Lenovo Ideapad Y700 review

We liked

From performance to looks, it's hard to beat the Lenovo Ideapad Y700. It's inexpensive without feeling cheap, and it runs modern games at decent settings. The screen is bright and doesn't pick up reflections, helping both games and movies look their best. Where it really shines is battery life, making it a reasonably portable gaming machine for those on-the-go.

We disliked

While it still beats the HP Pavilion Gaming Laptop and the Dell Inspiron 15 7000 by the simple fact it even has an SSD,128GB just isn't enough room for games to benefit from the faster loading times flash storage affords. A terabyte of storage is great, but running huge games off a slower, 5400 RPM hard drive makes for some really long loading times.

Final verdict

From a strict performance standpoint, the Lenovo Ideapad Y700 rises above both the Pavilion and the Inspiron. Its design unmistakably marks it as a gaming laptop, with just enough flourish and angularity to let everyone know your computer is primarily means business.

At $1,149 (£1,099, AU$2,999), the Y700 is priced a little above the Pavilion, but you get a better battery and the benefit of an SSD. It also has twice the RAM, which helps keep things running well. For anyone looking to get into PC gaming, or for an established gamer looking for a second computer for on-the-go gaming, the Lenovo Ideapad Y700 is a good value with great battery life.