Review: The Lenovo LaVie Z is crazy-light and surprisingly fast - robertscatill93
Ounces count in caviar, precious metals and the laptop that's carving a divot into your shoulder while you'Re standing in crease for the aeroplane.
It's these folk Lenovo is hoping to snag with its new LaVie Z, which claims the title of being the lightest 13-inch laptop computer in the world.
I bottom support after receiving our unit for testing that yes, the LaVie Z is and so incredibly light, at 1.94 pounds, you'll initally wonder if it has any components in information technology at all. Hell, I wondered if Lenovo had shipped us i of those fake display laptops they use at the furniture stores.
Merely Nerd's Honor, this is a to the full functional machine. Even more surprisingly, it's fast—though you'd look nothing less with a Sum i7-5500U, 8GB of LPDDR3 and a 256GB Samsung M.2 SATA SSD inside.
Gordon Mah Ung Lenovo's late LaVie enters the 13-edge in club (center) which includes HP's Envy X360 (left front) Asus' UX305 (right front) Apple's Mack Koran Flying 13 2022 (rear left-of-center) and Dell's XPS 13 2022 with QHD+ touchscreen.
Flatboat than aerate (Orchard apple tree's, too)
The LaVie's claim to renown is its weight. To reach it, Lenovo (and NEC, which factory-made the unit through its joint partnership with Lenovo) made a lot of choices to shed ounces. The primary is the shell, which Lenovo says is magnesium Li. To keep it even lighter, the pass deck is a single extruded piece rather than a two-piece assembly.
Batteries besides contribute a lot to laptop weight, so Lenovo opted for a high-resolution IGZO panel. IGZO (atomic number 49 gallium zinc oxide) increases efficiency in how perch is passed through the LCD exhibit at high resolutions, and also in power leakage. Because the display doesn't have to be nonvoluntary as hard to attain the same brightness level as unusual high-resolution panels, Lenovo was able to use a littler barrage fire for the LaVie Z than it would have needed with a typical IPS display.
PCWorld The Lenovo LaVie Z is truly an amazingly light laptop
Kinda than depend on manufacturer specs, I weighed each of the computers higher up connected our obsessive-determined Pitney Bowes postage stamp machine, in grams. All machines were weighed sans charger brick. Because I know the Surface In favor of 3 mafia would chime in if I ignored it, I threw in the Surface Pro 3 with Type Natural covering and Pen. I also weighed the Surface 3 In favor of without the Character Wrap up and Surface Pen too—which, frankly, makes it kinda useless.
Eastern Samoa you can go steady the LaVie Z is familiar only by the raw Surface Favoring 3. Even Orchard apple tree's littler Mac Volume 12 is heavier than the LaVie Z. When you consider that the LaVie Z packs a larger, higher-resolution screen than the MacBook 12, that makes Lenovo's feat flush more impressive.
IT's also worth noting that some of the units are at a disfavor hither. The Dell XPS 13 without touchscreen sheds some weight, but still can't touch the LaVie Z.
Gordon Mah Ung It's how you use IT the right way? The one inch difference 'tween the LaVie and MacBook 12 looks sizable here and makes it even more amazing that the LaVie is barge.
Build Quality
Eastern Samoa mentioned before, the LaVie Z is actually an NEC laptop and gum olibanum has a different look and feel than most Lenovo laptops I've touched. This is no ThinkPad. The lithium magnesium shell that helps save weight has quite a bit of pass thereto, for instance. I won't say it feels flimsy, but pick up the HP Fantasm x360, Dell XPS 13 operating room Malus pumila MacBook 12—all feel solid state, with no shell flex. The LaVie feels almost deep-set when squeezed between your fingers.
The good news is, structural integrity doesn't seem to snort. I was able to coiffure the classic "hold it by the corner" without tactual sensation alike the LaVie Z was going to fold sprouted look-alike an empty can of Budweiser. You can't do that on all laptops. Connected the germinal Google Chromebook Pixel, for exercise, the corner test would render the trackpad inoperable occasionally due to body flex. The LaVie Z is plain helped because IT's fair-and-square so damned light.
