one. Which basically means a 500 GB hard drive that operates under your standard speed of 5400 rpm. As stated, this is typical within entry level models and if we assume an average HD movie to weigh roughly 700 MB and remove the OS from the equation, this comes up to around 600 movies.
In regards to the battery life, we've got a 4 cell battery which should offer us anywhere between 4 to 5 hours of performance. This, of course, varies according to the use we give the laptop and since there's no "official word" from Lenovo as to what's the official battery life, i wouldn't expect it to go beyond the 5 hours.
What are the connectivity options?
If there's a couple of things that are common across the board when you look at laptops; it's the connectivity options. Most laptops feature mainly the same set of options and the G50 - 80E301Y7US is no exception.
To the point, we've got 3 USB ports, an HDMI port, VGA port, an ethernet port, Bluetooth and, of course, WiFi. There's also a DVD burner, webcam and Dolby technology speakers. As I said, this is the standard set of connectivity options for most laptops.
Wrapping things up; should I buy this laptop?
If you're looking for a laptop to do some simple computing tasks such as skyping with friends, editing docs, surfing the web and watching HD movies then this laptop won't disappoint you. It's built to do just that. However, if your needs go beyond that and you need to use heavy graphics software or you're into playing games then this laptop will fall short pretty fast.
After doing our due diligence in our review of the Lenovo G50 - 80E301Y7US that's what we would have to say about it. It's a good laptop if you use it for what it was intended to be used for, if you expect to edit 4K video and play a fluid Witcher 3 then you're in for a disappointment and don't say we didn't tell you so.