Lenovo IdeaPad 720s- 15
Much like a fantastic flat-screen TV on Black Friday, the Lenovo IdeaPad 720S- 15 wants to be a premium laptop at a price (starting and tested at $909) you can live with. It has a sleek metal design, a bright, clear screen, good sound, and a comfortable keyboard, so you can use it for both work and play. You’ll have to deal with a shorter battery life than what more expensive competitors offer. This 14-inch notebook, on the other hand, has a lot to offer those who want a stylish, light laptop for less than $1,000.
Lenovo Ideapad 720S- 15 Specs :
| Bluetooth | Bluetooth 4.1 |
| Brand | Lenovo |
| CPU | Intel Core i5-7200U |
| Card Slots | SD memory reader |
| Display Size | 14 |
| Graphics Card | NVIDIA GeForce 940MX, Intel HD 620 |
| Hard Drive Size | 256GB |
| Hard Drive Type | NVMe M.2 PCI-e SSD |
| Highest Available Resolution | 1920 x 1080 |
| Native Resolution | 1920×1080 |
| Operating System | Windows 10 Home |
| Ports (excluding USB) | HDMI, Headphone, Thunderbolt 3, USB 3.0 |
| RAM | 8GB |
| Size | 12.6 x 8.8 x 0.6 inches |
| Touchpad Size | 4.1 x 2.6 inches |
| USB Ports | 3 |
| Video Memory | 2gb |
| Weight | 3.29 pounds |
| Wi-Fi | 802.11ac |
| Wi-Fi Model | Intel Dual Band Wireless-AC 8265 |
Design
The Lenovo IdeaPad 720S- 15 is a sleek computer. It is made of silver anodized aluminium and has a sparkling, bevelled edge and a reflective frame. I like how the front and back edges are both angled in the same direction. This makes the laptop look like a thin rhombus from the side.
The 14-inch IdeaPad 720S- 15 is thinner and lighter than the 15-inch Asus VivoBook S510. It weighs 3.3 pounds and is 0.6 inches thick (3.6 pounds, 0.7 inches). The 13-inch Samsung Notebook 9 (1.8 pounds, 0.6 inches) and 13-inch Dell XPS 13 (2.7 pounds, 0.6 inches) are, as expected, lighter.
Even though the IdeaPad is thin and light, it doesn’t skimp on ports. It has two USB 3.0 ports on each side. The HDMI port, SD card reader, and Thunderbolt 3 port are on the right, and the headphone jack is on the left.
Display
The IdeaPad 720S- 15 bright, colourful, 14-inch screen is one shade shy of perfect. I noticed the bright colours in Thor’s red war paint, Hulk’s green skin, and a wave of orange fire when I watched a trailer for Thor: Ragnarok on it. This 1920 x 1080-pixel panel so crisp that I noticed each fleck of colour in Bruce Banner’s speckle-print suit. The only thing I didn’t like was that whiter tones, like Google Docs backgrounds and some YouTubers, tended to look yellow.
The IdeaPad 720S- 15 shows 105 percent of the sRGB spectrum, according to our colorimeter. That’s better than the thin-and-light notebook average of 101%, the XPS 13 with a 1080p screen’s score of 94%, and the VivoBook S510’s score of 82%. The Notebook 9 (118%) has even more colours than the Notebook 8.
Even though I saw a yellowish tint on the IdeaPad 720S- 15, it’s pretty accurate, scoring 0.3 on the Delta-E test (0 is perfect). That’s similar to the 0.2 from the Notebook 9 and better than the 2.9 category average, the XPS 13’s 1.3 and the VivoBook S510’s 6.6.
The IdeaPad 720S’ panel is also rather bright, emitting up to 305 nits. That’s about the same as the XPS 13’s 302-nit screen and better than the category average of 261-nits and the VivoBook S510’s 238-nits. The Notebook 9 with 330 nits is even brighter. During my tests, I saw that the IdeaPad 720S had good viewing angles. Colors were still strong at 45 degrees to the left and right, but reflections made it hard to see from far away in well-lit rooms.
Keyboard, Touchpad
The island-style keyboard on the IdeaPad 720 makes it easy to type for long periods of time. On the 10fastfingers.com typing test, I typed 75 words per minute, which is just below my average of 80 words per minute. While the 1.4 millimetres of key travel is a hair shallow (we want at least 1.5mm), this is remedied by the 71 grammes of required actuation force (you shouldn’t find less than 60g).
The 4.1 x 2.6-inch touchpad on the notebook worked well as I moved around the desktop. It also speedily responded to Windows 10’s navigation gestures and two-finger scrolling swipes.
