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MagyarLenovo IdeaPad 300-17ISK Notebook Review
For the original German review, see here.
Lenovo's 17.3-incher is furnished with a cutting edge Skylake processor supported by a Radeon Graphics core. This equation adds up to a basic office laptop for home use. Positive: The laptop belongs to an almost extinct species with its maintenance hatch. The battery is mounted from the outside and is fixed by two screws. All 17.3-inch laptops from the low-cost sector are rivals, such as Acer's Aspire ES1-731, HP's Pavilion 17, Acer's Aspire E5-722, Dell's Inspiron 17 5759, Toshiba's Satellite C70D-C . Lenovo also provides competition with the B70-80 and G70-80.
Case & Connectivity
Lenovo treats the Ideapad to a plastic casing. The lid's back and base unit's surfaces are patterned. The casing cannot belie the fact that is part of a low-cost laptop. The build is satisfactory. Slight metal protrusions can be felt in some places. The laptop should offer more in terms of stability. The casing can be dented too easily on both sides of the keyboard. The base unit can also be warped too visibly. That is just as true for the lid. Positive: The Ideapad has a maintenance hatch, and thus the hard drive can be replaced without problems.
The Ideapad does not present any surprises in terms of connectivity. Only one of the three USB ports supports USB 3.0. The laptop can also serve with two video ports. The installed memory card reader is not the fastest of its kind. A maximum transfer rate of 26.7 MB/s is reached when copying larger data blocks. Transferring 250 JPG image files (approx. 5 MB each) is performed at 14.3 MB/s. We test the memory card reader with a Toshiba Exceria Pro SDXC 64 GB UHS-II reference card.
Windows 10 Home (64 bit) operating system is preloaded. Users who do not find Windows 10 useful can install Windows 7 or Windows 8.1. Lenovo supports both operating systems and provides the needed drivers.
Input Devices
The Ideapad is furnished with an unlit chiclet keyboard. The flat, lightly roughened keys feature a short drop and clear pressure point. Their resistance could be crisper. The keyboard yields in the center while typing on it. All in all, Lenovo delivers a keyboard that will satisfy the needs for home use. Prolific typists will be unhappy with it. The multi-touch ClickPad has a surface of approximately 10.1 x 5.3 cm. Thus, there is enough room for gesture control. The sleek surface does not prevent the fingers from gliding. Both mouse keys have a short drop and clear pressure point.
Display
The Ideapad comes with a glossy, 17.3-inch screen that has a native resolution of 1600 x 900 pixels. The brightness (181.8 cd/m²) is too low, and the contrast (477:1) is not convincing, either. The screen never displays PWM flickering.
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||
Brightness Distribution: 77 %
Center on Battery: 203 cd/m²
Contrast: 477:1 (Black: 0.43 cd/m²)
ΔE Color 9.75 | 0.5-29.43 Ø5.1
ΔE Greyscale 12.09 | 0.57-98 Ø5.3
76% sRGB (Argyll 1.6.3 3D)
49% AdobeRGB 1998 (Argyll 1.6.3 3D)
54.2% AdobeRGB 1998 (Argyll 2.2.0 3D)
76.1% sRGB (Argyll 2.2.0 3D)
52.4% Display P3 (Argyll 2.2.0 3D)
Gamma: 2.62
Screen Flickering / PWM (Pulse-Width Modulation)
| Screen flickering / PWM not detected | ||
In comparison: 53 % of all tested devices do not use PWM to dim the display. If PWM was detected, an average of 18694 (minimum: 5 - maximum: 3846000) Hz was measured. | ||
The panel has a DeltaE 2000 shift of 9.75 in delivery state - a normal rate in the low-cost sector. A rate less than 3 would be desirable. Beyond that, the screen also exhibits a bluish tint.
