The Lenovo G580 is one of the most searched laptops on the entire website and it has so many models that we can’t possibly cover them all one by one. They range in price from 350$ to 650$, choosing the right one for your needs can be tough. So I decided to review the entire range in detail. Read the rest of the Lenovo G580 review below!
If you decide to do a quick search on Amazon you will soon see the extent of the problem. There are over 60 models available each with slightly different configurations and relatively similar prices. So let’s start explaining Lenovo’s G580 range in detail.
The exterior
The only thing in common on the Lenovo G580 range is the exterior, so we will start with that.
I have had the pleasure of coming in contact with this laptop on many occasions and as far as build quality is concerned, this thing is a top product. It is finished in brushed aluminium with a textured finish, inside and out. It isn’t the shiny type that gets all the fingerprints and scratches on it, it’s a nice mat version. I haven’t been able to notice any scratches of fingerprints on the models I have seen. Bare in mind some of these laptops have been used for over a year and they still looked like new. It is also available with a glossy finish in either red, blue, brown if you like it. As I said the case is a real quality product on this laptop, not really what you would expect from a laptop marketed as “value line” and prices so low.
All of them come with a
15.6-Inch 1366×768 pixels LED backlight 16:9 widescreen displays with amazing image quality and color balance. A friend of mine works in design and he regularly calibrates the color balance of his screens. His girlfriend also owns a Lenovo G580 and when he tried to calibrate it, he was amazed to find that it’s display had only minimal color distortion and the calibration really wasn’t necessary. So having seen this experience I think this screen is one of the best out there.
The
raised-tile keyboard is also a good product. It’s design ensures that you won’t be able to get dust, crumbs, or anything underneath the keys, they have a good overall distribution and also comes with a numeric keypad for fast data entry. The only downside to the keyboard, at least from my perspective, is that the keys have a slight weighty feel to them. I had to press a bit harder on them than I was used to from other laptops. Don’t get me wrong it’s only noticeable if you compare it to a different laptop at the same time, you get used to it after a while. Not sure if this means that they are made to last longer or that they are the point where Lenovo decided to do some cost savings on the G580. Maybe a long term user can shed some light on this issue.
The
touchpad has a nice textured finish on it with really nice click buttons, it supports multi-touch gestures, is of average size and is positioned in the middle of the keyboard, so all in all it is a pleasure to use it.
The
sound system is also standard on all models. They come with 2 Integrated stereo speakers (2×1.5W) with decent quality. Lenovo also offers Dolby Advanced Audio drivers to ensure the quality of the sound is good. The placement of the speakers isn’t very inspired. They are placed underneath the palmrest and they can get covered very easily.
Because the case is common for all models, so are all the exterior
connectivity options. So the Lenovo G580 comes with 2xUSB 3.0, 1xUSB 2.0, headphones mic combo,HDMI, VGA, and a 2in1 (SD, MMC) card reader. The HDMI port is available on most models, maybe not the cheap ones. It pretty much has all the needed connectivity.
The Lenovo G580 also comes with an integrated DVD reader/writer as standard and can have on select models a Blue-ray Disc drive.
For those of you thinking about
upgrading this laptop later on, Lenovo has made access to the components especially easy for you. The back cover opens almost completely so you get very easy access to all the important components.
The performance
Now let’s get to the available
performance options of the Lenovo G580 range.
In the processor department you have a selection of Intel processors as follows:
- 3rd generation Intel® Core™ i5 3210M processor
- 3rd generation Intel® Core™ i3 3110M processor
- 2nd generation Intel® Core™ i5 2450M processor
- 2nd generation Intel® Core™ i3 2370M processor
- 2nd generation Intel® Core™ i3 2350M processor
- 2nd generation Intel® Core™ i3 2308M processor
- Intel® Pentium® Dual Core™ B980 processor
- Intel® Pentium® Dual Core™ B970 processor
- Intel® Pentium® Dual Core™ B960 processor
- Intel® Pentium® Dual Core™ B940 processor
- Intel® Celeron® B820 processor
- Intel® Celeron® B815 processor
- Intel® Celeron® B800 processor
Apart from the Celerons at the bottom, all of the available processors will do an amazing job in everyday computing. Expect to find the Celeron powered variants at around 350$, the Pentium® Dual Core around the 400$ mark, the 2nd generation Intel® Core™ i3 and i5’s from 450$ and the 3rd generation Intel® Core™ i3 and i5 in the 500 to 600$ range. It all depends on the configurations available, you can be lucky to find the 3rd generation processors even lower, but with little RAM and storage space.
There also were some older models having AMD processors, but I guess Lenovo decided they didn’t cut the mustard and now offers only Intel powered G580s.
In the RAM department the G580 comes with 2 DDR3 RAM slots witch can be filled with anything from 4 GB all the way up to 16 GB running at 1600MHz. Even if the laptop is capable of using 16 GB of RAM Amazon doesn’t seem to offer any model with more that 4 GB at the moment. So for those looking to get the most out of this laptop you can buy a RAM upgrade separately and install it yourself. Because of the big back cover you can do this very easily.
The storage space available can vary from as little as 320 GB and 5400rpm and can go to as much as 1 TB and 5400rpm. There is also a version with a 500 GB 7400rpm HDD available. The storage capacity in on par with it’s competitors.
In regards to gaming and graphic cards the Lenovo G580 can have either the very good Intel HD Graphics 4000 as standard or a combination of it and one of the NVIDIA® GeForce® GT610M 1GB or GT630M 1GB/2GB graphic cards. So gaming will be possible even in the most under powered version because of the HD 4000. It has proven itself on many occasions as being a very capable graphics card. It also gets a lot better if a better processor if fitted.
The standard battery for all G580s comes with 6-cells and 48 Wh of power. Lenovo claims this gives you up to 5h of productive usage. I tend to agree with Lenovo on this, I personally used an i5 powered G580 on battery power alone for 4 hours strait with web browsing and music playing on minimal brightness and on a wireless network.
Performance wise the Lenovo G580 is a very versatile laptop and will definitely have an ideal configuration for everyone looking for an affordable laptop.
Software
Typical for Lenovo the G580 has the OneKey® Recovery feature, witch allows you to create system backups, restore the OS partition or create recovery discs after you have used the device for a while.
Lenovo’s energy management software is also one of the best out there, offering the user a whole range of advanced options witch other manufacturers don’t.
All the G580 come either with Windows 8 as standard or, Windows 7 from Home Basic to Professional if you don’t really like the new interface Windows 8 offers.
It’s pretty much ready to use out of the box and also offers a lot of extra functionality in case something were to go wrong.
To shed some light on witch model best suits a particular usage I will now recommend a version witch I think best suits that usage in mind.
