lenovo IdeaPad U410 (43762CU) 14" Ultrabook

Pros: Speed
Good build, solid for such a small device.
Great battery

Cons: Single mic/headphone jack

Other Thoughts: This replaced a Toshiba P series that was an I-7. This is more solid than I expected with a great price point. Wifi has no issues. Very fast on boot and when I change networks.

Pros: Good build quality(one caveat: see cons)
Good compromise between size and power.
Nice keyboard, feels responsive and is a good size. I haven't needed to adjust to it at all (day 1)
Light weight and very portable (power brick is tiny)
Plays Dota on high settings with no trouble ( turn the lenovo power setting to high performance)
Screen looks good if the viewing angle is a little narrow

Cons: The bottom plate is one solid piece of thinnish material and when pressed on lightly bends, making a clicking noise, not terrible but it might be a little annoying/ disconcerting.
the touch-pad has a pinch to zoom option by default and when attempting to scroll up-down the zoom sometimes accidentally occurs instead, this was solved by turning pinch to zoom off in the options for the touch pad. If I need to zoom I can use ctrl+scroll instead.
Speakers aren't anything to write home about but are pretty much as would be expected for a small laptop.

Other Thoughts: There isn't a dedicated mic jack but I can't fault the laptop for that because I just didn't realize it prior to buying it. However there is a front facing mic and I've never really needed both ports on a laptop, and if I ever do I won't have a problem buying a cheapish one connector headset.

Overall I've been very pleased with this purchase and I intend to write another review if my perception changes after a month or two of use.

I needed this laptop to be able to play dota 2 and be portable and quiet enough to take to classes with me for note taking.

It will perform amazingly well for both of these tasks.

4/5

Pros: Hardware is very solid. No issues. Especially to note is the WiFi. Many users reported issues with WiFi connectivity on this and similar models, but I haven't had any issues yet.

Keyboard is very nice to type on. Good key layout, and keys have a nice bounce to them.

SSD makes for a very fast system overall. I use it as my primary partition now, and I estimate boot times at 10 seconds.

Cons: -2 eggs for the pain I went through changing the default OS configuration.

The OS was installed on the HDD, with device drivers and some applications on the SSD. This sort of makes sense as most people just dump files to My Documents and Desktop, which would quickly fill up the 32GB SSD.

I wanted to get the most out of my SSD so I decided to install my OS on that and use the HDD as data storage. Unfortunately, Lenovo locks up 8GB of the SSD as a recovery drive. You aren't able to reclaim this using Windows tools, but I have read it can be reclaimed with third party software like GParted. After installing Windows 8 on my SSD, I was left with 4GB for other applications.

I also found installing a new OS on this system way too complicated. I had to fiddle around with BIOS settings to get Windows 8 to install. I'm not sure if this is on Microsoft or Lenovo.

Other Thoughts: Very good machine for the price. Although I see they raised they price by $200 to $849 since I bought it, it's still worth a look.

Changing OS was somewhat challenging, so unless you fancy yourself tech savy, I'd recommend keeping the factory configuration.

Pros: Fast processor, graphic performance decent for many games. Even High end games run at low settings.

Cons: Wireless adapter fails. Stays connected but has terrible dial up like speeds basically disabling the ability of any online gaming or downloading.

Hybrid graphics faulty. Cannot keep discrete graphic card enabled when un-plugged from a power source.

Weak and flimsy construction, too much flex on structure, doesn't feel like a high end laptop which i suppose it not supposed to be, but for the price there are still better choices out there.

Other Thoughts: If if not for the terrible wireless adapter issue i would say this is a very nice laptop for the price.

Pros: -Great price point
-Low weight (maximum allowable wieght for an ultrabook)
-Ivy Brdige I5
-Fast boot up due to hybrid HDD+SSD
-6gb Ram (up-gradable)
-Good battery life - Full day's use of web browsing and word processing YYMV.
-Great standby battery life
-Fast charge time
- Dedicated graphics / smart switch with integrated graphics for battery saving.
-Lenovo Software suite and recovery

Cons: - On the heavier side compared to other ultrabooks
- I recommend a screen protector, or a "key sheild". The keys leave imprints on my screen due from being compressed in my bag.
- "Flex" - When in my bag, I can hear the laptop flex, and pop which worries me to death. So far no performance issues due to this.
- Size - Aside from the weight, the U410 has the maximum allowable dimentions for an ultrabook as specified by Intel.

Other Thoughts: I keep bringing up the price of this machine, because for the price I do not think you can find a better ultrabook, with the specs and features this packs. This is not a gaming laptop. It is not the thinnest ultrabook on the market. Its doesn't have the "umph" or "wow factor" that a true ultrabook, or powerhouse laptop would have. What this is a solid 4 egg machine, and very cost effective, well preforming computer.

In my opinion there is simply the best ultrabook for the cost. It is a bit on the heavy and thick side, as I mentioned earlier, it maxes out the allowed specification for Intel's ultrabook classification.
The U410 comes with a fair amount of Lenovo's goodies built in. I usually hate pre-bundled software, however with this model, I didn't feel the need to uninstall anything.
It comes with a hybrid HDD-SSD, which have been on the market for a while now, and I'm glad started making the transition into the notebook market. I believe also that Lenovo makes use of the RAM to cache boot files. These two together give a very competitive boot time to other more costly ultrabook's with true SSD's.


At time of purchase the U410 was around $650-700, and was comparatively cheaper then most other ultrabooks on the market.
Bottom line is that this is a great machine. It packs great hardware and some welcome software, in a small form factor.