Recently, we tried out the budget Ideapad 330s series. After that, we were able to get our hands on the Ideapad 730S (Yoga S730 in some regions) and we were astonished by the physical differences between these two devices. However, honestly, the experience of using them wasn’t that different, whatsoever.
Today, we are going to visit a laptop that appears to be somewhere in the middle. Not only because of its name – the Lenovo Ideapad 530s (14″) but more because of what it is – a stylish multimedia beast. Originally, it has two paths on which to take when choosing an Ideapad 530s (14″) – a blue one and a red one. No, we are not talking about Optimus Prime and Megatron, but for Intel and AMD, respectively. The Intel-equipped machines feature Coffee Lake ULV CPUs, and an option of NVIDIA GeForce MX150, GeForce MX130 or the integrated UHD 620 GPU. On the red side, you are choosing from the 2nd gen Ryzen laptop processors, with their respective integrated graphics solutions.
Since we are taking a look at the Intel version, we are going to provide a little bit more focus on that type of devices. Anyways, you can get it with a QHD or FHD IPS panels and you can pick from non-reflective and glass covered displays – the former is 360 grams lighter than the latter.
You can check the prices and configurations in our Specs System: https://laptopmedia.com/series/lenovo-ideapad-530s-14/
Contents
Specs Sheet
Lenovo ideapad 530S 14 technical specifications table
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What’s in the box?
Lenovo’s Ideapad 530s (14″) features a 65W power brick inside the box. As far as the safety is concerned, the manufacturer ships the device with two large foam fragments, which hug the laptop from every side. Additionally, the Ideapad 530s (14″) is placed inside a protective antistatic bag.
Design and construction
As we mentioned, the Ideapad 530s (14″) has most of its design features stolen from the more budget oriented Ideapad 330s (14″). This model has a little bit more aluminum to its body in addition to being more compact and having a slimmer profile – 16.4 mm (0.65″). If you get it with an anti-glare screen it will weigh 1.49 kg, while the glass-covered one is whoppingly 360 grams heavier.
Its display is impossible to be opened with a single hand. Expectedly, it features the same set-up around the screen as the “cheaper” brother – unimpressive camera on top, flanked by a couple of microphones. However, we feel like we should mention that, the glass-equipped model has a strange issue. When you open it up, it becomes a little bit too heavy on the back and is a simple screen touch away to lose its balance and jiggle backward. Well, it was to be expected given the 360-gram burden of the glass, but we think Lenovo could have done more to ensure this is not the case.
Anyhow, next let’s take a look at the input devices. There is a good quality, backlit keyboard which is very clicky, but the travel feels a little bit short – even shorter than the ProBook 440 G6. However, the trackpad is one of a kind – one of the best for a Windows device. In addition to that, Lenovo has put an optional fingerprint reader which feels super snappy, although a little bit slower than the Ideapad 730S.
Further on, the bottom plate houses the Harman branded speakers and the air intake drill. Exhaust air is coming from in between the body and the display.
| Width | Length | Height | Weight | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lenovo Ideapad 530s (14″) | 323 mm (12.70″) | 226 mm (8.90″) | 16.4 mm (0.65″) | 1.85 kg (4.08 lbs) |
| HP ProBook 440 G6 | 324 mm (12.76″) | 238 mm (9.36″) | 18 mm (0.71″) (+10%) | 1.60 kg (3.53 lbs) (-14%) |
| Acer Swift 3 (SF314-56G) | 323 mm (12.72″) | 228 mm (8.98″) | 17.8 mm (0.70″) (+9%) | 1.50 kg (3.3 lbs) (-19%) |
| Lenovo IdeaPad 330s (14″) | 323 mm (12.72″) | 235 mm (9.25″) | 19 mm (0.75″) (+16%) | 1.67 kg (3.7 lbs) (-10%) |
Ports
Ideapad 530s (14″)’s left side is home to the charging plug, an HDMI connector, USB Type-A 3.0 and a Type-C 3.1 (Gen. 2), as well as a 3.5mm audio jack. The other side, however, looks pretty simplistic – a single USB Type-A 3.0 port, an SD card reader and a battery reset switch.
Display quality
Lenovo 530s (14″)’s display has a Full HD IPS panel, model number LG LP140WF8-SPP1 (LGD0599). Its diagonal is 14″ (35.56 cm), and the resolution – 1920 х 1080. Additionally, the screen ratio is 16:9, the pixel density – 157 ppi, their pitch – 0.161 x 0.161 mm. The screen can be considered Retina when viewed from at least 56 cm (from this distance, the average human eye can’t see the individual pixels).
