Lenovo IdeaPad Z580 ~ Kunbelly

Pros
You have up to 8GB of RAM and 750GB of hard drive space on this laptop.

Cons

This laptop offers a measly five hours of battery life.

The Verdict: 8.48/10

The Lenovo IdeaPad Z580 offers a variety of features but needs a few upgrades before it can be a top laptop computer.

Design

The Lenovo IdeaPad Z580's brushed metallic gray aluminum lid has a matte finish that repels most fingerprints. The lid is also adorned with a slightly raised Lenovo logo, inscribed in textured silver. It's a handsome but not every exciting look. (For a little more flair we suggest opting for the white or red lid.)

Lenovo continues the brushed chrome motif on the interior of the Z580, keeping the classic mien consistent. The keyboard rests in a recessed area, below a strip of speakers running across the top edge. A textured silver power button sits on the top left corner of the deck, beside Lenovo's tiny OneKey Recovery button.

Five white touch-sensitive LED buttons line the top of the deck: volume up, volume down and mute, as well as dedicated buttons to launch a thermal manager and OneKey Theater, Lenovo's proprietary app that improves picture quality for video playback.

Measuring 14.8 x 9.8 x 1.3-1.4 inches and weighing 5.2 pounds, it is lighter than the VAIO E15 (5.4 pounds) but not as slim. The Sony has a profile that tapers from 1 to 1.32 inches. We had no issues moving the laptop from room to room, but we did start to feel the weight of the load after carrying the notebook a while.

Display

The Z580's 15.6-inch HD 1366 x 768 display delivered a satisfying amount of detail on text-heavy websites such as NYTimes.com and CNN.com. We fired up an HD trailer of "The Dark Knight Rises" on YouTube, and the specks of light comprising the backdrop of nocturnal Gotham City glowed brightly, lending an ominous (and effective) look to the scene.

Unfortunately, viewing angles weren't the best on the Z580, as two people flanking a person right in front of the computer couldn't view the images on the display clearly. The Z580 doesn't sport the brightest screen, either, measuring 181 lux on our light meter. Though that's 40 points higher than the VAIO E15's 141 lux display, but well below the category average of 255 lux.

However, Lenovo does include a nice additional feature in the OneKey Theater button, which let us switch between Normal, Movie and Intelligent mode. (The third option promises to automatically switch between the first two.) When we toggled from Normal to Movie mode, we saw more vibrant colors and the edges of objects became smoother.

Audio

The Z580's audio easily filled a large room, thanks in part to Dolby's Home Theater v4 technology. Sound quality remained clear and accurate, and the inclusion of Dolby's optimized presets for Music, Movies and Games are a definite plus. We also created our own custom presets using the feature.

The speakers served up the acoustic riffs of Train's "Drive By" with satisfying clarity, with the lead singer's bright vocal crooning adding verve to the easy-moving melody. However, the electro house song "Bangarang" by Skrillex didn't fare so well. The characteristic wobble on the bass-heavy song ended up sounding pretty tinny instead of rich.

Keyboard and Touchpad

The Z580 features a black matte island-style keyboard with generous spacing between large, flat keys. This is known as Lenovo's AccuType keyboard, which boasts "smile-shaped" keys with good tactile feedback. However, we did have one design quibble: The right Shift key is rather undersized, which caused us to make more typing errors than we normally would. On the plus side, you get a dedicated number pad on the right side.

The IdeaPad V580's touchpad is pretty roomy (4.2 x 2.8 inches) and sports a nice non-slip surface. Multi-touch gestures worked quite well. Pinch-to-zoom and rotate both registered instantaneously, and three-finger flicks were fast and responsive, too. However, the integrated mouse buttons felt a bit mushy.

Heat

After watching a full-screen video on Hulu for 15 minutes, the touchpad and space between the G and H keys registered a cool 81 degrees Fahrenheit, while the underside measured 88 degrees. That's well below the 95-degree threshold we deem uncomfortable. In fact, we watched a couple of "Mad Men" episodes with the Z580 on our lap for over an hour without any issues.

Webcam

Overall, the 1-MP camera on the Z580 delivered sharp images. Natural lighting showed off more accurate colors compared to fluorescent lighting, which washed out the picture. The integrated webcam pairs up with CyberLink YouCam 3 software to capture stills and video at 1280 x 720 resolution.

We used the webcam to talk to a friend using the included ooVoo video chat app. We also added another layer of security using Lenovo VeriFace 4.0. This face-recognition software helped us quickly create a profile.

Ports

The right side of the Z580 houses a couple of USB 2.0 ports separated by an optical drive sitting between them, a jack for the AC adapter and a combination headphone/microphone jack. On the left front lip of the notebook, you'll find a 5-in-1 card slot. A pair of USB 3.0 ports, HDMI, Ethernet and VGA are located on the notebook's left side.