Display Response Times
| ↔ Response Time Black to White | ||
|---|---|---|
| 24 ms ... rise ↗ and fall ↘ combined | ↗ 7 ms rise |  |
| ↘ 17 ms fall | ||
| The screen shows good response rates in our tests, but may be too slow for competitive gamers. In comparison, all tested devices range from 0.1 (minimum) to 240 (maximum) ms. » 47 % of all devices are better. This means that the measured response time is worse than the average of all tested devices (21.8 ms). | ||
| ↔ Response Time 50% Grey to 80% Grey | ||
| 42 ms ... rise ↗ and fall ↘ combined | ↗ 22 ms rise |  |
| ↘ 30 ms fall | ||
| The screen shows slow response rates in our tests and will be unsatisfactory for gamers. In comparison, all tested devices range from 0.2 (minimum) to 636 (maximum) ms. » 62 % of all devices are better. This means that the measured response time is worse than the average of all tested devices (34.3 ms). | ||
The laptop is furnished with a viewing angle dependent TN panel. Thus, the screen is not legible from every position. The Ideapad cannot be used outdoors. The screen's glossy surface and its low brightness prevent that.
Performance
The Ideapad 300-17ISK is a 17.3-inch laptop for the desk at home. It has enough computing power for all common application scenarios. Our review sample is priced at around 630 Euros. Lenovo also has other configurations in its lineup. The prices start at approximately 500 Euros.
Processor
The Ideapad is powered by a Core i5 6200U (Skylake) dual-core processor. It is Intel's newest mid-range ULV CPU, which should completely satisfy the needs of most users. The processor clocks at a base speed of 2.3 GHz, which can be boosted to 2.7 GHz (both core) and 2.8 GHz (one core) via Turbo. Turbo is utilized in bot AC and battery mode.
| JetStream 1.1 - Total Score (sort by value) | |
| Lenovo IdeaPad 300-17ISK 80QH001EGE | |
| Lenovo G70-80 80FF00H0GE | |
| Acer Aspire E5-722-2611 | |
| Dell Inspiron 17 5759-5118 | |
* ... smaller is better
System Performance
The system runs smoothly. We did not encounter any problems. The PCMark benchmarks scores are very good. Increasing the system performance is possible by, for example, installing a second working memory module. Replacing the HDD with an SSD would be most effective. The system would run much faster and loading times would be reduced. Both upgrade measures are quick to do thanks to the maintenance hatch.
| PCMark 8 Home Score Accelerated v2 | 3184 points | |
| PCMark 8 Creative Score Accelerated v2 | 3751 points | |
| PCMark 8 Work Score Accelerated v2 | 4206 points | |
Help | ||
Storage Device
A conventional 2.5-inch hard drive by Toshiba is installed. It has a capacity of 1 TB and spins at 5400 revolutions per minute. Its transfer rates are on a normal level for a 5400 RPM model.
Graphics Card
The Ideapad is furnished with AMD's Radeon R5 M330 graphics unit. It is a member of the GPU mid-range. The unit supports DirectX 12. AMD allows a maximum speed of 1020 MHz for the graphics unit. However, Lenovo limits it to 800 MHz, and the GPU consequently lags behind its potential in the 3DMark benchmarks. The graphics unit cannot compete with the nominal counterpart GeForce 920M by Nvidia.
| 3DMark 11 Performance | 1637 points | |
| 3DMark Ice Storm Standard Score | 44599 points | |
| 3DMark Cloud Gate Standard Score | 4333 points | |
| 3DMark Fire Strike Score | 799 points | |
Help | ||
Gaming Performance
The Ideapad can render some games smoothly. However, the user will have to be satisfied with low resolutions and low quality settings. Mainly games with moderate hardware requirements will be playable. Performance-driven games, such as "Hitman" do not run at all. Laptops equipped with Nvidia's counterpart (GeForce 920M) achieve overall higher frame rates.
| low | med. | high | ultra | |
| BioShock Infinite (2013) | 43.2 | 24.6 | 20.5 | |
| World of Warships (2015) | 47.7 | 33.3 | ||
| FIFA 16 (2015) | 51 | 34.5 | ||
| Rainbow Six Siege (2015) | 40.1 | 18.7 | ||
| Hitman 2016 (2016) | 8.6 | 4.3 | ||
| Need for Speed 2016 (2016) | 22.3 | 14.3 |
Emissions & Energy Management
System Noise
The fan is often inactive in idle, and only the hard drive's noise is audible. Replacing the HDD with an SSD would lead to noiselessness. The fan does not speed up excessively during load, either. We measured a noise level of 38.8 dB during the stress test. The laptop does not produce other noises, like well-known CPU whining.
