Lenovo IdeaPad Z580 laptop is a beast in performance and gaming. It may look like a full size laptop with decent design, but the configuration delivers you top-notch performance and best gaming experience. We will test out the machine and check out that is it capable of giving us the best performance and high end gaming output or not. The laptop is loaded with Intel Core i7 (Ivy Bridge) processor, 8GB DDR3 RAM, 2GB Nvidia GT630M 2GB Graphics card and 1TB Hard Drive. This configuration features a best performance machine which is capable of giving you a high end output instantly. Under the IdeaPad Z580 series there are 3 more models available that are loaded with a bit lower configuration and all support Windows 8. With display size of 15.6″ you can also hook up a dual monitor and play any latest games at full graphic settings.
Under 15″ series Lenovo IdeaPad Z580 is an impressive system. It has a sleek design that reflects a powerful machine. Due to 2GB Nvidia Mobile GPU you do not require to sit back and avoid new games. Lenovo has designed the series with a point of view for entertainment and gaming. Below is a short list of all the laptop that comes under IdeaPad Z80 series with a short specs list and its price as well.
- Lenovo IdeaPad Z580 59-347604 – Windows 8, Intel Core i3, 4GB DDR3 RAM, Intel HD Graphics 4000 and 1TB Storage. Price : Rs.39,390 /-
- Lenovo IdeaPad Z580 59-339356 – Windows 7, Intel Core i7, 8GB DDR3 RAM, Nvidia GT630M 2GB GPU and 1TB Storage. Price :.67,990 /-
- Lenovo IdeaPad Z580 59-333345 – Windows 8, Intel Core i5, 4GB DDR3 RAM, Nvidia GT360M 1GB GPU and 500GB Storage. Price : Rs.48,990 /-
- Lenovo IdeaPad Z580 59-333620 – Windows 7, Intel Core i3, 4GB DDR3 RAM, Nvidia GT360M 1GB GPU and 500GB Storage. Price : Rs.42,690 /-
In the above list all system has common 15.6″ screen and 3rd Generation Intel Core-i Processors. If we check out the list then we can easily figure out the type of machine we need. We are going to review the second model from top : Lenovo IdeaPad Z580 59-339356. This laptop as I said above has a 3rd generation Intel Core i7 CPU @ 2.10Ghz. Due to 2GB GPU in the laptop it becomes one of the top products for gaming. And that too at a worth price range. I had seen some Sony models 7% cheaper compared to Lenovo IdeaPad Z80 59-339356 that offers only 1GB ATi Graphics card. So at that point the performance can be compromised to some extent. Lenovo kept the DVD, Bluetooth, 1MP Camera & 9.5mm 5400 RPM HDD identical on all the models. One by one we will cover each features and output of Lenovo IdeaPad Z580 59-339356 laptop.
Features :
- Entertainment to Go : OneKey Theater to optimize Video/Audio
- Easy Social Networking : Lenovo Direct Share to share any content easily
- Windows 8 : Optimized to work with Windows 8
- One Key Recovery : One Touch Recovery to restore your system instantly
- Performance Processor : 3rd Generation Intel Core-i CPU
- HD Resolution : Vibrant LED Screen for best video output
Specification (59-339356) :
- CPU : Intel 3rd Generation Core i7-3612QM Ivy Bridge @ 2.10Ghz
- Cache : L1-32KB, L2-256KB & L3-6MB
- RAM : 8GB DDR3 @ 1600Mhz
- Storage : 1TB 2.5″ 5400 RPM HDD
- Graphic Card : 2GB Nvidia GT630M
- Screen : 15.6″ HD LED Screen 1366×768 Pixel
- Camera : 1MP HD
- Touchpad : Intelligent Touchpad
- Audio : Dolby Digital
- Optical Drive : DVD Writer/Blu-Ray Combo
- Connectivity : Bluetooth 4.0, Wi-Fi, HDMI & Memory Card Reader
- Color : Metallic Grey & Enamel White
- Battery : Black 6 Cell 2.2A 48WH
- Warranty : 1 Year
Design :
Out test model Lenovo IdeaPad Z580 59-339356 reflects a decent design. The one that you can easily carry to your office. It is a heavy laptop. Ample of 15.6 model comes with weight due to its heavy body design. Lenovo IdeaPad Z580 has a Metallic Grey finish. It also comes in Enamel White color. With glossy finish on the top side the laptop gives a classic look. 15.6″ LED front screen is quiet comfortable for working. But the keypad is not. You can use a usb keyboard to work more comfortably. Just below the LED screen lies Cap Sensor buttons. At first, you might be thinking them as light indicators. They are touch button that allows you to mute audio, increase and decrease volume. Next to that lies a Screen Mode button that allows you to choose from 3 default screen resolution (Normal, Movie and Intelligent). You can quickly adjust the same as per your need. The last button offers Thermal Management. In which you can adjust something related to power usage of the system. It allows you to get a bit more control over your system performance.
