Lenovo ThinkPad Edge E555 20DH002QUS 15.6 inch Laptop Review

Lenovo ThinkPad Edge E555 20DH002QUS
via Amazon

The new generation Lenovo E555 20DH002QUS as part of ThinkPad Edge series is a 15.6 inch sleek and trustworthy business laptop with an AMD A series processor, 7200rpm rotating speed hard drive and up to 6.5 hr battery life and offers powerful performance while sticking to basics as one of the lowest price school and business laptops on the market. Lenovo is one of the largest computer manufacturers in the world and they are known for the reliable and good quality machines- manufactured, tested and improved for durability, speed and overall performance for daily tasks, adequate multitasking and certain degree of gaming.

Lenovo ThinkPad Edge is offered with the Summer 2014 release ‘Kaveri’ dual core AMD A6-7000 processor (1M Cache) at 2.2GHz - 3.0GHz speed with turbo boost function but no hyper threading (so two cores and two threads), 4GB DDR3 SDRAM at 1600MHz speed that should be enough for daily multitasking but with a max memory of 16 GB on two memory slots, 500GB Serial ATA/600 hard drive at faster 7200rpm spindle speed and 64-bit Windows 7 professional- great news for many customers that dislike the Windows 8 and both will be allowed to be upgraded to Windows 10 for free in 2015. AMD A6-7000 processor has a Passmark benchmark score of 1826 as of the time of this review, can be compared to come of the Intel i3 CPU’s and has a max Thermal Design Power of 17 watts.

15.6 inches anti-glare LED-backlit Active Matrix TFT Color LCD matte display with 1366x768 pixel native resolution, 16:9 widescreen cinematic aspect ratio and TN- twisted nematics panel (not IPS with large viewing angles) and supports 720p image as regular HD screen but not Full HD and offers adequate image quality for mainstream stuff. AMD Radeon R4- Kaveri is the graphics card that is built into the processor and is more or less equivalent of the Intel HD 4000 in overall performance and speed so no problems playing less demanding games like Minecraft but only some of the most current games can be played and at lower settings and at 20 to 30 frames per second. It comes with a 720p high definition webcam (1280x720 video resolution) with integrated microphone for you to chat live on Skype comfortably. Advanced Audio and Dolby stereo speakers help the system deliver loud and clear surround sound without distortion for your songs and games and improved clearer dialogues when you’re watching movies.

Graphite Black Lenovo ThinkPad Edge weighs 5.4 pounds and has the dimensions of 14.84 x 9.64 x 1.34 inches so it is pretty much as portable as an average 15 inch laptop and the 6-cell 48Wh lithium ion battery is claimed to give you up to 6 - 6.5 hours of long battery life. 6-row keyboard is not backlit but spill resistant for when accidents happen and has a 10-key numeric pad on the side as well as a good size touchpad that supports multiple gestures and with separate left and right click buttons at the top, it is overall comfy to type on with its ergonomic design. Connectivity options include SuperMulti 8X DVD+/-R/RW Dual Layer Optical Drive, 802.11b/g/n WiFi, Bluetooth 4.0, Gigabit Ethernet with RJ-45 connector, 1 x USB 2.0 port, 2 x USB 3.0 ports for faster data transfer rates, 1 x Audio-out port, 1 x 3.5mm Headphone/Microphone Combo Jack, 1 x VGA port, 1 x HDMI port when you wish to connect the PC to a larger screen- HDTV or external monitor, and 4-in-1 Memory Card Reader- SD, SDHC, SDXC and MMC formats.

Conclusion: The innovative Lenovo ThinkPad Edge E555 20DH002QUS with modern accents and finish is an affordable business laptop with decent overall performance and speed for day-to-day Office tasks, programming and a bit more. It is not particularly slim or very light in weight but a little bulky with average weight and size for a 15.6 inch laptop as it comes with an optical drive and a regular hard drive. We can’t say this is an amazing value computer but is definitely a more than acceptable computer that sticks to basics and does the job just fine for business users and students and it is one of the lowest priced business computers out there. HDD is 500GB but is shock-mounted and at faster 7200rpm rotating speed, battery life is up to 6.5 hours on average use on manufacturer’s website, keyboard is the award-winning full-size spill-resistant ThinkPad ergonomic keyboard with a great feel and all ThinkPad computers are torture-tested with rugged military style spec tests and the average user should be satisfied with the range of connectivity options including 2 x USB 3.0 ports, Bluetooth 4.0, HDMI port and Optical Drive. As long as you don’t expect to play the most demanding 3D games at high settings and at higher fps or edit complex multimedia you should be fine with this system- it is good value for money!

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