Lenovo IdeaPad Y480

Elegant design ; Strong performance ; Competitively priced

Disappointing resolution for a multimedia machine ; Keyboard is loud and has some flex ; Not the best battery life for a 14-incher

The Y480 offers solid performance for the money, thanks to a new NVIDIA GPU and quad-core Ivy Bridge processor, but its middling resolution doesn't match the graphics power under the hood.

Excellent keyboard, nice trackpad ; Loud, fairly solid audio quality ; Very little bloatware

Meager gaming performance ; Drab design ; Lack of an SSD hampers performance

Oh so ordinary

Fast performance. Exemplary screen and keyboard. WiDi

Slightly overweight. Battery life merely so-so

Merciful respite from the crapware on last year’s Y-series. Improved clickpad performance over previous IdeaPads. Decent graphics performance. Lots of ports, including dual USB 3.0

General performance and battery life both disappoint. Very heavy at 5.1 pounds. Still not sold on the keyboard

Good performance ; Appealing design ; Impressive audio from JBL speakers

Weak keyboard surround ; Unimpressive display ; Average battery life ; Students looking for a 14-inch laptop with plenty of performance for school work and games should seriously consider the Lenovo IdeaPad Y480.

Students looking for a 14-inch laptop with plenty of performance for school work and games should seriously consider the Lenovo IdeaPad Y480.

The ; offers desktop-replacement power in a midsize laptop, with a discrete GPU and Intel's new quad-core third-generation Core processors.

All this power is paired with a lower-resolution screen, killing the high-end vibe.

The IdeaPad Y480 gets you Lenovo's excellent construction quality and ergonomic design without having a "business" laptop, but some more configuration flexibility would be appreciated.