Lenovo Ideapad 5

manic111 · 1 Jul 2020 at 13:31

tamzzy said:
Mine isn't due to ship until 31st August lol.
From what I can see on YouTube, it should have both a 2242 slot and a 2280 slot.
Ps why do you need to fill both? 512gb not enough?

I've bunged an Ubuntu partition on it which takes up 150gb, which I'll use for everything but a little bit of gaming, have installed FM and Civ on the Windows partition, and am down below 200gb already.

The reality is that 512 should be more than enough for me and I've probably made my Ubuntu partition a bit too big, but a second SSD for £50 or so, which would allow me to completely hive Ubuntu off onto another drive, would be nice.

Minstadave · 1 Jul 2020 at 14:57

manic111 said:
Have any of you guys opened your laptop up yet? I ordered mine with the 2280 SSD, wondering about adding a 2242 SSD to it as well - is there a slot?

The 14" has a spare M2 slot, the 15" doesn't (unless you configured it to take a 2.5" drive).

michty_me · 8 Jul 2020 at 15:28

Just had a notification of my Ideapad has now shipped. I ordered last week and it stated 6+ weeks. Looking forward to seeing it.

Scope · 8 Jul 2020 at 15:30

I ordered on the 2nd July - My shipment date has been set to 17th July, so not the 6 weeks they said on their website..

michty_me · 8 Jul 2020 at 15:32

Scope said:
I ordered on the 2nd July - My shipment date has been set to 17th July, so not the 6 weeks they said on their website..

I had an email stating that it would be the 13th before shipping due to delays and then got a shipped notification now.

Snapshot · 9 Jul 2020 at 10:37

I'm looking for a replacement for my 3yo XPS13 so the Ideapad 5 14 is looking very tempting. I was heading towards the new HP Envy 15 or the outgoing XPS15 (good discount at the moment) but really don't need the GTX 16xx GPU. A 14" unit would probably fit in the same case as my XPS so that's a bonus. So I have a configuration that's pretty much the same as manic111's ready to go and will think about it for a few hours......

One thing that does bother me is that the Ideapad's screen is 300 nits where the Envy is 400 and the XPS 500. Is this something I'm really going to notice?

manic111 · 9 Jul 2020 at 12:30

Snapshot said:
I'm looking for a replacement for my 3yo XPS13 so the Ideapad 5 14 is looking very tempting. I was heading towards the new HP Envy 15 or the outgoing XPS15 (good discount at the moment) but really don't need the GTX 16xx GPU. A 14" unit would probably fit in the same case as my XPS so that's a bonus. So I have a configuration that's pretty much the same as manic111's ready to go and will think about it for a few hours......

One thing that does bother me is that the Ideapad's screen is 300 nits where the Envy is 400 and the XPS 500. Is this something I'm really going to notice?

I'm super impressed. The screen is a bit dim to use outside in the sun, but realistically how often do you do that?

I'm coming from an (old, but still great) MacBook, and the only thing I feel I've really lost is the quality of the touchpad. The Lenovo's is fine, whereas the MacBook was great. For a saving of £1100 over a new MacBook, this is a no brainer.

I considered an XPS instead of this Lenovo, and am a real stickler for build quality etc, but I'm so impressed with this laptop for the price.

Here it is now in a room of average brightness.

Minstadave · 9 Jul 2020 at 12:32

Looks nice, the 14" looks a better format than the 15" overall.

manic111 · 9 Jul 2020 at 12:38

Minstadave said:
Looks nice, the 14" looks a better format than the 15" overall.

I've not seen the 15, but like I say, I really can't fault this aside from the touchpad not being as nice as on a MacBook which isn't a surprise! My only other very minor quibble is the lack of media keys for play/pause/skip, but again, I can live with that. For £700 this thing is an absolute steal

Snapshot · 9 Jul 2020 at 15:00

manic111 said:
I'm super impressed. The screen is a bit dim to use outside in the sun, but realistically how often do you do that?

I'm coming from an (old, but still great) MacBook, and the only thing I feel I've really lost is the quality of the touchpad. The Lenovo's is fine, whereas the MacBook was great. For a saving of £1100 over a new MacBook, this is a no brainer.

I very nearly bought an XPS instead of this Lenovo, and am a real stickler for build quality etc, but I'm so impressed with this laptop for the price.

Thanks for that. My credit card now has less headroom than it did. Like others, it says six weeks plus for delivery so I shall slump back and relax, hoping it'll be much quicker.

eidolon · 10 Jul 2020 at 17:16

I bought the IdeaPad 5i 14 last month with the 90W USB C charger. I would like to get a spare charger but would prefer a physically smaller one if possible. Does anyone have any recommendations?

Tejstar · 10 Jul 2020 at 20:16

I normally like a laptop keyboard with dedicated HOME/END/Pg Up/Pg Dn buttons. With this laptop it looks like you need to press the Function button + the arrow buttons to access these features.

For owners of this laptop, I wanted to ask if there was a setting (perhaps in BIOS) to disable/revert the Fn key, so that I could use HOME/END/Pg Up/Pg Dn without having to hold Fn key at the same time?

tamzzy · 13 Jul 2020 at 11:51

@manic111 or @michty_me did you guys get the 65w charger or the 95w charger?

manic111 · 13 Jul 2020 at 12:18

tamzzy said:
@manic111 or @michty_me did you guys get the 65w charger or the 95w charger?

I got the 95w. No idea how big the difference is, but for a tenner I didn't really see a reason not to

tamzzy · 13 Jul 2020 at 12:52

@manic111 how big/heavy is the 95w charger?
i specced the 95w for mine too, but in second thoughts, i was wondering if the 65w would be a better choice as it'd be smaller and lighter (and more portable lol)

manic111 · 13 Jul 2020 at 15:15

tamzzy said:
@manic111 how big/heavy is the 95w charger?
i specced the 95w for mine too, but in second thoughts, i was wondering if the 65w would be a better choice as it'd be smaller and lighter (and more portable lol)

Yeah it is a bit weighty although I've not really travelled much with it yet. Looks like a 65w USBC charger is only about £20 on the rainforest though, so worst comes to the worst I'll grab one of those

michty_me · 13 Jul 2020 at 16:39

I'm not sure, I just went for the charger it suggested so I assume the 65w one. I'm still awaiting delivery though.

manic111 · 13 Jul 2020 at 17:20

Tejstar said:
I normally like a laptop keyboard with dedicated HOME/END/Pg Up/Pg Dn buttons. With this laptop it looks like you need to press the Function button + the arrow buttons to access these features.

For owners of this laptop, I wanted to ask if there was a setting (perhaps in BIOS) to disable/revert the Fn key, so that I could use HOME/END/Pg Up/Pg Dn without having to hold Fn key at the same time?

Can't see anything in the BIOS, but I'm not quite sure what you're suggesting? Do you want the left and right arrow keys to always function as HOME/END unless you're pressing Fn?

Scope · 13 Jul 2020 at 21:15

Mine has shipped, 11 days after ordering - it should be with me on Thursday.

Snapshot · 14 Jul 2020 at 07:48

tamzzy said:
@manic111 or @michty_me did you guys get the 65w charger or the 95w charger?

I've gone for the 95W charger as it lets me use a hub to expand the number of ports. Some hubs can use 20W or more so there's not enough left from a 65W charger to charge the lappie as well.