Its viewing angles are excellent. We have provided images at 45 degrees to evaluate quality.
The maximum measured brightness is 244 nits (cd/m2) in the middle of the screen and 226 nits (cd/m2) average across the surface with a maximum deviation of 13%. The Correlated Color Temperature on a white screen and at maximum brightness is 7510K (average) – colder than the 6500K optimum for sRGB. The average color temperature through the grey scale before profiling is 7330K.
In the illustration below you can see how the display performs from uniformity perspective. The illustration below shows how matters are for operational brightness levels (approximately 140 nits) – in this particular case at 87% Brightness (White level = 144 cd/m2, Black level = 0.14 cd/m2).
Values of dE2000 over 4.0 should not occur, and this parameter is one of the first you should check if you intend to use the laptop for color sensitive work (a maximum tolerance of 2.0 ). The contrast ratio is acceptable – 1010:1.
To make sure we are on the same page, we would like to give you a little introduction to the sRGB color gamut and the Adobe RGB. To start, there’s the CIE 1976 Uniform Chromaticity Diagram that represents the visible specter of colors by the human eye, giving you a better perception of the color gamut coverage and the color accuracy.
Inside the black triangle, you will see the standard color gamut (sRGB) that is being used by millions of people in HDTV and on the web. As for the Adobe RGB, this is used in professional cameras, monitors, etc for printing. Basically, colors inside the black triangle are used by everyone and this is the essential part of the color quality and color accuracy of a mainstream notebook.
Still, we’ve included other color spaces like the famous DCI-P3 standard used by movie studios, as well as the digital UHD Rec.2020 standard. Rec.2020, however, is still a thing of the future and it’s difficult for today’s displays to cover that well. We’ve also included the so-called Michael Pointer gamut, or Pointer’s gamut, which represents the colors that naturally occur around us every day.
The yellow dotted line shows Lenovo Ideapad 530s (14″)’s color gamut coverage.
Its display covers a narrow 54% of the sRGB/ITU-R BT.709 (web/HDTV standard) in CIE1976.
Our “Design and Gaming” profile delivers optimal color temperature (6500K) at 140 cd/m2 luminance and sRGB gamma mode.
We tested the accuracy of the display with 24 commonly used colors like light and dark human skin, blue sky, green grass, orange, etc. You can check out the results at factory condition and also, with the “Design and Gaming” profile.
Below you can compare the scores of Lenovo Ideapad 530s (14″) with the default settings (left), and with the “Gaming and Web design” profile (right).
The next figure shows how well the display is able to reproduce really dark parts of an image, which is essential when watching movies or playing games in low ambient light.
The left side of the image represents the display with stock settings, while the right one is with the “Gaming and Web Design” profile activated. On the horizontal axis, you will find the grayscale and on the vertical axis – the luminance of the display. On the two graphs below you can easily check for yourself how your display handles the darkest nuances but keep in mind that this also depends on the settings of your current display, the calibration, the viewing angle, and the surrounding light conditions.
Response time (Gaming capabilities)
We test the reaction time of the pixels with the usual “black-to-white” and “white-to-black” method from 10% to 90% and vice versa.
We recorded Fall Time + Rise Time = 26 ms.
Health impact – PWM / Blue Light
PWM (Screen flickering)
Pulse-width modulation (PWM) is an easy way to control monitor brightness. When you lower the brightness, the light intensity of the backlight is not lowered, but instead turned off and on by the electronics with a frequency indistinguishable to the human eye. In these light impulses, the light/no-light time ratio varies, while brightness remains unchanged, which is harmful to your eyes. You can read more about that in our dedicated article on PWM.
Lenovo Ideapad 530s (14″)’s backlight doesn’t flicker at any brightness level. This renders the panel comfortable for use during long periods of use since it doesn’t present excessive strain to your eyes in this aspect.
Blue light emissions
Installing our Health-Guard profile not only eliminates PWM but also reduces the harmful Blue Light emissions while keeping the colors of the screen perceptually accurate. If you’re not familiar with the Blue light, the TL;DR version is – emissions that negatively affect your eyes, skin and your whole body. You can find more information about that in our dedicated article on Blue Light.
