Lenovo IdeaPad Z570-10249ZU

The Lenovo IdeaPad Z570-10249ZU ($699.99 at Costco) is an appealing system?a 15.6-inch laptop that straddles the desktop replacement and budget categories with satisfying performance plus one or two luxuries. Consumers will appreciate that the Lenovo Z570-10249ZU comes loaded with 8GB of memory and a hefty 750GB hard drive (okay, it spins at 5,400 instead of 7,200 rpm, but you can live with that). If three-quarters of a terabyte isn't enough for you, one of the Z570-10249ZU's USB ports doubles as an eSATA port for external storage devices. And if you want to show off your digital videos in the living room?or your PowerPoints in a conference room?Intel Wireless Display (WiDi) 2.0 technology beams the laptop's screen to a nearby HDTV with no cords or cables required, although you'll need to spend $100 on Netgear's Push2TV WiDi adapter for the TV set.

Observant consumers will note that the Z570-10249ZU has a lot in common with Lenovo's similarly named IdeaPad V570-1066AJU ($629.99 direct, 4 stars), a system stocked at Best Buy that earned a budget Editors' Choice nod. While the laptops have the same 15.6-inch screen and Intel Core i5 processor, the Z570-10249ZU carries a few ounces more weight (5.64 versus 5.4 pounds), as well as more memory (8GB versus 6GB).

Design
The Z570-10249ZU's sides and bottom are the usual black plastic, but its lid and palm rest are a handsome brushed aluminum in a gunmetal-gray finish?a classier look than its all-plastic cousins. It measures 9.8 by 14.8 by 1.4 inches (HWD). There are volume control and mute buttons above the keyboard, though audio functions such as play/pause and next and previous track are relegated to the usual Fn-key-plus-function-key combinations.

The 15.6-inch widescreen offers the 1,366 by 768 resolution that's familiar to budget laptop shoppers?not enough for 1080p high-definition video, but sufficient for 720p content or for a pair of application windows side by side. The display is more than bright and sharp enough for easy reading?I usually stick to most laptops' top couple of brightness settings even on battery power, but dialed the Z570-10249ZU several notches lower with no complaints.

Lenovo took care with the Z570-10249ZU's keyboard, slightly sculpting each key to fit the curvature of a finger; the result is a somewhat plasticky but very comfortable typing experience, complete with a numeric keypad for spreadsheet jockeys. The cursor arrows are full-sized; there are dedicated, half-sized Insert, Delete, Home, End, PgUp, and PgDn keys at the top right as well as full-sized versions in the numeric pad.

The touchpad handles the basics?sliding, tapping, and scrolling?superbly, and also lets users pinch or spread two fingers to zoom or use three fingers to flick through Web pages or photos, though the three-finger gestures took a little practice. Sound from MP3s and audio CDs was quite good.

Features
The Z570-10249ZU's left side holds two USB 2.0 ports, one of which is the abovementioned USB/eSATA combo, plus VGA and HDMI video-out ports. Two more USB 2.0 ports are at the right, along with an Ethernet port, microphone and headphone jacks, and the familiar tray-loading DVD-RW drive seen on most value-priced desktop replacements. There's an SD/MMC/xD/MS Pro flash-card slot on the front edge. Unfortunately, the Z570-10249ZU lacks the USB 3.0 port found on the Editors' Choice Asus U56E-BBL6 ($699.99 list, 4 stars) and Acer Aspire AS5750-6667 ($499.99, 4 stars).

WiDi isn't the only wireless technology built into the Z570-10249ZU; both 802.11n Wi-Fi and Bluetooth are standard. The laptop's software bundle features Microsoft Office Starter 2010 (Word and Excel minus some features, with no Outlook or PowerPoint), Google Chrome, and a 60-day trial of McAfee AntiVirus Plus.

Three special buttons are positioned above the keyboard. One toggles the cooling fan, which I found unnoticeably quiet in normal operation, between standard, "super silent," and louder "dedusting" modes, while another, dubbed OneKey Theater, loads preset audio and video enhancements for music, movies, and photos. Frankly, I couldn't detect much difference between the theater modes and system defaults. The third button launches Lenovo's system restore function in case Windows won't start.

Costco also offers a 90-day return policy, doubles one-year warranties to two years, and its Costco Concierge Services provide toll-free tech support for setup and troubleshooting.

Performance

Like the Lenovo V570-1066AJU and Asus U56E-BBL6, the Z570-10249ZU is built around Intel's dual-core, four-thread Core i5-2430M processor, a 2.4GHz member of the "Sandy Bridge" family. The speedy CPU powered the trio to a virtual dead heat in numerous benchmark tests; the Z570-10249ZU's times in Handbrake (1 minute 55 seconds) and Photoshop CS5 (4 minutes 3 seconds) and score in Cinebench R11.5 (2.71) were all near matches for those of the Lenovo V570-1066AJU and Asus U56E-BBL6.

Helped by its 8GB of RAM, however, the Z570 eked out a win in PCMark 7?its score of 2,376 was about 100 points ahead of the 6GB model V570's, and 300 ahead of the Core i3-powered Acer AS5750's. Its Intel integrated graphics will predictably not satisfy gamers (18.6 frames per second in Crysis and 17.8 fps in Lost Planet 2 at medium settings), who can look to the AMD Radeon graphics of the Gateway NV55S05u ($580 list, 4 stars).

The Z570-10249ZU's battery life was respectable for a desktop replacement but not dazzling: 5 hours 30 minutes in our MobileMark 2007 rundown test, half an hour less than its slightly lighter and less expensive V570 stablemate and well shy of the Asus U56E-BBL6's time of 7:42.

The Asus U56E-BBL6's long battery life is the prime reason we picked it as our budget laptop Editors' Choice, and the prime reason the Lenovo Z570-10249ZU doesn't topple it from that throne?along with, frankly, the fact that if we were pinching pennies we'd settle for the 6GB of RAM in the system's near twin, the Lenovo V570-1066AJU. But if you're looking for plenty of performance (and can live without a USB 3.0 port), there's a lot to like under the Lenovo Z570-10249ZU's stylish aluminum lid.

BENCHMARK TEST RESULTS:

COMPARISON TABLE
Compare the Lenovo IdeaPad Z570-10249ZU with several other laptops side by side.

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