Lenovo Z40 Price and Review

Prevent This Budget Laptop Regardless Of The Cost

  

Lenovo Z40

Introduction

Lenovo Z40 Price and Review-Going with a budget laptop could save you bit more cash on the bank, but it often also means putting up with plenty of trade offs. Whether an unattractive framework, poor performance, color washed screen or perhaps a truncated battery living, computer manufacturers must cut corners somewhere to break even by using an affordably-priced machine. For the most part, it's an bound to happen process.

However, while using the Lenovo Z40, it would appear that its maker simply cut too many corners getting to be able to its target price point. Starting at $599 (£399, AU$799), this dirt low cost 14-inch multimedia machine is seriously hampered by a short 3 hour battery life and substandard quality LCD screen.

I'm sad to say that this is a laptop you'll want to steer clear connected with. Let's get directly into what led me being terribly disappointed while using the Lenovo Z40.

Design

Once you've witnessed one budget notebook, you've seen all those meals – this could not be truer with the Lenovo Z40. First off, the display lid is constructed of a plain, semi-glossy plastic of which bends easily while catching a variety of fingerprints and smudges which has a single touch. You can also leave plenty connected with fingerprints just checking this machine, because of the Lenovo Z40's lustrous plastic bezel.

Luckily, things look somewhat better with your laptop's underside, which comes with a slightly textured cheap and large silicone feet. Overall, the Z40 is certainly one of Lenovo's least consistent designs yet, for the reason that frame is consists of five different waste material (six checking the keyboard deck).

The only real slightly higher-end bit of material you'll find for the Lenovo Z40 is a aluminum plate used for the laptop's inside. It comes to be a single piece for your palm rests along with surrounding the keyboard set deck. Unfortunately, even this small bit of metal still flexes easily and will not add nearly anything to the overall rigidity with the machine.

As ever, you will find Lenovo's excellent AccuType keyboard set but you'll feel tiny vibrations having every keystroke. The trackpad is additionally surprisingly small for the large 14-inch framework, so you'll spend lots of time repeatedly swiping over its surface to go the cursor around.

Specification And Peformace

Your Lenovo Z40 is often a heavy machine, thinking of it's 14-inch display size and pretty much entirely plastic figure. Even the Z40's display backflipping cousin the actual Lenovo Flex 14 is often a lighter machine, tipping the scales from 4. 4 kilos. The Acer Desire V7 also weighs about a very equivalent 4. 41 kilos.

You'll also likely have trouble falling the Z40 right bag, as this measures a pudgy 13. 74 times 9. 6 times 0. 97 inches. It was a new snug fit looking to stuff the Z40 into my messenger bag fashioned with a medium-sized notebook sleeve.

Meanwhile, it was a new fools errand to try to slip it into a few of my smaller luggage. The Flex 14 is extremely slightly thinner along with smaller at 13. 30 x 9. 50 times 0. 85 inches, while the Acer Desire V7 measures throughout at 13. several x 9. several x 0. 9 inches.

Here is the actual Lenovo Z40 configuration directed at TechRadar:

Spec sheet

• CPU: 1. 6GHz Intel Core i5-4200U (dual-core, 3MB cache, as much as 2. 60 GHz using Turbo Boost)
• Visuals: Nvidia GeForce 820M (2GB GDDR5 RAM)
• RANDOM ACCESS MEMORY: 6GB DDR3L (1, 600Mhz)
• Display: 14-inch HD (1366 times 768) LED
• Hard drive: 500GB; 8GB SSD cache
• Optical drive: Dual-layer DVD
• Plug-ins: 2 USB only two. 0, HDMI, 2-in-1 SD/MMC greeting card reader, Ethernet
• Connection: 802. 11 b/g/n Wi-Fi, Wireless bluetooth 4. 0
• Photographic camera: Integrated HD 720p Photographic camera
• Weight: 4. sixty two pounds
• Size: 13. 74 times 9. 6 times 0. 97 inches (W x Debbie x H)

These aren't probably the most exciting specs you will get on a notebook computer, but this is the basic configuration with the Z40 priced from $599. The unit Lenovo sent TechRadar with the purposes of that review was designed with a slightly was involved with CPU, which Lenovo has since replaced which has a tiny bit more quickly 1. 7GHz Intel Core i5-4210U processor. Apart from this small processor discrepancy, every Z40 also includes a 1920 x 1080 present standard.

Also, interested UK along with Australian readers won't be capable of find the Z40 of their respective home nations. Instead, those in the uk can pick up the Z50, which includes a larger 15-inch, 1080p display, only 4GB of memory and a slower Intel Core i3-4030U processor for £399.

Similarly, only the Z50 can be found in Australia with a new much worse-equipped foundation configuration. Starting from AU$799, the laptop includes a lower resolution 1366 times 768 display, Intel Core i3-4005U CPU with out discrete graphics – but within the bright side, there's 8GB of RAM.  

At such a cost-effective price point, the Lenovo Z40 falls right large segment connected with equally, and in a few ways, better-equipped laptop computers. Take the first generation Lenovo Bend 14, for case. That model comes priced $568 (about £363, AU$655) which has a touchscreen, more RAM and a faster 128GB SSD storage devices drive. The only drawback to the present cheaper, transforming multimedia laptop is who's lacks a dedicated graphics card for many casual gaming.