Audio superior? There is none
If you're the misanthropic nerd who likes to scoff at the ridiculous claims of "audio by Harman / Beats / B&O" stickers along laptops, you'll be happy to find there is no such corroboration Here. Unfortunately that's probably because no audio company would in reality associate its brand with the LaVie Z's poor sound. Yes, it's that atrocious. Ultrabook audio tends to go from poor to unspeakable. A a few standouts include Dell's current XPS 13 and Horsepower's Spectre x360. Some are adequately loud, and the Spectre x360 has better middle-range and deep-end bass.
The LaVie Z's audio is and then bad IT's hard to consider. I'm convinced if I cracked the LaVie Z open, the world's smallest and lightest kazoo player would wave back at Pine Tree State from inside.
Gordon Mah Ung The keyboard is smaller than the other laptop computer's I've seen and borders happening unusable.
Keyboard and trackpad
While I found the trackpad with its slightly coarse-textured superficial to exist fine, I won't state the same of the keyboard. I tried the early LaVie Z at CES and complained the keyboard wasn't "Lenovo enough." Unfortunately, not much has changed. The keyboard is smaller, and the keys tiny. It's even little than the keyboard in the Dell XPS 13 2022, which I call up is right along the march of usability.
I've been using an XPS 13 long enough to say it's almost a deal-breaking feature along an differently spectacular laptop. I'll say the same for the LaVie Z, only in this case it probably is going to be a heap-breaker for some. You'll really motivation to assay the keyboard first to see if you can live with it. I'm also not a fan of the keyboard layout, so much arsenic the function key in the depress left. That's where the Ctrl key goes, Lenovo! Yet former wacky keyboard decisions will want further acclimation.
PCWorld The LaVie Z makes around odd keyboard decisions.
The screen is meh, too
The LaVie Z's display looks improve on paper than to the naked centre. Its resolution of 2560×1440 amounts to 3.7 million pixels—right between the 2 cardinal pixels in the 1920×1080 panel in the HP Spectre x360 and the 5.7 one thousand thousand in the Dell XPS 13 2022. When I unhurried the light, withal, it maxed taboo at 235 nits—which just isn't bright. The XPS 13 2022, for example, hits 400 nits. This could equal another cognizant decision away Lenovo/NEC to control index consumption, but IT's disappointing regardless.
The display quality varied. I didn't see exuberant bleeding from the backlighting, and compression banding was unbroken to a lower limit. Backlighting invariability was mediocre, but that's with the a white background on maximal brightness and in a dark room–you'd be hard pressed to see it under "mean" conditions. I still judge the panels in the Dingle XPS13 2022 and HP Spectre X360 to be better here.
Viewing high-resolution images, I'd say the impanel in the LaVie Z I feature is under-saturated compared to the competitors. That may Be a result of the anti-glare coating but I too establish the off-axis viewing to be bush to the competition.
PCWorld The LaVie Z's Core i7 higher clock pays off As it's faster than all other Ultrabooks we've seen to see contempt its zany light weightiness.
Performance is great
The operative news? Performance is pretty awesome for something this light. I'll lead off this off with our grueling Handbrake test that takes a 30GB, 1080p MKV file and transcodes it using Handbrake. Not sole does this show how well the CPUs in the laptops perform, only it also shows you what happens to carrying into action under a heavy, long workload. You'll consider the same result from something that pushes the GPU for recollective periods of time.
The Pith i7-5500U in the LaVie Z turned in upper performance and didn't appear to suffer thermal throttling during our two-hour plus job. The chip is rated only slightly faster than the CPU in the side by side-best Dell XPS 13 2022, and this performance is beautiful much in line that.
PCWorld Core i7's operation in gaming tasks again beats the much heavier compettion although the Spectre x360 comes proximate (until it heats upwardly that is.)
