Lenovo IdeaPad U410 59351632 14" Ultrabook

Pros: When it worked, it was great. Fast, light, everything i wanted

Cons: Not reliable

Other Thoughts: Last time I but Lenovo.. Was good when IBM owned it, now it just Chinese junk

Pros: For the specs and pricing, this is a very competitive ultrabook. The core i5 is more than enough for me in class when taking notes, doing powerpoints, and browsing around on the internet. However, when in the Power Saver mode, the performance is slightly laggy when trying to open a few tabs at the same time or watch a youtube video at a higher resolution. This is a big annoying but can't complain when it's for the benefit of battery life. Speaking of which, the battery is pretty good. I hoped to get more (closer to the advertised 8-9 hours) but so far I've been getting around 6 hours of life. Perhaps it will get better with time as I've only put it through 2 charge cycles and this is with constant browsing, watching youtube videos, working on a research paper, and listening to music the whole time. I haven't tried disabline the dedicated Nvidia 610m chip when gaming and seeing how it compares to the integrated hd 4000 but so far. That said, With everything maxed out except for shadows on Medium, I average 40-60 fps while playing League of Legends fullscreen at native resolution. Battlefield 3 is a different story though. Being a very graphically demanding game, I dropped the resolution to 1024x768 and have most settings on Medium. It's playable at around 30-40 fps and I consider this very respectable for an ultrabook. Unfortunately, my system came with 6gb of RAM which is good but 8gb seems to be the new standard these days. Especially since Windows 8 seems to hog up about 3gb already and upgrading the components isn't as easy as my previous laptops. The hard drive is alright but I did wish that it spun at 7200rpms.

Cons: The keyboard! I've owned 2 Lenovo ThinkPads before this Ideapad and I'm very disappointed by the build quality overall, espcially the keyboard. The other 2 laptops were solid and very sturdy; able to withstand years of being tossed into my backpack and working in class everyday. The build quality of this laptop looks good with the metal and all but when you pick it up, there seems to be a gap between the motherboard and the frame on the bottom. Also, there is significant flex under the keyboard which not only annoys me, but slows down my typing quite a bit. For typing speed, it's also affected by the column of keys on the right side for page up/down/etc. These keys should have been mapped to function keys on the arrows and then the keys themselves could be bigger. Also, with the metal frame, there are already areas of the palmrest that show signs of wear and tear after just 1 week of usage as you can see the outline of where my palms rest. Lenovo used to have a legendary repuatation for their build quality and sadly, that is diminishing with my use of this laptop.

Other Thoughts: Just a few annoyances so far that I have. The power manager sucks compared to those of the past. Not as customizable as far as how you want everything managed. Windows 8. I know this isn't Lenovo's fault but it is installed on this machine and although I haven't tried to reinstall Windows 7 or any other OS yet, I've heard that this task is very difficult and you risk bricking the motherboard. Also, Lenovo has set up the HDD and mSATA in RAID mode. I can see how they wanted to keep things simple with having just one drive for those who aren't as computer savvy, but for me, I would have really like to have the OS preinstalled on the SSD and then install my applications on whichever drive of my choosing. This would make bootup even faster as well as opening frequently used programs that I would install onto the C drive while leaving my music and other files on the 750gb HDD. The lack of bluetooth is also a bummer as one would expect to have that as a standard feature. However, with dropbox, I can send files back and forth via that method so it's not that big of a deal.
Concerning the WiFi, I guess I got lucky with one of the later builds because I have had no issues whatsoever with connecting to any routers. The speeds are as fast if not faster than the other laptops that I own.
Overall, this is a very good laptop and I would highly recommend it. A lot of my friends have paid a great deal more money on other brand ultrabooks and this one easily outperforms them all. Not to mention the bloatware that they all had to deal with uninstalling. Other friends have purchased Apple products and although they are nice, their starting price is at least double of this one.

Pros: None so far

Cons: I just received my laptop but
not responding message when using internet too frequently.
Quick starter error message (I don't what it is)

I think I should return this.