Noise Level
| Idle |
| 32.5 / 33.4 / 33.4 dB(A) |
| HDD |
| 32.4 dB(A) |
| DVD |
| 36.7 / dB(A) |
| Load |
| 36.1 / 38.8 dB(A) |
 | ||
30 dB silent 40 dB(A) audible 50 dB(A) loud |
||
min:  , med:  , max:  Audix TM1, Arta (15 cm distance) environment noise: 31.2 dB(A) | ||
Temperature
The Ideapad performed our stress test (Prime95 and Furmark run for at least one hour) slightly differently in AC and battery mode. The processor stably clocked at 2.7 GHz. The graphics core clocked at 400 MHz (battery mode) and 800 MHz (AC mode). The laptop did heat up excessively. 40 degrees Celsius were only surpassed on one measuring point.
(+) The maximum temperature on the upper side is 36.6 °C / 98 F, compared to the average of 34.2 °C / 94 F, ranging from 21.2 to 62.5 °C for the class Office.
(±) The bottom heats up to a maximum of 41.4 °C / 107 F, compared to the average of 36.7 °C / 98 F
(+) In idle usage, the average temperature for the upper side is 25.3 °C / 78 F, compared to the device average of 29.5 °C / 85 F.
(+) The palmrests and touchpad are reaching skin temperature as a maximum (35.1 °C / 95.2 F) and are therefore not hot.
(-) The average temperature of the palmrest area of similar devices was 27.7 °C / 81.9 F (-7.4 °C / -13.3 F).
Speakers
The stereo speakers are situated on the device's underside. They produce a somewhat muffled, tinny sound that largely lacks bass. The audio output can be tweaked slightly via the preloaded Dolby Digital Plus software. Headphones or external speakers are recommended for a better sound experience.
Power Consumption
The Ideapad is surprisingly frugal with power. We measured a maximum idle power consumption of 8.7 watts - a good rate. The requirement climbed to 42 watts in the stress test, which is also the maximum because both the CPU and GPU clock at full speed. The power consumption ranges around 29.8 watts (+/- watts) in gaming routine. The power supply has a nominal output of 65 watts.
| Off / Standby | 0.29 / 0.37 Watt |
| Idle | 4.5 / 8.1 / 8.7 Watt |
| Load |
29.8 / 42 Watt |
   
| |
Battery Runtime
The laptop's relatively low power consumption leads to a good battery life. The Ideapad achieved a runtime of 6:46 hours in our practical WiFi test. In this test, we simulate the load needed for opening websites using the "Balanced" profile and a screen brightness set to approximately 150 cd/m².
Pros
Cons
Verdict
The installed processor offers enough computing power for all common application scenarios. The clocked down Radeon graphics unit's primary purpose seems to be a GPU accelerator for applications like Photoshop. The dedicated graphics unit is superior to integrated solutions in this regard. Computer games only run conditionally. The laptop is very quiet and barely heats up. The 1 TB hard drive also provides plenty of storage capacity. It can be replaced quickly for a higher capacity model or SSD thanks to the maintenance hatch. The battery life is surprisingly good. The keyboard will satisfy the needs for home use. Lenovo does not cause awe with the screen. It is viewing angle dependent, dark and low in contrast. Furthermore, it has a glossy surface. We expect more from a 600 Euro laptop in this respect.
Lenovo delivers a throughout technically well-conceived laptop with its Ideapad. However, the casing and the screen ruin the otherwise good impression.
The Ideapad has to be primarily considered a laptop for the desk at home. While the good battery life would make mobile use possible, the laptop's casing calls for a stationary placement. It is not the most robust of its kind. Carrying it around permanently could certainly involve the risk of damaging the hardware.
Lenovo IdeaPad 300-17ISK 80QH001EGE
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04/18/2016 v5.1(old)
Sascha Mölck
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