Lenovo Z51-70 Pro Reviews

Spend a little extra money and buy a laptop that looks as good as the Z51, but performs as well as its competitors. Both the ZenBook UX305 and the Acer Aspire V7 are better-suited for the student and educator, despite lacking the same number of ports and connections as the Z51. While I don't recommend the Z51 entirely, I will say that if a stunning, non-touch FHD display and a slick-looking chassis are your priorities, the Z51 excels in both departments.

The Z51's battery life is its biggest weakness. Our video playback test is demanding, without a doubt, but we've come to expect more than four and a half hours of unplugged operation from systems with modern "Haswell" and "Broadwell" CPUs and good-sized batteries. Otherwise, the Z51 provides fair value, especially at $569 with a 500GB hard drive. For this you're getting solid build quality in a chassis that looks less boring than normal; a comfortable keyboard and touchpad; and a 1080p display. Although the screen's limited viewing angles disqualify it from having a group gathered around to watch a video or presentation, it's still head and shoulders better than the low-resolution panels found in most budget notebooks. And having VGA as well as HDMI output makes it easy to connect a monitor or projector.