Conclusions
Interestingly, Lenovo Ideapad 530s (14″) is equipped with almost the same panel as the Acer Swift 3 (SF314-56). It has a good contrast ratio, comfortable viewing angles, relatively adequate default settings, and PWM-less brightness adjustment. Its only downside is the narrow color coverage.
Buy our profiles
Since our profiles are tailored for each individual display model, this article and its respective profile package are meant for Lenovo Ideapad 530s (14″) configurations with 14.0″ LG LP140WF8-SPP1 (LGD0599) (FHD, 1920 × 1080) IPS.
*Should you have problems with downloading the purchased file, try using a different browser to open the link you’ll receive via e-mail. If the download target is a .php file instead of an archive, change the file extension to .zip or contact us at [email protected]
Read more about the profiles HERE.
In addition to receiving efficient and health-friendly profiles, by buying LaptopMedia's products you also support the development of our labs, where we test devices in order to produce the most objective reviews possible.
Office Work
Office Work should be used mostly by users who spend most of the time looking at pieces of text, tables or just surfing. This profile aims to deliver better distinctness and clarity by keeping a flat gamma curve (2.20), native color temperature and perceptually accurate colors.
Design and Gaming
This profile is aimed at designers who work with colors professionally, and for games and movies as well. Design and Gaming takes display panels to their limits, making them as accurate as possible in the sRGB IEC61966-2-1 standard for Web and HDTV, at white point D65.
Health-Guard
THealth-Guard eliminates the harmful Pulse-Width Modulation (PWM) and reduces the negative Blue Light which affects our eyes and body. Since it’s custom tailored for every panel, it manages to keep the colors perceptually accurate. Health-Guard simulates paper so the pressure on the eyes is greatly reduced.
Sound
Ideapad 530s (14″) produces loud sound from its speakers. However, it has some deviations in the mid tones. In the same time, the bass is deep, but it lacks a punch, while the highs are clear.
Drivers
Lenovo Ideapad 530s (14″) comes preinstalled with a Windows 10 operating system. If you ever need to reinstall it, though, you can find all of the drivers and utilities on Lenovo’s support web page: https://pcsupport.lenovo.com/bg/en/products/laptops-and-netbooks/500-series/530s-14ikb/downloads
Battery
Now, we conduct the battery tests with Windows Better performance setting turned on, screen brightness adjusted to 120 nits and all other programs turned off except for the one we are testing the notebook with. This unit is equipped with 4-cell 45Wh battery pack.
The battery life of this laptop is not bad, but definitely not terrific as well. In web browsing, you’ll get around 7 hours and 10 minutes, while during video playback you’ll get 25 minutes more.
In order to simulate real-life conditions, we used our own script for automatic web browsing through over 70 websites.
For every test like this, we use the same video in HD.
We use F1 2017’s built-in benchmark on loop in order to simulate real-life gaming.
CPU options
Lenovo is offering the Ideapad 530s (14″) in two versions – with an Intel or an AMD CPUs. Its Intel selection features the Coffee Lake ULV range from the Blue company – two core/four threads Core i3-8130U, four core/eight-thread Core i5-8250U, and a four core/eight-thread Core i7-8550U. Aside from the core count, there is a slight difference between the clock speeds these processors work at and the amount of cache in each of them.
Results are from the Cinebench 15 CPU test (the higher the score, the better)
Results are from the Fritz chess benchmark (the higher the score, the better)
Results are from our Photoshop benchmark test (the lower the score, the better)
GPU options
Again, its GPU options are highly dependent on the CPU choice – if you get the Ryzen laptops – you’ll get the integrated AMD GPUs. On the other side, the Intel options offer GeForce MX150 and GeForce MX130 as an alternative to the UHD 620.
Results are from the 3DMark: Fire Strike (Graphics) benchmark (higher the score, the better)
Results are from the Unigine Heaven 3.0 benchmark (higher the score, the better)
Results are from the Unigine Heaven 4.0 benchmark (higher the score, the better)
Results are from the Unigine Superposition benchmark (higher the score, the better)
Gaming tests
We were quite unimpressed by the performance even from an integrated GPU – it did a lot worse than most of the UHD 620s out there.
| CS:GO | HD 1080p, Low (Check settings) | HD 1080p, Medium (Check settings) | HD 1080p, MAX (Check settings) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Average FPS | 37 fps | 24 fps | – fps |
| DOTA 2 | HD 1080p, Low (Check settings) | HD 1080p, Normal (Check settings) | HD 1080p, High (Check settings) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Average FPS | 53 fps | 27 fps | – fps |
| Grand Theft Auto V (GTA 5) | HD 768p, Normal (Check settings) | HD 768p, High (Check settings) | HD 768p, Very High (Check settings) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Average FPS | 27 fps | – fps | – fps |
Temperatures and comfort
Max CPU load
In this test we use 100% on the CPU cores, monitoring their frequencies and chip temperature. The first column shows a computer’s reaction to a short load (2-10 seconds), the second column simulates a serious task (between 15 and 30 seconds), and the third column is a good indicator of how good the laptop is for long loads such as video rendering.
