Quick look at Essentials G570 (9 photos)

[uberT]

I purchased this Lenovo G570 (4334-4QU) for my son this past week, it's a replacement for his Toshiba netbook, which is just too small to do much of anything. This unit has Win7 Home Premium and 4 GB RAM (DDR3 1333), 1/2 TB hard drive, 5400 rpm. Chip is INTEL Dual Core Pentium B940 (2GHz). I've stuck with the IBM/Lenovo brand over the years because we've had great service and I'm a person who appreciates the familiarity factor. I bought from Newegg and it was $399 delivered, which is quite the value given the machine's performance.

I'm not a fan of the numeric keypad being added to the right side of the keyboard, it makes the machine unnecessarily wide, IMO, and the off-center touch pad bugs me. I see that machines in this price range from the other mfrs are configured the same. What's the deal? Is everyone becoming an accountant where they need that keypad hung on the side???

Getting beyond that, the machine initially seems great, the keyboard is nice and it's quiet. It does not feel terribly cheap like the competitors can. The keys have kind of an unusual, cureved shape to them - - easier (for me) to type on.

Let's face it, this machine is not a bargain T-series priced at $400, nobody will mistake it for that. This series of machine is built to a price point and you'll know it. I'm starting to wonder if these things are being cranked out on an assembly line somewhere in China that produces the Toshiba, Acer, Asus, etc. They are striking similarities and I notice on the box that it says "Made for Lenovo". I've worked on a couple of competitive machines and this feels and looks very similar. The one thing I do notice about the Lenovo is the level of performance and speed on the internet are quite a bit better. Considering these other machines tend to be in the $400 - $500 range, this particular Lenovo G series looks like quite the bargain. I fiddled around on a couple of my photo programs last night and I've never seen these memory-intensive programs run like this. Faster than anything else I can compare it to.

The other thing I find strange about this Lenovo "Essential" laptop is the fact I don't recognize a single OEM program on it. Everything is new and different. What I find very odd is that it doesn't have System Update, unless it's labeled something else. When I go to the Lenovo website and enter the 4334-4QU machine number, their system draws a blank like it doesn't exist. After some more fooling around, I came across the web-based serial number reader (ActiveX control) and it did find the machine and reported no updates available. Kind of strange, very crude interface on the part of Lenovo. That was a disappointment.

The shipping carton is cheap, and Newegg's packing it into a larger box really left something to be desired given the fact that UPS was taking it from the left coast to the right coast. Upon opening the Lenovo box you find some packing material, the computer, battery power cord and a short manual. And that's it!

The only other thing I'll fuss about is the optical media drive "drawer". Boy, it's cheap, almost to the point of being a concern. When I took it out of the box, I noticed the bezel was loose in one corner. I thought it was broken, but was able to get it re-seated and locked back into place.

I ran that "Windows Experience" evaluator thing and this machine clocked in at "5.3", which is pretty good based upon the scores I've seen other machines put up.

The VGA screen is bright, glossy, 15.6" HD, 1366x768. No issues viewing it under bright ambient light. Sound quality is decent, I've heard better, I've heard worse. However, volume can be cranked up loud!

There's a boot optimizer program that speeds up the process. You get to the desktop and are ready to go with a very brief wait. I like that





Width compared to my T61 (14.1"):



Touch pad has a designated scrolling zone at the right edge:





This processor must run very cool. The exhaust output temp doesn't even feel warm.





Lenovo face recognition software can be used to log on vs. entering a password. Some report it being not secure at all:

[ZaZ]

Nice pics. My X220i came with the LCD bezel not quite snapped in all the way. I popped it back and it didn't seem any worse for the experience.

[pianowizard]

I'm starting to wonder if these things are being cranked out on an assembly line somewhere in China that produces the Toshiba, Acer, Asus, etc. They are striking similarities and I notice on the box that it says "Made for Lenovo".

These days, the vast majority of laptops are assembled by Compal, Quanta, Foxconn and Wistron. However, many super-budget laptops are not only assembled by these factories, but actually *designed* by them as well. Lenovo, HP, Toshiba etc. just add their logos to these laptops. For this reason, when shopping for a sub-$400 laptop, brand is pretty much irrelevant.

I believe that Samsung is the only major laptop brand that manufactures all of its own laptops.

[uberT]

Thanks, Fred. And I'm hoping this G series will stand up to the abuse given out by my son!

Pianowizard, thanks for clarifying that. It certainly is in alignment with the impression I've come away with. Perhaps there really isn't much "Lenovo" in this device at all. However, at this price point, my expectations are more modest.

[rzr]

Can you report your bios Version on g570 ?

do your fan ever stop ? not on my g470 running debian

Stay tuned