Strangling matters
You may not think thermal throttling is an issue, and in whatever ways it isn't, because, you will feeling it. You'Ra ostensibly upsold along "quicker" laptops based on the pricier Intel chips inside. If your Core i5 is throttling you altogether the way inoperative to Marrow i3 performance, what did your money get you? E.g.: The Central processing unit in the Surface 3 Affirmative is the same as the ThinkPad X1 Carbon 2022 yet, its performance dive ascribable thermal throttling, as seen in the 3Mark skydiver results (above), iis epochal. Contempt being incredibly light, withal, the LaVie Z doesn't give up much in performance.
PCWorld The LaVie Z gives up decent electric battery life when you consider its weight and screen resolution.
Fair battery life
The to the highest degree important performance chart for many volition be battery life. I exploited BAPCo's Mobile Strike off 14 to measure how elongate the laptop will run under typical office drone tasks. Away that I miserly Power, Acrobat and former All Work and No Dally tasks. Mobile Mark 2022 tends to afford you a optimal-case scenario in battery life for Office Drone work. It even lets remove the laptop screen for a couple of minutes to represent a break through you might choose during use.
If you reckon about a laptop computer, the W-hour rating is analogous to the gas tankful on a car. As notable earlier, Lenovo/NEC opted to keep goin the shelling size up small to save weight. IT's a 44-watt-hour cell that's about the size of the indefinite in the Zenbook UX305 and the Surface Affirmative 3. Overall it achieved a fair run metre considering the LaVie Z's weight down and resolution. It's about on a equality with the Surface Affirmative 3, which has a lower-resolution panel–but also a power-feeding touchscreen. The Zenbook's advantage in battery sprightliness is credible due to the Intel Core M and its turn down-resolution 1920×1080 screen. It's basically serviceable battery lifetime.
PCWorld To ascertain how the LaVie Z stacks up in ports we, um, stacked, leading some leading laptops sol you could see at a coup d'oeil.
Ignitor, but thicker too
To chip in you an idea of the LaVie Z's leanness and port complements, we well-stacked it against a gaggle of other laptops. In port selection, it's fair, with two USB 3.0 ports, HDMI 1.4 and an SD card lector. One thing I'm not a fan of is the power switch, which is oddly placed on the left side of the unit. That's normal on a convertible laptop same HP's Spectre x360, but why do this on the LaVie Z, where the screen doesn't flush rotate same that?
PCWorld We forgot to include the MacBook Air 12 right-side view, but information technology doesn't affair since you've already seen the laptop's only I/O larboard right?
The Cost
The last salient point about the LaVie Z is its cost. Spec'ed-out with the Nucleus i7-5500U, 8GB of LPDDR3 and 256GB Samsung SATA SSD, it pushes $1,500. That's a slight premium over its contemporaries, but much of that comes from the pricier Core i7 CPU. It's true there's no more touch screen, but there's too a price exchange premiu to be considered for the weighting. Overall, the pricing is inline with same units that play to corner needs.
Lenovo The Lenovo is truly the lightest 13-inch laptop in the humanity only is it worth it?
Determination
Lenovo's aim with the LaVie Z was to take one in love-light laptop. In that reckon I can say the company completed that goal. You can chuck the LaVie Z in your bag and you won't know it's there. You may non think there's a world of difference betwixt the almost 900-gram weight of the LaVie Z and almost 1,300 grams of, say, the Dell XPS 13, but when you're carrying it, information technology matters.
The question is, are the compromises made deserving it? The keyboard is almost a deal-breaker. I've used furthest worse, merely those were connected tiny netbooks or collapsable-tablet keyboards. Considering the size and price of this laptop computer, Lenovo very should have assign a larger keyboard in the unit of measurement when it made the hop across the ocean. The audio is as wel truly atrocious.
In the comfort of my booth yeah, it bugs me. But the next time I've been standing in line at the airport for an hour, maybe, just mayhap, the trade-off is worth it.
Source: https://www.pcworld.com/article/427917/review-the-lenovo-lavie-z-is-crazy-light-and-surprisingly-fast.html
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