Features & Specifications
The Z500 (59-341235) version has an Intel Core i5-3210M processor clocking at 2.5GHz, and is paired with 6GB of RAM. In this category, the HP ENVY m6 also has the same Core i5 processor, but the predecessor, the IdeaPad Z580 and the HP Pavilion G6 have the Core i7 processors. Surprisingly, the Z500 performs better than the Core i7 rivals, something that we will illustrate on in the Performance section.
The Z500 (59-341235) version has an Intel Core i5-3210M processor clocking at 2.5GHz, and is paired with 6GB of RAM. In this category, the HP ENVY m6 also has the same Core i5 processor, but the predecessor, the IdeaPad Z580 and the HP Pavilion G6 have the Core i7 processors. Surprisingly, the Z500 performs better than the Core i7 rivals, something that we will illustrate on in the Performance section.
The graphics bit of the IdeaPad Z500 is handled by the Nvidia GeForce GT645M (2GB) graphics. This is up against the AMD Radeon HD7670M that the HP ENVY m6, the HP Pavilion G6 and the Toshiba Satellite L850-Y5310 are packed in with. The IdeaPad Z580 from last year, has the Nvidia GeForce GT630M (2GB) graphics.
The IdeaPad Z500's 15.6-inch display has a resolution of 1366 x 768 pixels, which is fairly standard across the entire range of laptops available up to Rs. 60,000. The quality of the display is fairly good, and we really like the text rendering and the viewing angles. While it is actually not a matte display, it is not very reflective, which makes this very comfortable to use with hardly any ambient stuff reflecting off.
1TB of storage space that comes with the IdeaPad Z500 is fairly standard in this category. The IdeaPad Z500 has Windows 8 (64-bit) preloaded. The only thing that we can nit-pick in the features is the lack of a Blu-ray drive. The IdeaPad Z580 launched last year had that, and we expected the same to now be available in lesser priced versions. Maybe Lenovo will bring that along in a refresh soon, because points where due, they were the ones to bring it on the mainstream notebooks last year when the rivals didn’t bother.
Performance
For a Core i5 powered machine, the IdeaPad Z500 is rather subdued in terms of the power delivery. We had noticed the same thing in the IdeaPad Z580 last year, when the Core i7-3612QM did not immediately get away from the line leaving behind a trail of fire. And the cooling fans running at full speed even if you are just using a web browser and working on a Word document. Under a real life usage scenario, the Z500 feels very docile. The primary reason for that is the Lenovo Energy Management software, which is very efficient in clocking down the processor cores depending on the usage.
For a Core i5 powered machine, the IdeaPad Z500 is rather subdued in terms of the power delivery. We had noticed the same thing in the IdeaPad Z580 last year, when the Core i7-3612QM did not immediately get away from the line leaving behind a trail of fire. And the cooling fans running at full speed even if you are just using a web browser and working on a Word document. Under a real life usage scenario, the Z500 feels very docile. The primary reason for that is the Lenovo Energy Management software, which is very efficient in clocking down the processor cores depending on the usage.
However, the Z500 does show its hand in the PC Mark 07 benchmark test. Not a surprise then, that the Core i7 powered HP G6 and the Lenovo IdeaPad Z580 lead, but the IdeaPad Z500 does score considerable better than the HP ENVY m6, the Dell Inspiron 15 and even the Toshiba L850 which has a much more powerful processor, at least on paper.