The speaker rests beneath the Cap Sensor keys. You can see in the image above that the speaker covers the top side completely from left to right. This integrated speaker features Dolby Home Theater system. It is good enough for watching movies but do not expect much effect from it. You can take the benefit of Premium Sound quality by using a additional 2.1 or higher speaker on it. Lenovo has added some led indicator below the touch pad. There are three white lights that show indication for Power, Battery and Capslock, while a car reader is provided on the front right side.
Display:
The screen is good for watching movies. But for gaming, maximum brightness is required. I enjoyed more on a dual monitor setup. As per the specs the maximum resolution that you can get on IdeaPad Z580 screen is around 1366×768 pixel. Still I found the screen a less vibrant compared to a regular widescreen monitor. Full brightness gives a bit strain on the eyes. The screen features appropriate output from all corners. Different set of resolution fits very well on it. The lid can bend maximum 150 degree backwards. All models under Lenovo IdeaPad Z580 features a 15.6″ wide LED screen. The screen has minimum settings available. There are only three mode, that is; Normal, Movie and Intelligent – that allows you to get preconfigured settings.
Keyboard:
The keyboard is placed perfectly with appropriate gaps between each keys. There are no blacklit keys. That is one of the drawback according to me. You can use the FN key to modify the settings. Ample of time it is not easy to adjust the laptop keys when you switch directly from the regular keyboard. This laptop features a very comfortable typing solution. I had worked on the same for few hours and was able to adjust quickly from my regular keyboard to IdeaPad Z580. Fixing it well on a width of around 18″ the keyboard also has a full numpad, so that your habit of using numpad on the regular keyboard is not at all affected. The keys are soft enough and responsive when you type on the same. Settings related to dual monitor, sleep mode, led, etc; are managed by the FN key itself. Like for example, you can press FN + F1 to put the laptop in sleep mode or simply press FN + F2 to turn off the LED screen. Keys from F9 to F12 are media keys.
Touchpad:
Without mouse, sometime it can be complicated to work on the Touch Pad. There are many reason behind it. First it lies with the size. Lenovo IdeaPad Z580 features a very soft and responsive touch pad with multi-point support. It means you can use gesture to perform a number of operations on it. The Touch is quiet large with Left and Right click embedded. That gives it a more finished look. It features Intelligent Multi-Touch Touchpad. You can use it to rotate or zoom images or simply scroll a page. Due to smooth usage it allows you to move your finger widely over the remaining space. Due to wide size you can easily move the cursor over the screen.
Connectivity:
Lenovo IdeaPad Z580 laptop offers common connectivity features. Lenovo has not added any unique connectivity options with it. It features a single VGA and HDMI Port. That is good enough for connecting dual monitor to the laptop. For internet and lan there is a Ethernet Port provided. There are total 4 USB port available. Among which there are 2 USB 2.0 and 2 USB 3.0. A card reader is provided on the front side but for using it you will need a card adapter. At the right side there are two audio jacks. Those are regular 3.5mm audio in and out jack used for speaker and mic. The laptop has Bluetooth 4.0 and wifi connection that can be activated by pressing FN + F5. With Bluetooth 4.0 you can instantly transfer more data from mobile devices. While the wifi supports all common standards. There is no special features available under connectivity options. It delivers the most common solution that is widely available in many laptop.
Multimedia :
We are going to check in detail about all multimedia features of Lenovo IdeaPad Z580 59-339356. We are talking here about the test model that we had received. There are other variants and so the performance differs. There is nothing much to say about multimedia part. While the camera is good enough, I will not rate this as best. As per the specs Lenovo is just giving 1MP or 0.3MP HD Web Camera. The quality is average.
Camera:
Lenovo IdeaPad Z580 59-339356 has a average camera quality. This is another drawback of this laptop. Atleast Lenovo can offer a 3MP camera on IdeaPad Z580. The existing camera is average. It does not offer any good image output under low light. But still as the only webcam available, you can get an average quality for chatting. For photos or video as I said you have to turn on additional lights.
Audio & Video:
Due to 2GB Nvidia GT630M GPU onboard, the video quality is quiet improved. But screen itself is not capable of giving you the right contrast ratio. There is a great difference if you play a HD video on the laptop screen and on a HDTV or HD monitor. While for audio it offers you a Dolby Digital Audio. Loaded with Premium Sound Quality you can enjoy nice sound effects for video games and for movies. Due to small size the speakers deliver limited effect but if you hook a 2.1 or higher speaker you can find the difference. Dolby Digital is getting a more common standard for laptops and it is quiet beneficial to have that on a good laptop. Because if overall video output is awesome, the fun can be affected by the poor sound output. It is an ideal system for multimedia.
Performance:
The specification of Lenovo IdeaPad Z580 59-339356 gives a clear idea on how much powerful the laptop is. Loaded with 3rd Generation Core i7 processor, 8GB DDR3 RAM and 2GB Nvidia GT630M GPU it delivers the best output. Performance point of view this is one of the best laptop we had seen so far. We had posted more benchmarking reports below that offers a visual representation on the complete output.
