Lenovo IdeaPad S405 Evaluation

Lenovo recently launched the IdeaPad S405 is a very inexpensive notebook, the price is only 399 U.S. dollars (about 2447 yuan). With an AMD A6 processor and a state-of-the-art Windows 8 system with mainstream fuselage design and performance, you can also get a Dolby sound-enabled speaker. So will Lenovo's IdeaPad S405 's overall performance be as eye-catching as its price? Let's take a look at the content.

Lenovo IdeaPad S405 main parameter information:

Screen: 14-inch 1366*768 screen

Processors and graphics cards: AMD a6-4455m Dual-core processors at the 2.1 GHz, AMD Radeon HD 7520G Graphics

Memory and hard drive: 4GB RAM, 500GB 5400 to SATA hard drive

Operating system: Running Windows 8 system

Network: 802.11b/g/n Wireless network

Interface: Ethernet, HDMI, headset/Microphone, USB 2.0,USB 3.0, card reader

Fuselage size and Weight: 336.6* 241.2* 8.5-21mm, weighing 1.8 kg

Price: USD 399 (about 2447 RMB)

Fuselage design and details

For laptops below 3000 yuan, you can't see too much fancy design, so Lenovo IdeaPad S405 's overall appearance looks very ordinary, the fuselage surface silver-gray engineering plastic material, with rounded corners and solid workmanship. Of course, we would like to see more color styles, but given the low price of the machine, there is no good to complain about. Inside the fuselage uses the black sanding texture plastic, and has a metal power button, is the finishing touch design. In addition, the laptop battery design is similar to the previous, located under the screen shaft. Lenovo IdeaPad S405 The overall size of the 336.6* 241.2* 8.5-21mm, weighing 1.8 kg, the fuselage gradually thinning from the back, in general, in the 14-inch notebook is still very thin.

Integrated fuselage design of Lenovo IdeaPad S405

Although Lenovo IdeaPad S405 keyboard can not be compared with the Think Pad series, but it also has a new Accutype keyboard design, you can see the shape of the button is very unique, the feedback effect is good. However, the keyboard phone slightly softer some, tab and CAPS LOCK and other function keys are also small, this is a less satisfactory part. In the typing test, we can enter 53 letters a minute, the error rate is 1%, slightly lower than 55 letters per minute, 1% error rate average.

Lenovo IdeaPad S405 Keyboard Design

Lenovo IdeaPad S405 does not support touch screens, so if you want to use the many gestures features of Windows 8, you need to implement them through the trackpad. The Synaptics Touchpad has a good sense of sensitivity, with multi-touch gestures like two-finger scaling, rotation, and three fingers bouncing quickly, but the center area is more sensitive, and sometimes the fingers are out of date. In addition, Lenovo also built its own smart Touch board software, can support the fast locking function, just use four fingers down the light sweep, you can lock the screen, conversely, light sweep, you can resume work. In addition, the touch pad's left and right buttons also provide a satisfying click effect.

Lenovo IdeaPad S405 Touch Board Design

Lenovo IdeaPad S405 Interface Design Comprehensive, on the left side of the fuselage can see a USB 3.0 port, an HDMI port, Ethernet interface and Lenovo's one-click Restore button; The fuselage's right-hand side is designed with two USB 2.0 connectors, 2-in-1 card reader, headphones/ The microphone Combo jack and the AC power adapter jack.

Interface design of Lenovo IdeaPad S405 fuselage

In general, Lenovo IdeaPad S405 fuselage design is very good, although there is no fancy design, but the fuselage has maintained a rugged features, keyboard and touchpad feel good, the interface is also very comprehensive, and not because of the price of the relationship between the excessive shrinkage.

Screen Display effect

Lenovo IdeaPad S405 built a 14-inch 1366*768 screen that belongs to the entry-level configuration in the current notebook, and this screen is not a touchscreen, of course. The overall brightness and visual angle of the screen is low, the color restore effect is also more general. In our test, the machine plays high-definition video effect is clear, the details are good, but there is a bias, the red flame will be shown as orange, and the blue sky and white clouds and other high contrast of the restoration effect is not very good.

Lenovo IdeaPad S405 Screen display effect

In addition, Lenovo IdeaPad S405 screen brightness of only 173 lux, below the average level of 227 lux. But it's better than the same low-priced models as HP Sleekbook 15Z (142 lux) and Asus Q200 (116 lux).

Audio effects

Lenovo IdeaPad S405 Stereo speaker design at the bottom of the fuselage, sound performance. In the test we play Jennier Mona song "Queen", can clearly restore its mezzo-soprano characteristics, sound refreshing, full of vitality and with good bass effect. In total, Dolby Technology-certified speakers bring a decent quality experience, which is Lenovo IdeaPad S405 compared to the same price model of an advantage.

