The G570-4334 from Lenovo is the kind of typically functional laptop you’d expect from the company, though it doesn’t fare too badly in the looks department either. On the inside you’ll find dark, brushed metal finish surrounding the keyboard and the lid has a black, glossy finish. However, the glossy finish has also made it onto the screen, and even worse the bezel around it, meaning you’ll see little but your own reflection in bright conditions.
We also had another reservation about the screen – not long after we booted the Lenovo up for the first time to run our benchmarks a row of dead pixels appeared about a third of the way down the screen. The odd dead pixel is by no means a rarity, but an entire line of them is guaranteed to spoil your enjoyment of movies or games.
Nevertheless, the Lenovo is certainly quick. Powered by an Intel Core i3 processor coupled with 6GB of DDR3-1333MHz RAM, it reached a score of 96 in WorldBench 6 – not the fastest we saw, but comfortably ahead of the AMD-powered contenders. Gaming performance was also decent, with minimum frame rates of 11fps at the highest quality settings in FEAR. Again, not the best in show, but perfectly playable. It is also the only model in the group with an optical drive that supports Blu-Ray Disc playback.
We got just a shade over five hours of battery life out of the Lenovo – the second lowest in the group – but this is still a pretty decent score. At 2.6kg it’s more of a desktop replacement than go-anywhere work tool, though you’ll find the Lenovo pretty easy to work on no matter where you are. The keyboard feels good to use and as it is well spread out you won’t make too many mistakes when typing. Unfortunately, the Return key and Backspace key are far too small, which is especially curious given that the Caps Lock key at the other end of the keyboard is near enough full size.
Comments
Matt Egan said: From this distance I honestly can't say: I can only assume that it's a case of prices dropping around a model that didn't perform as well as it should given the price differential.
Bill said: Why would a machine with essentially the same specs, only i5 instead of i3 (nominal 2.5 GHz instead of nominal 2.2) be worse??
Guest said: EXCUSE ME WEBMASTER, update your information.
Matt Egan said: Part of the same family, but a different sku. This one has an i3 chip rather than an i5, for instance. And for the money, the July model is better (although it's worth bearing in mind that things move on quickly in laptop quality and a model that was market-leading two months ago may not look quite so glowing now).
Rob said: how is this different from the review of the other G570 model, reviewed in July which got a glowing review?
Matt Egan said: This is boring for everyone, but... we have never, and would never, 'take money for reviews'. Please don't even make the suggestion or we'll just have to delete your libellous comments. Criticism is welcome, juvenile accusations are not.On Mon, 12 Sep 2011 15:54:19 +0000
Guest said: 11 frames per second? Baaaarf!You guys need to stop taking money for your reviews.