Lenovo Introduces Media-Savvy IdeaPad Y560

When you mention Lenovo, you usually call to mind business-oriented laptops. The ThinkPad and IdeaPad lines have been staples of the business traveler - simple, black, and sort of boring, but priced right and very easy to work on. We haven't met a Lenovo keyboard or touchpad we didn't like. But a Lenovo laptop for media-minded consumers? Even for gamers? Surely that's heresy, right?

Today, Lenovo has made available the IdeaPad Y560, a product that might just get general consumers, and even gamers, to reconsider the brand. It has a slicker industrial design, with red accents and a textured lid, but it's what's inside that really has me intrigued. The entry-level model features a Core i3 330M CPU, 4GB of DDR3 memory, and a quite capable Radeon Mobility HD 5730 discrete graphics chip with 1GB of video RAM. Not bad for under $1,000. You can step up to Core i5 dual-core and Core i7 quad-core CPUs from there, or add bigger 500GB 7200 RPM hard drives if you're wiling to spend $1,299. The top-end model boost the RAM to 8GB and is a bit pricey at $1,599.

So how about it? Would you consider Lenovo when buying a media-centric consumer laptop, or will the company never shake it's "business-only" image?

Read our reviews of Lenovo laptops.

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Intel Launches Ultra-Low Voltage Core i3, i5 and i7 CPUs

Intel has officially launched Ultra-Low Voltage (ULV) processors in the Core i3, Core i5, and Core i7 product families today. The company claims the chips offer up to 32% better performance than the comparable ULV processors in the Core 2 family, popular in many ultraportable PCs. At the same time, power usage is reduced by a promised 15%, again relative to the company's current ULV products.

The branding gets a little confusing at this point. The Core i5-520UM, for example, runs at 1.066 GHz and carries at TDP (thermal design power) of just 18 watts. The Core i7-640UM runs at 1.2GHz, and like many other mobile Core i7 processors, has two cores. It may be a little confusing for consumers to see Core i7 in the specs of one laptop which is significantly less powerful than a Core i5, simply because the Core i7 is the ULV version and the Core i5 is not (standard Core i5 mobile processors run up to 2.53GHz). Note that the ULV Core i3, i5, and i7 mobile processors only officially support DDR3 at speeds up to 800MHz, while the standard versions also support 1066MHz DDR3 memory, so there could be a significant difference in memory bandwidth as well.

Having said that, the new ULV Core i3, i5, and i7 processors should provide a significant boost in performance and even a modest improvement in battery life over the existing ULV Core 2 Duo processors. If you're in the market for a really thin and light ultraportable laptop, it behooves you to wait a month or two for the laptops using these chips to hit the market. We even hear rumors that the stellar Alienware M11x will get an upgrade to these new CPUs.

You can read the official press release here.

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