Gaming :
While if we talk about gaming then we are really satisfied with the performance. After playing high end games on the laptop for couple of days, I found it a completely as a gaming laptop. According to me Lenovo IdeaPad Z580 59-339356 is a gaming laptop more than a multimedia laptop. Thanks to 2GB Nvidia GT630M Graphics Card onboard. It has enhanced the performance to great extent. Due to Smart Fan technology you can play for hours continuously without worrying for GPU temperature. Any latest game works best on full settings. You can hook up additional widescreen monitor and play games on that to get more realistic output, since I had already said that the existing led screen is not really good for graphics output. Games like Prototype 2, Assassins Creed 3, Hitman Absolution, Far Cry 3, etc; works very well on it without any lags. You can check that out on our video review of Lenovo IdeaPad Z580 59-339356.
Application:
Lenovo has added some internal application like Boot Optimizer which keeps on enhancing the system performance. We found a great difference in the performance while working on some resource intensive application. There is no doubt on the output of 8 Core Processor, 8GB DDR3 RAM & 2GB Mobile GPU. It works very well on multiple display allowing to process video at one side, download on the other and even run antivirus scan. Whatever things we had tested that has not exceeded more than 50% of RAM till yet. We created a movie through 20GB RAW video taken from a HDR video camera and on the same hand we were working on many other application. Till yet there was no freezing or lagging problem. It works smoothly and offers more resources. This is one of the positive point, due to which I have termed this laptop as a beast in performance.
Benchmark:
Overall System Test : In this we will generate a score that will be given by PC Mark and Pass Mark and it will determine whether this system is capable of giving best performance or not. You can simply compare the score with huge database on web. It gives us a glimpse of finding out whether the system hardware is really capable of performing or not.
PC Mark:
GPU Test : Under this we will run a heavy graphic test on Lenovo IdeaPad Z580. We had already tested the same through some games, but still we thought running a benchmarking software would give us a more detailed information on the actual output of entire system. The system is well enough to work with any latest games at highest settings.
3D Mark Graphic Score :
3D Mark FPS Score:
Pass Mark: Overall Score 2087 (Score based on Intel HD Graphics 4000)
HDD Test : We performed a small HDD Test to find out the drive performance. Lenovo IdeaPad Z580 59-339356 features a 2.5″ 5400 RPM drive. For a performance system 5400 RPM is not really good. It can bottleneck the performance. But still if it offers a good read/write speed you dont have to worry about other hardwares. In the below test you can see that the read speed lies around 75mb/s and write speed lies around 69mb/s. That is optimum. I will not term this as great but still it is more than enough for a gaming system.
Crystal Disk Mark Test:
CPU Temperature Check:This is another important aspect that cannot be ignored. Our test model is turned on for more than 10 hrs a day. We constantly ran some games and resource intensive apps. If the cpu temperature gives unexpected results then it might not be good at all. Because excessive heat can degrade the processors life. Lenovo has smartly managed that by adding Smart Fan that works fine with minimum noise.
Core Temp Test :
IDLE Mode : This test is performed when few applications, web browser, chat messenger were working.
Prototype 2 : Running Prototype 2 at full settings
Far Cry 3 : Running Far Cry 3 at full settings
Power consumption:
Overclocking: We had not Overclocked Lenovo IdeaPad Z580 59-339356. But just tested through OCCT that whether this laptop is capable for overclocking or not. Intel Core i7 is a processor designed for performance and you can boost that by overclocking. But there is negative aspect of overclocking also. You would lose the system warranty. We are just performing a sample test here through a software that would tell us whether it is capable of giving more performance or not.
OCC Test :
After running a test for 40 seconds we found the processor getting heated up quickly. On regular mode the temperature was constant between 40 to 50 Degree Celsius. While overclocking the same for mere 40 the processor temperature increased to 74 Degree Celsius. The maximum temperature the laptop reached was 78 Degree Celsius. That can be due to lack of internal cooling. While we all are aware that overclocking requires some sort of cooling to maintain the cpu temperature low. Or else the hardware can be dead for ever. As per my advice Lenovo Ideapad Z280 is not really designed for overclocking. The existing hardware is capable for giving you a better performance.
Battery Life:
For a gaming system there is nothing much to expect for the battery life. As I said the laptop is bit heavy to carry and if you are going to use it for gaming then you will need to charge it frequently. Without gaming the laptop works well for entire day. But as we start using some resource intensive application it gets drained out quickly. This is due to the internal hardware that consumes more power to keep the system cooler when you are using it.
Conclusion:
No doubt that Lenovo IdeaPad Z580 59-339356 is a high performance laptop. Even after using it for hours we found that it does not heats up much. Heat is commonly generated in many laptops when you use them constantly or play games for hours. In the above benchmark we had found positive output from the test model that we received. At a price of Rs. 67,990 Lenovo is selling a good gaming laptop. The laptop breaks all the limitation of portable system. With decent look and all connectivity options you can use it for entertainment or for gaming. I will not put this laptop under a professional series, where durability and data security matters the most. It is an entertainment model. Still there are three more variants available that allows you more choices at a reasonable rate.
Pros:
- Powerful Hardware for gaming
- HD LED Screen
- Comfortable keyboard and Smart Touchpad
- Premium Sound Quality
Cons:
- Poor Camera quality
- No Backlit keyboard
- Limited Lenovo Utilities