Lenovo IdeaPad S405 Speaker design at the bottom

Camera quality

Lenovo IdeaPad S405 built-in 300,000-pixel VGA lens, using CyberLink YouCam software to take photos. In the Office of the fluorescent environment, the photo color is not very accurate, natural light color saturation is slightly better. But the lower resolution is hard to capture better detail, but enough for video calls.

Lenovo IdeaPad S405 Camera shooting Proofs

Processor performance

Lenovo IdeaPad S405 uses the dual core 2.1 GHz AMD a6-4455m processor, and with 4GB of memory, adequate for medium-intensity application processing. At the same time playing the Web page online video, while opening the Internet Explorer, Firefox and Google Chrome browser multiple tags, and perform a complete system scan operation, did not encounter the cotton phenomenon.

In the PCMark 7 performance test, Lenovo IdeaPad S405 scored 1439 points, less than the average of 3000 points, and less than the same model HP Sleekbook 15Z (1469 points) and Asus Q200 (1567 points), a little disappointed.

PCMark 7 Performance test scores

But in the hard drive transmission speed aspect, Lenovo IdeaPad S405 to draw a city. Its Windows 8 system has a boot speed of 21 seconds, leading to an average of 41 seconds, while in a file transfer test, transferring 4.97GB multimedia files to the machine takes 3 minutes 19 seconds and the transfer rate is 25.6 Mbps. This score is lower than the average 44Mbps, but better than the competitor.

Data transmission Speed test scores

Finally, in the OpenOffice Spreadsheet macro test project, Lenovo IdeaPad S405 takes 8 minutes 59 seconds to match 20,000 content, faster than the competitor for at least two minutes, but still below the average of 5 minutes and 39 seconds. In general, AMD processors are still less than the Intel Core series in overall performance, but the combined Lenovo IdeaPad S405 's price performance still meets everyday needs.

Video card Performance

Lenovo IdeaPad S405 built-in AMD HD 7520G graphics, which can basically meet the needs of casual games and high-definition video. In the 3DMark 11 graphics performance test, the machine scored 554 points, below average, but better than competitors. In the "World of Warcraft" game test, the 1366*768 resolution to run the automatic quality mode, Lenovo IdeaPad S405 can reach 27fps frame rate, close to 30fps of the playing standard, but the high quality down to 14fps, basically does not have the game value.

3DMark 11 Graphics Performance test scores

World of Warcraft (automatic quality) frame rate score

Cooling effect

After using Lenovo IdeaPad S405 for 15 minutes of high-definition online video, the temperature around the touchpad is 27.2 degrees Celsius, well below the average of 35 degrees Celsius, which is very comfortable. and notebook computer G and H key between the temperature of 28.3 degrees Celsius, the bottom is 29.4 degrees Celsius, are in very good level, can be seen Lenovo IdeaPad S405 heat dissipation effect is very ideal.

Battery life

Perhaps using the AMD core relationship, Lenovo IdeaPad S405 's overall endurance, the use of WiFi connection to surf the intensity of the test, can only adhere to 3 hours 34 minutes, and the ultra-thin 6-hour 10-minute average level, which is also regarded as Lenovo IdeaPad One of the main drawbacks of S405.

Software and warranty

In Lenovo IdeaPad S405, in addition to Windows 8 built-in applications, you can also see familiar Lenovo applications, such as Lenovo support applications, the use of a friendly touch interface, and built-in a series of Help content. The more practical and associative one-button recovery function, in the system crash can easily restore the system.

Lenovo IdeaPad S405 built-in Lenovo support software

In addition, the machine has a built-in "smartupdate" software that automatically updates e-mail and social networking information at specified intervals, even if the system is in sleep mode. Lenovo also offers photo-editing software, Lenovocloud cloud storage and a range of Third-party software, including a Microsoft Office 2010, but requires purchase activation. In addition, Lenovo IdeaPad S405 also has a regular one-year machine warranty service.

Configuration

Our evaluation of Lenovo IdeaPad S405 equipped with the 2.1 GHz dual-core AMD a6-4455m processor, 4GB memory, 500GB 5400-turn hard disk and AMD HD 7520G graphics card, the price of 399 U.S. dollars (about 2447 yuan). Also has a cheaper 349 dollars (about 2141 yuan) version, the graphics card replacement for the lower-end AMD Radeon HD 7500G, other configurations unchanged. There is also a version with AM D Radeon HD 7600G Graphics, priced at 379 USD (about 2325 RMB).

Evaluation Summary

Similar to the previous, Lenovo IdeaPad S405 offers a low-cost notebook solution, with good comfort and portability, overall performance is also more mainstream, better audio effect is undoubtedly one of the highlights. However, you need to sacrifice a certain amount of endurance to get such a low-cost Windows 8 notebook. But in general, Lenovo IdeaPad S405 is still worth the money, suitable for daily surfing, watching video use.

Advantages:

· Lightweight and portable design

· Good audio effects

· The mainstream graphics performance

· The price is very low

Disadvantages:

· The screen view is narrow, the display effect is general

· Poor endurance