Lenovo Y40 14 inch Gaming Laptop
via Amazon
Black Lenovo Y40 59423030 is quite a capable lower cost 14 inch Full HD 1080p gaming laptop although Lenovo isn't often the first brand name that pops into mind for gaming. This is a really good computer for performing daily tasks smoothly as well as playing the current games fluently at 1920x1080 resolution but don't expect it to compete with the very expensive gaming monsters.
Lenovo Y40 comes with the 4th generation dual core Intel i7-4510U processor (4MB cache) at 2GHz to 3.1GHz with turbo boost and hyperthreading with dual cores handling four threads in parallel, 8GB PC3-12800 DDR3L SDRAM at 1600 MHz for superior multitasking, A Hybrid hard drive of 500GB Serial ATA at 5400 rpm rotating speed and 8GB SSHD for mainly faster boot-ups and waking up from hibernation (you need larger SSD to notice a big difference in overall performance) and 64-bit Windows 8.1 operating system.
14.0 inch Full HD LED antiglare backlight non-touch matte finish with glossy bezel TN panel display (this is not an IPS display with larger viewing angles) with 1920x1080 pixel resolution, AMD Radeon R9 M275 discrete graphics card with 2GB GPU (a low cost mid-range discrete card), it is not like a Y50 with a more powerful NVIDIA GTX 860M but handles frame rates up to high 40s at 1080p just fine and you probably can't expect better gaming performance at this price level. It has decent speakers offering acceptable sound for music, videos and games but with little bass response. HD webcam with integrated microphone is good enough for clear live chats with friends and family.
Quite stylish, slim and lightweight for a gaming computer, black Lenovo Y40 with red accents around the speaker grill, keys and USB ports, weighs 4.8 pounds with measurements of 13.80 x 0.90 x 9.80 inches- so it is relatively thin and light. Classic standard non-backlit AccuType keyboard with tactile feedback comes without a separate numpad but a smoothly responsive solid touchpad and the 4 Cell 48 Watt Hour lithium ion battery gives you around 5 hours and 15 minutes in average daily use on a single charge- but not gaming. It doesn't come with an optical drive but a range of modern connectivity options like fast Intel Dual Band Wireless-AC 3160 (802.11ac), Bluetooth 4.0, Gigabit Ethernet port, 2 x USB 3.0 ports, 1 x USB 2.0 port, an HDMI port, a headset jack, a S/PDIF digital audio jack and an SD Card Reader.
Conclusion: The Lenovo Y40 59423030 is a fast and powerful computer with simple design and great ergonomics for both gaming and general daily tasks with its modern Haswell i7 processor, 8GB memory, decent battery life for a gaming laptop, beautiful Lenovo style keyboard and the fast middle class discrete Radeon R9 M275 graphics card that lets you play any current game but at varying frame rates and resolutions- you can play games well at high FHD resolution and much better and handling higher frames at 1024 x 768- remember this is not one of those very expensive super powerful gaming notebooks but offers a very solid price to performance ratio. As a con we can point out the highly reflective bezel around the screen and it could have the IPS feature. It is offered with a 12 month warranty by Lenovo and we can highly recommend it to anyone that wants a great value laptop that performs very well in daily tasks and lets you play most games like Skyrim, League of Legends properly.
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