Average core temperature (base frequency + X); CPU temp.
| Intel Core i5 8250U (15W TDP) | 0:02 – 0:10 sec | 0:15 – 0:30 sec | 10:00 – 15:00 min |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lenovo IdeaPad 530s (14″) | 3.03 GHz (B+89%) @ 93°C | 2.03 GHz (B+27%) @ 69°C | 2.04 GHz (B+28%) @ 69°C |
| Lenovo IdeaPad 330s (14″) | 2.32 GHz (B+45%) @ 57°C | 1.72 GHz (B+7%) @ 56°C | 1.68 GHz (B+5%) @ 57°C |
| Xiaomi Notebook Air 13 | 2.84 GHz (B+78%) @ 80°C | 2.16 GHz (B+35%) @ 71°C | 2.03 GHz (B+28%) @ 76°C |
Lenovo Ideapad 530s (14″) uses a slightly more aggressive approach than its cheaper compatriot. First, it boosts its fans relatively quick. Then, it tries to sustain temperatures around 2.00 GHz while the temperature at which it fluctuates is around 69C – 300 MHz at the expense of 12C, compared to the 330s (14″). However, the temperatures are by no means high, as can be seen in the Xiaomi Notebook Air 13, which ended the test at 76C.
Gaming comfort
Due to the fact, that most of the bottom half of the device is taken by the battery, its palm-rest area remains relatively cool. However, the hottest spot of the device heats up a bit less than some of its competitors – the ZenBook 14 UX433 for example.
Verdict
Good device, but not good enough for such a saturated market. Don’t get us wrong – it is great in many aspects. It is just the fact that most of the 14-inchers at this price point are better in the said area. For example – ASUS ZenBook 14 UX433 has a bigger performance output – both from the CPU and from the integrated GPU. On the other side, HP ProBook 440 G6 runs cooler – both on the inside and on the outside.
Then, there is the battery life. It gets somewhere between 7 hours and 10 minutes and 7 hours and a half. Not a bad result at all, however, it trails most of the latest 14-inch laptops. Interestingly, the cheaper Ideapad 330s (14″) has substantially better battery life. On the bright side, you can check the battery charge without turning the laptop on. Just click a single key on the keyboard and the screen will show the exact percentage of juice left.
Screen-wise there is the exact same panel (LG LP140WF8-SPP1 (LGD0599)), found on the Acer Swift 3 (SF314-56). It is a budget IPS one since it neither has a wide color coverage (54% of sRGB) and not very high maximum brightness – around 240 nits. When you add the glass cover in the mixture it adds up to an almost unseeable content outdoors. However, it is still an IPS panel and hey – it doesn’t use PWM for brightness adjustment, so at least it is rather safe for extended periods of work, although you can also get the 2K screen version. By the way, speaking of the glass cover – it does hinder the weight distribution and hinders the balance of the laptop.
At the end of the day, we are satisfied by the keyboard, which enables you to type pretty fast (it is also backlit). Then you have the super snappy touchpad experience and Windows performance, thanks to the SSD. Anyways, we think that this is not enough for us to recommend this laptop. Especially since there are the very similar (and on some occasions better) and cheaper Ideapad 330s (14″). Moreover, we see the HP ProBook 440 G6 to be a better laptop for the relatively same pricing, while for a little bit more you’ll get the ZenBook 14 UX433 – one of our favorite 14-inch laptops yet.
Pros
- Fairly good price
- Doesn’t use PWM to adjust screen brightness (LG LP140WF8-SPP1 (LGD0599))
- Relatively cool on the outside
- Fast fingerprint scanner
- First class input devices
- QHD display option
Cons
- Glass-equipped model is back-heavy, which results in disbalance of the laptop
- Covers only 54% of sRGB (LG LP140WF8-SPP1 (LGD0599))
- Low maximum brightness
You can check the prices and configurations in our Specs System: https://laptopmedia.com/series/lenovo-ideapad-530s-14/