SEE ALSO : The Best Refurbished Gaming Laptops
Audio
The JBL-tuned speakers in the IdeaPad 720S filled our medium-sized conference room with a solid reproduction of Tyler, The Creator’s “Who Dat Boy.” Vocals from both Tyler and A$AP Rocky’s voice was clear, and the high-pitched synths and drums in the song were strong and accurate.
There are Dolby Audio settings in the Lenovo Settings app, which can be useful. The default Music preset produced the most well-balanced sound, but I found that the Voice option helped make a bad-sounding interview sound better. Don’t use Movies, Gaming, or Dynamic, because all they seem to do is mess up the bass or vocals.
Performance
We tested the Intel Core i5-7200U processor and 8GB of RAM in the IdeaPad 720S. Together, they let you do a good job of switching between tasks. When I had a 1080p YouTube video playing in the background and a dozen Chrome tabs open at the same time, there was no lag (including Slack, TweetDeck and Google Docs). In fact, those websites still worked.
On the GeekBench 4 general performance test, the laptop got a score of 7,106, which was below the category average of 9,357. This score is the same as the XPS 13’s (7,287, Core i5-7200U, 8GB of RAM) but lower than the VivoBook S510’s (7,593, Intel Core i7-7500U, 8GB of RAM) and the Samsung Notebook 9’s (8,410). (Core i7-7500U, 16GB of RAM).
The IdeaPad 720S’s 256GB NVMe M.2 PCIe SSD copied a DVD’s worth of multimedia files (4.97GB) in 20 seconds, which is 254 megabytes per second. That rate is faster than the 218-MBps category average, the 212 MBps from the 256GB SSD in the Notebook 9 and the VivoBook S510’s (256GB M.2 SSD) 96 MBps. The 256GB SSD in the XPS 13 performed this test at a faster 339.31 MBps.
The IdeaPad 720S matched 20,000 names to addresses in a good 4 minutes and 4 seconds on our OpenOffice macro test. That’s faster than the average for thin-and-light laptops, which is 4:17, but slower than the Notebook 9, XPS 13, and VivoBook S510 (3:43).
The IdeaPad 720S got a score of 92,457 on the 3DMark Ice Storm Unlimited graphics test because it has Nvidia GeForce 940MX cards with 2GB of VRAM. That beats the category average of 77,391, the VivoBook S510’s score of 65,938, the Samsung Notebook 9’s score of 77,846 and the XPS 13’s score of 72,507. (Intel HD 5500).
Battery Life:
The IdeaPad 720 has a good battery life. On the Laptop Mag Battery Test (web surfing at 100 nits), the laptop lasted 8 hours, which is close to the average of 8:16 for thin and light laptops and longer than the Samsung Notebook 9 and VivoBook S510, which only lasted 5:11 and 5:04, respectively. The XPS 13 (13:49) has a longer battery life by more than 5 hours.
Webcam:
The 0.9-megapixel webcam takes pictures that are a little blurry but are still usable. The selfies I took in our office clearly show who I am, but the red wall behind me looks washed out and the image has a pixelated look.
SEE ALSO : Google Pixelbook 12In Full Specs And Price In USA.
Heat:
The IdeaPad 720, which is made of anodized aluminium, gets rid of heat well and stays cool to the touch. After streaming 15 minutes of HD video on the laptop, the touchpad (at 82 degrees Fahrenheit), G&H keys (at 86 degrees), and bottom (at 90 degrees) were all warmer than our 95-degree comfort standard.
Software
If you like to change pictures on your computer, it might be worth the $4.99 to unlock all of Phototastic Collage’s filters, frames, and backgrounds. You might do better to move your pictures to your phone and use Instagram instead.
As with most Lenovo laptops, the free version of the Keeper password manager is included. Our sister site, Tom’s Guide, gave it a 7 out of 10. Instead, use LastPass, which got a 9 out of 10, and this is the same version of Keeper that you can download for free online.
Choices for setting up
We tested the entry-level Lenovo IdeaPad 720S- 15, which has a Core i5-7200U CPU, 8GB of RAM, and a 256GB NVMe M.2 PCIe SSD and costs $909 on Amazon. With the $1,069 model sold by Lenovo, you can upgrade the CPU to a Core i7-7500U for an extra $160.
Pros
- Relatively affordable
- Bright colourful display
- Comfortable keyboard
- Sweet audio
Cons
- Average battery life
Bottom Line
I like that the IdeaPad 720S, which costs $909, has a simple design, a bright, colourful screen, good sound, and a comfortable keyboard. This laptop would be even better if its 8-hour battery life was just a little bit longer.
A similarly configured XPS 13 gives you more than 5 hours of extra battery life, but it will cost you $190 more. Still, the Lenovo IdeaPad 720S- 15 is a great choice if you want a high-end laptop for less than $1,000.