Your $899 (about £574, AU$1, 035) Acer Desire V7 is an additional machine I've ranked highly and would likely easily recommend. It's becoming increasingly hard to come by and it comes sporting a was involved with Nvidia GeForce GT 750M GPU, even so the machine packs more enough power to get you via a day of responsibilities while making almost everything look great with its 1080p screen.

Performance

The only savior for this laptop is who's delivers decent effectiveness. The Lenovo Z40 ran swimmingly with just about all my daily computing needs from picture editing, web searching and streaming 1080p videos.

The rig seemed to be even able to keep up with some modern games for example Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel along with Shadow of Mordor. That said, I had to turn almost all of the graphical options on their lowest settings to be able to run these said titles which has a maximum frame rate of 30 and 50 frames per second (fps), respectively.

Benchmarks

• 3DMark: Ice Thunderstorm: 36, 948; Fog up Gate: 4, 456; Fireplace Strike: 835
• Cinebench PROCESSOR: 215 points; Visuals: 34. 47 fps
• PCMark 8 (Home Test): only two, 347 points
• PCMark 8 Battery Life: 2 time and 38 min's

Despite running using some rather normal components, the Lenovo Z40 set up some respectable scores within our benchmark tests. On account of a discrete Nvidia 820M GPU, the Z40 rubs the actual Flex 14 in to the dirt in almost every benchmark test. The budget multimedia system scored 835 points with all the 3DMark Fire Strike test and a PCMark 8 ranking of 2347 factors, whereas the Bend 14 only tallied upwards 513 points throughout Fire Strike along with 2026 in PCMark 8.

Nonetheless, the Acer Desire V7 tops out because the best performing machine despite wanting to power a better resolution screen along with being saddled which has a last generation Nvidia 750M images card (though punchier than the Nvidia 820M). The Aspire V7 set up a Fire Strike score of 1, 456 points along with PCMark 8 effectiveness of 2, 306 factors.

Quick and not in a good way

Don't expect any longevity out of the Lenovo Z40. The PCMark 8 power supply test completely damaged the laptop from quick 2 time and 38 min's. Running a notebook computer with regular use usually produces far better numbers. Unfortunately, in this case the Z40 just as before ran short along with died after simply 3 hours along with 4 minutes.

These results are specially disappointing, because I did not run almost any strenuous programs besides playing two video game titles of Hearthstone. Usually, there was simply some light web browsing in Chrome with just several tabs open at the same time, while playing Search engines Music, working with a Google Drive file, and watching a shorter 30 minute online video media on YouTube.

This is the woefully poor showing even to get a budget PC. The battery life of both Lenovo Flex 18 and Acer Desire V7 stretch previous 3 hours and thirty minutes, even if just by a couple of minutes.

Tunnel vision

Almost like the inexcusable power supply life wasn't poor enough, the Lenovo Z40 also packs one of many worst screens We've ever seen with a laptop. The biggest problem with all the display – besides the poor contrast along with lackluster brightness – is actually its extremely slim viewing angles. By tilting your mind slightly, you can go from seeing a new viewable image to a unintelligible mess connected with dark pixels.

With other laptops, you can still have a good picture unless you're looking at it by rather wide sides. The Lenovo Z40, however, requires that you go through the image dead on. If you deviate even by simply 10 degrees both vertically and flat, the picture good quality drops off significantly.

 

Bundled software

Luckily, Lenovo kept it light with all the bloatware on the actual Z40. Much of the included software is definitely useful, aside from your 30-day trial connected with McAfee Internet Security, which you'll be far better off replacing using Windows Defender or maybe another firewall program. Here's a list of the very important apps you'll want to keep around:

• VeriFace Master: Passwords – pfft, unlock your laptop using your face.
• Lenovo Associate: This dedicated tool enables you to register your equipment with Lenovo along with check the guarantee.
• Lenovo Support: A quick guide to a digital Lenovo Z40 information, knowledge base along with Lenovo's official talk forums.
• Amazon Kindle: books are great, but moreover, you'll also be capable of read comics on your own laptop with that app.
• Evernote: This cloud-based information and documents databases app has made it into smartphones along with tablets, so why don't you your PC also.

Verdict

It's tough to recommend the Lenovo Z40 whatever the case, that's pretty a lot the long and lacking it. There are a lot of better options around. Even with its bigger cost, I highly recommend the Acer Aspire V7 for a 14-inch laptop, if you're able to still find that. This model chips the difference in between gaming and reasonably priced laptops beautifully having a gorgeous screen and better performance as opposed to Z40 overall.

I'll also warily recommend the Lenovo Flex 14 for the stronger components and better price. Having reviewed your Lenovo Flex 2 15 also, I can confirm that Lenovo's budget machines are notorious for subpar displays. With that in your mind, find either laptop inside a store before generating the purchase. Normally, I would recommend looking in either direction for a laptop, whether that's affordability and longevity or power inside a premium build.