Lenovo IdeaPad U430 Touch Pro Reviews

The U430 Touch boasts an excellent keyboard, a stunning high-res display, enough speed to make everyday computing a breeze, and a battery that lasts almost an entire workday, all wrapped up in a beautiful aluminum chassis. You'll be hard pressed to find an affordable touch-screen ultrabook that makes as few compromises as the IdeaPad U430 Touch.

With very few compromises and all-day battery life, the Lenovo IdeaPad U430 Touch the entry-level ultrabook to get.

This is one of the most affordable Ultrabooks we’ve seen, and the compromises Lenovo made to get there are not showstoppers by any stretch.

Lenovo has managed to once again create budget Ultrabook magic with the Lenovo U430 Touch. At $699, this system is hard to beat, as it offers a decent display resolution, good keyboard, and adequate performance without sacrificing battery life. This is not to say the U430 is perfect; it most certainly isn’t. The low-contrast display saps media content of life, the touchpad feels a bit cheap, and some competitors last longer on a charge. But consumers buying on a budget can’t have it all, and most other laptops in this price range make similar sacrifices. The $599 Zenbook, for example, can limbo so low because it uses 2nd-gen Intel Core hardware and downgrades the display to a similar 1600 x 900 panel. We’ll stop short of saying this is the definitive 14-inch budget ultrabook. With competition so fierce, making such a call is difficult; a price drop of $50 can turn an also-ran into a top pick. At this very moment, however, the U430 is in a small group of inexpensive Ultrabooks worth buying over thicker, more traditional laptops.

Lenovo improved the IdeaPad U410 Touch and the U430 Touch has many positive aspects and only a few drawbacks. Especially gamers can benefit from the performance increase of the Haswell processor and the GT 730M graphics. The cooling solution is sufficient and enables the maximum Turbo clocks, which is very uncommon for thin ultrabooks. The chassis is even more stable and leaves a higher-quality impression compared to the predecessor U410. The input devices are convenient for frequent writers and the battery runtimes have been significantly improved (5:29 hours). One interesting aspect is certainly the display with its 1600x900 pixels. However, the TN panel has problems with the viewing angle stability, a visible blue cast (pre-calibration) and the low luminance. The glossy touch panel comes with many restrictions for outdoor use.