Without much noise, Lenovo released an exciting new multimedia notebook with more than decent hardware while being thinner and lighter than ASUS’ N552, for example. In fact, the IdeaPad 700 is considerably cheaper making it a no-brainer for the given price. Here’s what we know so far about the laptop until our review comes in the following days.

You can find the notebook’s price and configurations here: http://amzn.to/1sx3Jau

Design

Measuring at just 22.7 mm and weighing 2.3 kg, the IdeaPad becomes even more desirable for roamers. It sports mostly plastic but we the anodized aluminum for the interior is quite the nice touch. You can definitely see some similarities with the Y700 and older Y50. The speaker grills are kind of inherited from the Y700 while the base’s sides, where the plastic bottom and aluminum keyboard tray meet, has been transferred over from the Y50 but without feeling clunky at the same time.

We’ve also found the keyboard less comfortable due to the short key travel, especially compared to other Lenovo models from the upper and lower segment of the market. On the contrary, the touchpad feels extra nice and accurate, which is also rarely seen on Lenovo’s at this price range.

All in all, the notebook feels stable and good-looking, especially if you opt for the white version. It’s gorgeous, although the white matte plastic attracts some dirt and frequent cleaning will be needed. You can also benefit from the “healthy” port distribution since the sides aren’t overcrowded while offering the standard set of ports and connectors.

Hardware

This is where this notebook blows everyone out of the water. It’s dirt-cheap while offering the latest Core i5-6300HQ and Core i7-6700HQ Skylake processors paired with NVIDIA GeForce GTX 950M (4GB DDR3) and up to 16GB of DDR4-2133 RAM. Lenovo threw in even a 15-inch IPS panel, which might not be the best of quality but it’s preferable than the TN displays in this price range.

The best part, however, is that the notebook’s motherboard supports M.2 PCIe NVMe SSD sticks and we even tested one out. The read/write speeds are amazing and you can see them on the screenshot below. And before we publish our full tests in the upcoming review, we can only say for now that the battery capacity of 45Wh might fall short when powering up all that demanding hardware.

Specs sheet

The current specs sheet refers to this particular model – configurations may differ depending on your region.

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Processor	Intel Core i5-6300HQ (4-core, 2.30 – 3.20 GHz, 6MB cache) / Intel Core i7-6700HQ (4-core, 2.60 – 3.50 GHz, 6MB cache)
RAM	up to 16GB (2x 8192MB) – DDR4, 2133 MHz
Graphics card	NVIDIA GeForce GTX 950M (4GB DDR3)
HDD/SSD	1TB HDD (7200 rpm) + optional M.2 PCIe NVMe SSD, 2280
Display	15.6-inch – Full HD (1920×1080) IPS, matte
Optical drive	–
Connectivity	LAN 10/100/1000 Mbps, Wi-Fi 802.11ac, Bluetooth 4.0
Other features	2x USB 3.0 1x USB 2.0 webcam integrated microphone integrated loudspeakers (JBL) RJ-45 HDMI card reader backlit keyboard
Battery	4-cell, 45Wh
Thickness	22.7 mm (0.89″)
Weight	2.3 kg (5.07 lbs)