LENOVO Ideapad 330 – a horrible PC – Why a 4 year old Asus N551 is still king!

[Chupa]

Since I was still unhappy how hot ultrabooks get when they have no fan and the surrounding temperature is above 21ºC AND they are sitting on your uncovered lap, I decided to get an ultrabook with fan.
Well fat chance, so I ended up with the 15.6″ Lenovo Ideapad 330.
under 2 kg
N4000 processor (wrongly I assumed it was a 4 core but it is only 2 core)
matte screen
4GB/1TB

I took it home from Carrefour because it was cheap and most parameters fitted. price was 330 Euro and you got a 60 Euro in store coupon – so 270 Euro
At home windows was doing its thing with me blocking the internet access.
After windows finally offered me the desktop to do things I started Throttle Stop and could not change any parameter. It was totally locked down to 6 Watt.
the I started prime 95 and went for most processor usage. and then for most heat generation
Now remember I wanted the computer because it was light (1.82Kg) and should stay cool because of the build in fan.
Well the fan was barely noticeable and so was the air what left the exhaust vents.
during my 5 minutes test of  Lenovo, the internal temperature rose to 60ºC, the processor used 6 watt until reaching the 60ºC and then got throttled to around 4 Watt. The Lenovo got very warm all over and the while the fan was still at idle speed doing next to nothing to cool it down.

A total fail of a thermal design, it was slower than the Thomson with it N3350 2 core and much hotter when used under load.
The fan is absolutely useless.
It took 20 min for windows to get ready and 5 min actual test work and the Lenovo went back into the box, ready to return to the store.

Carrefour has a wide selection of notebooks, from netbook to expensive 1000 Euro and more gamers.
All computers are switched on and running in idle just displaying their basic technical data.
With the back of my hand (best thermal sensor area next to the lips) I tested the temperature of all the 30+ different models (2in1, ultrabook, cheep laptop, multimedia laptop etc), what proved over a felt comfort limit was also checked on the bottom.
While HP as usual has the worst thermal design ( they where only good with the stream 13 fanless)
there was less than 5% what did not show noticeable heat zones on top and bottom and that in idle processor use and in a temperature controlled environment with around 22ºC.

I for myself replaced the Jumper 3S I was using with a 4 year old Asus N551jk I had unused lying around because I liked to work with the smaller and lighter sony 14″better (what was then replaced by the Jumper).
Now I have a 15.6″, 2.45 kg behemoth on my lap and that is the only major drawback.
After I tried a lot of older, newer and newest computers this is from all I tried the best compromise. It is just the weight what is a bit bothersome but it stays totally cool even while gaming.
It has a whisper quiet 4th gen i7 with 8 cores what i can push to 90ºC and it is still everywhere cool enough to have it on the blank knees without discomfort while the fan is not noisy at all. The sound system is classes ahead of the downwards speakers of the ultrabooks or the tiny speaker bar what sits in the back and fires at the screen, if I want I can even add the included external subwoofer for a full sound spectrum.
It has a nice metal top with backlit real metal keys, a matte full hd screen and the 1t hdd has been replaced with a 480gb ssd (500/500).
the blueray has been removed and replaced by an empty tray with a sata connection.
it has factory 16 gb and still runs on win 8.1
I tried win 10 and everything works but I hate 10 and everything it does.

For the same tasks the old i7-4710HQ drains the battery with 12 watt/h and the Jumper 3S with around 8 watt/h. This is with full brightness and just typing in a web browser with several tabs open and a decent amount of helper tools running in the background.
With more demanding tasks while the Jumper gets quite warm at 12watt/h power usage, the I7 works without sweat using over 40watt/h at full load.

If I would ever buy another ultrabook, it would be a design combination out of tablet and notebook – with the processor where the screen is – in a vertical design for optimal cooling, with air intakes in the bottom and air exhaust on top combined with a big battery in the laptop style fixed connected keyboard. It would have around 14″ and a 3/4 and not 16/9 screen ratio.

 

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1981 soldered my first Sinclair computer 1K, tapedeck * 1984 build and sold IBM clones 8Mhz, 512K, 20MB HDD * 2018 messing with ultrabooks

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