Lenovo IdeaPad 500 15 Laptop

Lenovo IdeaPad 500 15.6″ Mainstream Laptop

Lenovo IdeaPad 500 15 Laptop

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The Lenovo IdeaPad 500 15 is a mainstream laptop PC with 15.6-inch Full HD display. The IdeaPad 500 is successor of the Z51 series and doesn’t bring new chassis design to the table. It has a silver aluminum palmrest, white plastic lid, and a 1″ thick profile. The main change is replacement of the 5th Generation Intel Core Broadwell processors with the 6th Gen Skylake and upgrade to Windows 10 from 8.1.

Lenovo’s IdeaPad 500 15 is currently available only with the higher-end 6th Gen Intel Core i7-6500U dual-core processor, so it’s no wonder the laptop has a high starting price of $999. It’s also expected to be available with the mid-range 6th Gen Core i5, which will lower the basic price. The i7-6500U provides snappy performance in day-to-day tasks and can be also serve for more demanding work, like editing high-resolution photos and videos. However, for these purposes recommended are notebooks with the quad-core i7 chips. The default graphics processor option is the Intel HD 520, which can handle the basic games and select blockbuster titles on lowest possible settings. If you need more graphics muscle, Lenovo has made available a dedicated video card option – the AMD Radeon R7 M360, also known by its AMD MESO XT codename. The video card is a lower-mid-range one, so it isn’t suitable for hard-core gaming.

Lenovo IdeaPad 500 15 Display

System memory choices are 8GB and 16GB, which are both sufficient for heavy multitasking. As for storage, the IdeaPad 500 15 provides either a 1-Terabyte classic hard drive or a 1TB hybrid hard drive with added 8GB solid state drive storage to boost loading speeds of commonly used programs.

Other than sharp Full HD 1920×1080 resolution, the display doesn’t offer anything special in terms of specs. It lacks IPS technology for wide viewing angles and doesn’t support touch input. For that purpose, the notebook provides a full-size keyboard with numeric pad but no backlight, and trackpad with physically separated click buttons instead of integrated in the surface.

Lenovo IdeaPad 500 15 Keyboard

The rest of the specifications sheet includes a built-in DVD writer, Dolby-certified stereo speakers, a 720p webcam, 802.11AC wireless, Ethernet LAN network interface, Bluetooth, HDMI and VGA video output ports, three USB ports, an SD card reader, and a combo audio port. Optionally, Lenovo offers the IdeaPad 500 15 with a RealSense 3D camera, which is used for facial recognition log-ins to Windows and other purposes.

Lenovo says the battery life can last up to 4 hours on this model.

Lenovo IdeaPad 500 15 Right

Lenovo IdeaPad 500 Left

Specifications

Brand
Screen Size
Screen Resolution
Touchscreen
Other Display Specs
Processor (CPU) Intel Core i7-6500U 6th Gen (older upper-mid-tier home and office CPU)
Graphics (GPU) AMD Radeon R7 M360 2GB DDR3 dedicated video card (for light gaming, but with improved smoothness)
Intel HD 520 integrated graphics (for the lightest gaming)
System Memory (RAM) Size


Data Storage


DVD Optical Drive
Keyboard & Input


Speakers & Audio Stereo speakers
Combo microphone and headphones audio jack
Camera Front-facing web camera
Wi-Fi Wireless 802.11AC
Ethernet Network Port Yes
Mobile broadband (4G LTE)
Bluetooth Yes
USB Ports 2 x USB 3.0 + 1 x USB 2.0
Video Output Ports 1 x HDMI + 1 x VGA
Media Card Reader SD card reader
Other Features RealSense 3D Camera
Battery "Up to 4 hours" of battery life
41 Whr capacity
Weight 5.1 pounds
Height 1"
Width 15.1"
Depth 10.4"
Windows Version
Warranty 1-year

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Published on October 7, 2015

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User Reviews, Questions and Answers

Below you can read and submit user reviews, questions, and answers about the Lenovo IdeaPad 500 15.6\". Thank you for your contribution.

Current rating: 5 out of 5 stars

  1. farzan khawaja –

    i want to upgrade my lenovo idea pad graphics card and replace optical drive with ssd drive 250 gb to boot it up faster is this possible and which graphics card could i upgrade to??

    • Danijel Z –

      Graphics isn’t upgradeable on this laptop (and 99% of other notebooks on the market). As for DVD / SSD replacement, it is doable. You can get a DVD caddy in which you can put an SSD or HDD. But you should check your DVD drive thickness and get an appropriate caddy for it. Usually it’s 7mm, 9.5mm or 12.7mm. Also, storage interface should match, but I think it’s not a problem since most of them are SATA nowadays. Actually, it’s best to look for a compatible caddy based on your DVD drive part number.

  2. Saif –

    I bought one this one today with 8GB Ram
    and am woundering if i can upgrade it to 16GB
    or the motherboard will not accept it??

    • Danijel Z –

      There are two RAM slots inside the IdeaPad 500 15.6″, so you can use 2 x 8GB for a total of 16GB. I’m not sure if you can use a single 16GB module, since not all laptop motherboards support it. Also, you should check if you currently have 1 x 8GB or 2 x 4GB inside, you can take a look at your specs sheet of use some diagnostic software like HWInfo.

  3. Yo –

    Can the ideapad 500 play rocket league

  4. Saiteja –

    When this lenovo is compared with hp pavilion 15t(with i7 processor customizations).which is better one to choose among these two.

    • Danijel Z –

      I would personally choose the Lenovo IdeaPad 500, primarily because the chassis seems to be more durable and overall better build quality. Also, the keyboard on the Lenovo provides better tactile feedback, although the keys are similarly shallow to those on the Pavilion 15t. The big question is your display choice. An IPS screen on the Pavilion 15t would be a major plus. IPS is apparently lacking on the available Lenovo IdeaPad 500 models, but is optionally available on the Pavilion.

    • 5 out of 5

      Saiteja –

      I just need the processor to be good and graphic card should be good enough.display is my 2nd preference.then is lenovo better one among the two.

    • Danijel Z –

      If both laptops come with the same i7-6500U processor and include only the Intel HD 520 integrated graphics, then they will have very similar if not identical performance. As for optional graphics cards, the HP Pavilion 15t is available with the Nvidia 940M which should be slightly faster than the Lenovo’s AMD Radeon R7 M360 option.

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