Lenovo B50-30 review

The Lenovo's main attraction is its price, but it's surprisingly impressive in other areas. It's a smart, subtle system that's thin and light enough to carry, and its keyboard and trackpad are good enough to be used for work.

The budget is obvious elsewhere. There's only enough power to handle basic tasks, the screen is dreadful, and battery life is average. It's a good buy at £199, but if you have a little more cash the Toshiba Satellite C50 has more power and a brighter, more accurate screen.

We liked

The keyboard has a good layout, and a comfortable, responsive typing action – this may be a budget system, but the keyboard is good enough to allow for plenty of work. The trackpad is just as impressive.

The exterior isn't flashy, but it's a smart and subtle system that outdoes the cheap-and-nasty feel of many rivals. It's slim and light, too, so this 15.6-inch machine can be carried around day-to-day.

We disliked

The Intel Celeron processor has enough power for basic tasks, but that's it – across all of our benchmarks, the Lenovo's AMD-powered competition proved faster.

The screen lacks quality, too: its poor contrast, brightness and colour accuracy mean the Lenovo's 15.6-inch panel is only capable of basic tasks.

The Lenovo's battery lasted for longer than its rivals, but longevity is still mediocre, and you'll need a power point to do a full day's work.

Final verdict

This isn't the kind of machine designed for high-intensity gaming or tough work applications, and that's clear from the benchmark results – the Lenovo B50's processor and screen are only able to cope with basic, general computing.

The keyboard is good, it's reasonably well-built, and battery life is a little better than rivals. This machine is a good budget buy if the superior Toshiba Satellite C50 is too expensive.