Pros: Everything for a budget Ultrabook

Cons: None so far

Other Thoughts: Will take time to get used to Windows 8

Pros: PROS
GRAPHICS – While the screen stinks, I have connected it to a couple TV's and it looks pretty good, I also did a little gaming, and for a cheap laptop it has decent gaming capabilities. I was able to play wow on fair settings FPS varied depending on location staying between 20-50. I haven't tried anything 1080p, but I didn't notice any tearing with 720p, over HDMI.
BATTERY LIFE –The reason I bought this laptop was life span. And I am very happy with it. I have only run it too 20% once and that was after about 4 hours of streaming Netflix.
COSMETICS – The Laptop is very attractive with its metal finish, and clean lines. I prefer a more business look, and this one has it. Power button is small, and placed conveniently. The track pad is large, but also very subtle. Light weight should be a PRO all to itself.
SPEED – I didn’t buy this computer for massive processing or anything like that. But I am happy with it. Start-up is ridiculously fast for having the OS on the HDD.

Cons: CONS
OS – Metro made this laptop unusable. It kept opening random programs, switching programs, and caused the mouse to stop scrolling across the screen somehow. Not sure exactly how this was working but I know once I disabled metro it stopped happening. Not only that but with metro once a program is open you can never close it again, and since it was opening random programs that made it even worse. Once metro is disabled you basically have a win7 computer. Which is nice.
SCREEN – The biggest problem here is that everything look whitewashed and blacks are non-existent. Also the view angle is kind of small.
WLAN – At home there wasn’t a problem at all, 4-5 bars, normal transfer speed. At work IF it connects it is really slow and drops connection. I started using a USB one instead.
BIOS – I cant get into mine. I have no idea why, and I have read forums of other people having the same issue, and they are given a list of options, none of which worked for me.

Other Thoughts: The only real problem with this laptop, is that it has windows 8, and it can not be removed without some decent tweaking and once removed, bringing it back to stock is on the verge of impossible. While this laptop is good for what it was made for, it is not make for tweaking. I got this laptop to carry to and from work, and to watch movies on occasion during the weekend night shift. I was hoping to put Linux on it and I am having second thoughts. Win8/Metro is so bad I wish I paid more money for Win7. I am giving this laptop 4 out of 5, because there are only a few ultrabooks without it, and in theory it can be removed/replaced. Hardware wise this laptop cant be beat for the price.

Pros: works fine, can't complain on speed so far. boots up quickly, and so does on wake up. looks simply elegant.

Cons: touch-pad isn't the strong part, had to switch of some annoying features, but wireless mouse is always an alternative ;] keyboard would be another part to discuss. it flexes and is just mediocre. weight- it isn't heavy but hoped to feel it's an ultrabook. battery isn't easily removable.

Other Thoughts: people complain about wifi adapter's performance. i just downloaded open office with 1.6MB/sec on my wireless connection.

Pros: Great for the money does everything needed and then some.

Cons: I cannot believe they would sell a device that has no Bluetooth! How tack is that it would really have cost them like 5 more dollars. I don’t remember seeing any device in the past 5 years that doesn’t automatically come with one. They definitely dropped the ball. You are not able to hook up any type of external mouse unless plugged into usb port. To me the fact of lack of Bluetooth is extremely annoying. It is like having a Lamborghini with no cruise control. Still good but extremely annoying! I’m like Really…….

Pros: i really love that even thought its an ultrabook it still comes with all the ports that you could need and they are all the regular size. this laptop has a good graphics card even though it isnt top of the line it still is pretty good for what i bought the laptop for which is school and watching videos online when i miss them on the television. i also love that it has 750 GB because i like having a lot of movies on my laptop to whatch on trips and things in the car or on an airplane, not to mention the extra 24 GB SSD that makes the laptop boot up within 15-20 seconds for me and it loads files and things faster also. the last thing that i love about this laptop that i can think of right off the top of my head is that it has 2 USB 2.0 ports plus 2 USB 3.0 ports, of course i would always use the 3.0 ports because it transfers files up to 10 times faster than the USB 2.0. this laptop has done very good for me and i absolutely suggest this laptop to people and teens that dont play hardcore games or do things that are extremely taxing on the graphics card. if you are doing something like that i would suggest a dell xps 14 that has a NVIDIA Gforce GT 630m or higher...

