Lenovo is better known for its famous Thinkpad series business notebooks. However, of late Lenovo has produced some excellent consumer laptops as well. The Lenovo G570 I’m reviewing here is one such consumer laptop which efficiently carries out general computing tasks. Lenovo G570 is an ideal budget laptop targeted at a home user.

Design and build quality
The Lenovo G570 looks quite simple and bland from outside. The lid of the laptop comes in dark brown colour with a glossy finish and the inside has a brushed-metallic look. The glossy lid is a finger print magnet, but the interiors of the laptop looks much better with the metallic finish. The build quality of the laptop is excellent which gives a feel that it can survive some abuse. The quality is reflected in the keyboard as well, which shows no flex when typing. Laptop isn’t light weight and weights around 2.6 kg without charger, but the notebook feels strong and sturdy. The laptop is 1.5 inch thick, which is acceptable for the category of the laptop.

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Lenovo G570 43347UU 15.6-Inch Laptop (Black) (Personal Computers)

List Price:	$479.99 USD
New From:	$398.00 In Stock

Display and Audio
The display of Lenovo G570 leaves more to be desired. The 15.6 inch glossy display is not full HD and the max resolution is 1366 X 768, which is a bit of a let-down considering many competing laptops offer full HD resolution. The contrast ratio is not that good and the colours look washed out. Also, the display does not tilt back too far, which may be a constraint in certain situations.

The laptop comes with a Conexant HD SmartAudio speaker system. Speakers are powerful enough for a small room and are above average for the category. However, music sounded quite flat and output gets a bit harsh-sounding at max-volume. The bass of the speakers is average at best.

Keyboard and Touchpad
G570 houses an island styled keyboard which comes with a full number pad. The large AccuType keys are generously spaced and give a nice and firm feedback. The keyboard is definitely one of the better ones as compared to the competition. However, some people may have issue with slightly smaller right shift and enter keys. The touchpad has slightly raised dots, which is quite comfortable for fingers to glide on. Multi-touch functions work well, however certain functions are not very responsive. The two touchpad buttons are large enough and clicked firmly.

Performance
G570 is powered by 2nd generation intel i5 2410M processor, using cutting-edge Sandy bridge architecture. It comes with a massive 6GB of RAM, making it significantly fast in routine computing tasks. The configuration of the laptop makes it power packed machine to run most of the current generation applications and could serve well for quite a few years in future.

Graphics performance is not the strongest area for G570 as it comes with Intel HD 3000 graphics controller which makes it unsuitable for graphics-heavy games. However, the laptop can be used for playing light games, watching movies and editing photos.

Ports and Features
Lenovo G570 comes with an HDMI port to hook up the system with to an external display device like monitor or TV. The laptop comes with a plenty of USB 2.0 ports (3 to be precise) but there is no USB 3.0 port, which is a bit of a let-down. Ports also include media card reader, VGA, Ehternet and USD/eSATA. The laptop comes with a 2-megapixel webcam which records bright and clear videos. The in-built microphone is quite effective and audio transmission is quite loud and clear without and background noise.
Battery Life
Battery life is one of the stronger areas of Lenovo G570. The 6-cell Li-ion battery gives a usage time of more than 4 hours from a single charge in real world scenario, which is quite good in its category.

Overall, Lenovo G570 is a good no nonsense budget laptop with strong performance when it comes to daily computing needs. The main highlights of the laptop are its performance, solid build quality, good keyboard and battery life. The display and graphics area leaves more to be desired. However, given the under $500 price tag, the laptop is a great value for money.