Lenovo Y700 (15″) first impressions – more than just a hardware upgrade

The Lenovo Y50 was a great success among people who are looking for a well-balanced gaming machine that offers good performance, nice mobility and at a reasonable price. Nonetheless, some of the specs or design had a great flaw that cannot be overlooked. The first Y50 generation had a TN panel, but shortly after Lenovo fixed that with adding a newer GTX 960M GPU and an IPS panel. The latter, on the other hand, wasn’t as good as we expected. Moreover, the cooling system was incapable of keeping the internals and the interior cool, but this time around things will be different.

You can check the price and availability of the Lenovo Y700 here: http://amzn.to/1GTge70

Design

While the notebook keeps the same design signature, we are presented with numerous changes that should affect user experience in a good way. Yet, some of the changes have resulted in around 250 g weight increase and as little as 1.5 mm thicker profile.

Anyway, the first thing we notice is that the main cooling vents are now placed at the back of the machine and now having more room to “breathe”. The last generation had the vents placed between the hinge and main body resulting in uncomfortably high temperatures on the surface. We hope this change will result in a better cooling capabilities as the previous model struggled a bit. Also, the bottom piece now features smaller vent that prevents the dust from building inside, unlike the Y50. Finally, the subwoofer is now placed in the center of the bottom plate.


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Another notable change lies at the sides of the machine as now the aluminum plate aligns perfectly with the matte plastic used for the interior and doesn’t form any unnecessary edges or design inconsistencies. It now feels smoother and looks better. But unfortunately, the majority of ports are moved on the right (two USB 3.0 ports, HDMI, LAN etc.) which might obstruct normal mouse usage in some cases.


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As for the interior, we have only nice things to say. The keyboard design is the same with a small change in the size of the “Enter” and left “Shift” key, but the touchpad is now with better build quality. We were quite underwhelmed by the performance of the previous model, but now the so-called annoying “wobbling” effect isn’t present. It feels a bit stiff during left or right mouse clicks, but it’s much better than before.

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We will keep you posted about the notebook’s performance, display tests, battery tests etc. until the full review, so stay tuned.

How it looks on the inside

Here are some detailed shots of the internals. We will do a dedicated article about disassembling the machine and what we found inside. For now, we will just say that the new Ideapad Y700 features an M.2 SSD slot.


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Hardware

On the hardware front, there isn’t anything that we didn’t expect – Core i7-6700HQ or Core i7-6300HQ CPU accompanied by GeForce GTX 960M with 2GB of GDDR5 VRAM or 4GB, but the latter doesn’t always translate into better overall graphic performance. However, the Full HD IPS panel (touch panel is optional) seems to be a standard offering and Lenovo again promises a 4K UHD version that’s not yet listed on their official website.

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There are also various configurations starting from 8GB of RAM and going as high as 16GB of RAM, but the best part here are the storage options. One of the main drawbacks of the Y50 was not having an additional M.2 slot so we are happy that Lenovo sometimes listens to what the customers have to say. Now the machine can be configured with an M.2 SSD.

And finally for some this could be a small, but significant flaw. The new Y700 doesn’t offer an USB Type-C port, which appears to be present in almost all high-end machines featuring Skylake CPUs.

Specs sheet

The specs below might not apply to your region.

ProcessorIntel Core i7-6700HQ (4-core, 2.60 -3.50 GHz, 6MB cache)
RAM8GB (1x 8192MB) – DDR4, 2133MHz
Graphics cardNVIDIA GeForce GTX 960M (2GB GDDR5)
HDD/SSD500GB HDD
Display15.6-inch (39.62 cm.) – 1920×1080 (Full HD), IPS
Optical drive
ConnectivityWi-Fi 802.11ac, Bluetooth 4.02, LAN
Other features
  • 2x USB 3.0
  • 1x USB 2.0
  • built-in webcam
  • built-in microphone
  • 3.5 mm audio jack for headphones and microphone
  • HDMI
  • RJ-45
  • 4-in-1 card reader (SD/MMC/SDXC/SDHC)
  • JBL loudspeakers + subwoofer
  • LED keyboard backlight
Battery60Wh (4050 mAh), 4-Cell Battery
Thickness25.95 mm (1.02″)
Weight2.92 kg (4.44 lbs)for the touch version and 2.6 kg (5.73 lbs) for non-touch version

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junky
8 years ago

Why did you write it is more than a hardware upgrade? seems like nothing really interesting more than the Y50. No?

junky
8 years ago
Reply to  Rossen Pandev

Thanks for replying!

Kiril Raykov
Kiril Raykov
8 years ago

When should we expect a full review on this laptop?:)