Lenovo launches IdeaPad U350 and IdeaPad G550 notebooks

The new 13.3-inch and 15.6-inch laptops are sleek, portable, and affordable

Lenovo IdeaPad U350

Lenovo IdeaPad G550

Almost a week ago Lenovo announced the 12.1-inch Nvidia Ion powered netbook called the IdeaPad S12 and now it has launched two more notebooks under the same brand name, the IdeaPad U350 and IdeaPad G550. Both the notebooks have an appealing design and pack some muscle power, that too at an affordable price.

The Lenovo IdeaPad U350 has a 13.3-inch LED display with 16:9 aspect ratio and a resolution of 1366x768. The ambient light sensor on this notebook allows the system to adjust the brightness of the screen according to the environment light so as to reduce the strain on eyes. This laptop has a nice silver shell and is one inch thick with a weight of 3.7 pounds. The base price of this notebook will be $649. This low price is made possible by using Intel’s new Consumer Ultra-Low Voltage processors, which are battery efficient and more affordable than Intel’s ULV line (which is usually found in high-end business notebooks). Lenovo will offer three processor choices:

·         Intel Core 2 Solo SU3500 (1.4G, 800 MHz, 3 MB)

·         Intel Pentium SU2700 (1.3G, 800 MHz, 2 MB)

·         Intel Celeron 723 (1.2G, 800 MHz, 1MB) processors

The graphics will be provided by the Mobile Intel GMA 4500M or GMA4500MHD depending on the chipset being used which will be either the Mobile Intel GS40 or GS45 express chipset. The IdeaPad U350 offers support for up to 8GB DDR3 memory and up to 500GB of hard drive storage. Other features include:

·         1.3MP webcam with VeriFace facial recognition system

·         Multi-touch touchpad

·         Dolby Sound (two 1.5W speakers)

·         VGA port, HDMI connector

·         4-in-1 multicard reader

·         Ethernet, WiFi, and bluetooth

Apart from this Lenovo IdeaPad U350 comes embedded with an Active Protection system to protect the hard drive during a fall, QuickStart and OneKey Rescue system for easy recovery of data. It will run on Windows Vista operating system and the battery life is said to be up to 10 hours with 8-cell and 5 hours with 4-cell battery.

The Lenovo IdeaPad G550 notebook offers good processing power along with powerful graphics. The exterior is well designed and it comes either in a hairline-like silver finish or a smooth and glossy slate-colored finish. It supports a 15.6-inch LED display with an aspect ratio of 16:9 and resolution of 1366x768. The users have an option to choose between an Intel Centrino 2 or Intel Core2 Duo processor. The graphic muscle is provided either by Nvidia GeForce G105M (512MB DDR2 memory) chipset or the Intel integrated X4500 graphics chipset. It supports a total of 4GB of DDR3 memory and up to 320GB of hard disk storage capacity. Other features include:

·         Numeric keypad

·         DVD player/burner

·         1.3MP webcam

·         HDMI port

·         WiFi, Ethernet, and optional Bluetooth

·         Windows Vista operating system

The IdeaPad G550 weighs 2.49Kg and has dimensions of 318 x 245 x 26.5 – 36.2mm. It uses a 6-cell battery which the company claims can run up to 5 hours in case of integrated graphics and 2.5 hours in case of discreet graphics. This laptop will be on sale from next month at a suggested price tag of $599.