Lenovo Ideapad U460 Buying Guide & Review (Predecessor to the IdeaPad U400)

At less than 4 lbs and 1 inch thickness, the brand new IdeaPad U460 is one of the more interesting mid-size portable laptop offerings from Lenovo.

Equipped with Lenovo's new ergonomic chiclet keyboard, the typing experience on the U460 is as pleasant as you should come to expect from Lenovo (granted, typing experience on any laptop is rather subjective). If you're unsure, you should really head to any closest retailer to try the keyboard on the U460 yourself. For whatever reason, keyboard quality and typing experience isn't a factor when people buy laptop, but if you ever plan to write any significant amount with a laptop, you should consider the typing quality on a laptop before purchase.

Battery life on the IdeaPad U460 runs at around 4 to 5 hours, depending on your usage and processor choice (though both the Core i3 and i5 will be comparable in battery life, surprisingly). The U460 comes with an 8-cell battery, regardless of the processor model you choose.

Latest IdeaPad U460 Deals

At current time of writing, you can get $300 off a IdeaPad U460 Core i3 model 087723U, or $200 off the Core i5 087722U model. The Ideapad U460 coupon code "USPU423928" will expire on October 4, 2010 so you should use it quickly for the Core i3. The Core i5's "USPLENOVO923" U460 coupon code will last until September 29, 2010.

Both deal options above comes with 4GB of RAM and a 500 GB, 5400 rpm hard drive. The Core i5 version comes with an NVIDIA GeForce 305M while the Core i3 model sports the integrated (literally into CPU) Intel GMA HM55 HD. Both LED Glare display are at 1366x768, with aspect ratio of 16:9.

Gaming on the IdeaPad U460

But can it run Crysis?

Running Crysis is probably going to be a stretch on the IdeaPad U460, or at the very least, on a respectable setting. But the IdeaPad Core i5 w/ the Geforce 305M can run Crysis at low to medium settings without too much of an issue. Don't expect frame rates above 30 fps, however. The Geforce 305M, while much better than the Intel HM55 HD in gaming performances, is not a high-end discrete video card. the 305M is more closer to a low-mid range card, though it does support DirectX 10.1 along with Shader version 4.1. Major hampering of the 305M performance would be from its memory bus width of 64-bit, so as you increase game resolution, expect lower performance.

Having said that, the IdeaPad U460's LED dispaly res is at 1366x768, so many pre-2009 games will run decisively fine on the U460. In fact, many 2010 games will run without a hitch too, including recent titles such as StarCraft 2 (granted, SC2 is not exactly a high intensive graphics game).