Cons: the only thing that was a little annoying about this laptop for me is that the touchpad isnt centered because im very OCD but it is a very minor con and doesnt even put a dent in all the pros of this laptop

Other Thoughts: this is a great laptop and i think that anyone that comes across it should for sure check it out and see if it is for you

Pros: At $529, this was a steal. It is the cheapest 14" i5 ultrabook I've found. That being said, it certainly isn't constructed poorly. The outside casing is aluminum, with hard plastic inside. The keyboard is very nice, and doesn't have the flex that others have mentioned. The touchpad is very smooth and relatively responsive. Personally, I like windows 8, and I have no issue using it on a non-touchscreen laptop; it simply isn't a problem.
I would also not that there was little bloatware installed, which is atypical for something in this price range. Probably the most significant factor for me is the start/wakeup speed. It returns from sleep in 1-2 seconds, and from cold start only takes about 15 seconds to log in and get into the start menu. The USB 3.0 is a welcome addition as well.

Cons: There are a couple of immediate problems that I had on first boot. The first being the touchpad, I had to turn off a setting that caused my application to swap any time I brought my finger from the left edge inward. Obviously, the start menu is in the bottom left, so every time I got into start I was being forcibly placed back onto the desktop. No more problems with the touchpad thereafter. This WiFi adapter has driver problems in windows 8. I had the same issues with my desktop adapter until I got a driver patch for it. Same thing here: on the Lenovo site there is a driver download page for the U410, and downloading the Windows 8 driver made all the difference. Now for the long term problem- the battery life. Lenovo describes optimal battery life as 7 hours, I believe. I get 3.5-4 on the balanced profile with a conservative screen brightness. Using power saver nets me 4.5-5.5 hours. This is the result of word processing and web browsing. Turning the WiFi off gets me up to 45 minutes more, though even then, not the 7 hours as advertised.
Finally, though not a strong con, it is appropriately listed here: the NVidia 610 graphics chip. The chip is vastly underpowered, and while marginally better than the integrated solution, also requires extra power. This converts to a 2.5-3 hour battery life on performance settings doing some medium intensity gaming or media editing. The chip is useful in its own right, though it's not a capable gaming processor, it has utility for video encoding and the like. However, I am a student, and I am not a media graphic design major, so it's relatively useless to me. Furthermore, as it's only about 10-15% better than the integrated graphics for gaming, it's hard to justify it being there at all. Thankfully, I can turn it off in the power profiles, and it shouldn't draw a noticeable amount of power while off.

Other Thoughts: This thing is like most sub-$1,000 ultrabooks in that it doesn't have graphics capabilities for modern games. It can do arcade games, though even something like "The Binding of Isaac" lags if not on a performance power profile. Beyond that, anything more graphically demanding than League of Legends on medium settings, or StarCraft 2 on low pull unplayable framerates. This isn't a con as it was not the purpose of the purchase, and I expected as much. If gaming is the objective, one can go out and buy an HP with an AMD-A10 or A8 processor for about the same price, and would be twice as capable. The ultrabook advantage is the form factor and battery life. On a side note, I am not sure what's up with the mSata drive, but I guess it's got Intel Rapid Start or some equivalent partitioned out, as the size is strange. It would definitely account for the fast boot time, and the disparity between the 24gb it now has, as opposed the 32gb it used to be advertised as.
Notes on the screen and audio:
The screen is a typical TN panel, and the color/contrast is nothing to write home about. It looks fine as far as I am concerned, but in comparison to my $300 Acer Netbook, it is actually lacking. With some tweaking in the Intel Control Panel software, I adjusted the screen to be much more vivid. The built-in speakers are okay, but again, the idea of "you get what you pay for" is still in effect. There is a bit of static on headphones, but it's unnoticeable unless it's silent. The Dolby HD audio software is actually quite nice, however, and succeeds in alleviating any issues with the audio. To compare it to the Beats audio software on my HP this has replaced: it is roughly equivalent, as Beats had more dynamic settings, but the Dolby HD has an intelligent equalizer that is very easy to set up, and very satisfying.

Bottom line here:
If you're tech savvy, or patient, this ultrabook is fantastic for the price, but if you don't want to deal with some initial hassle- fish out a bit more cash and go for a Dell Inspiron 14z or something along those lines.

Pros: Unit looks nice but is DOA something wrong with the QC in China

Cons: Display never turned on.

Bran new and DEAD NO RMA offered through the website hassle to find phone number and now awaiting on hold.

Will update this story. Have bought from Newegg for years but this will be my first experience trying to return anything ???

Other Thoughts: Unit looks nice but something wrong with the QC in China