Lenovo G570

Unfortunately, the Lenovo Essential G570 can often cost as much as speedier and more full-featured business laptops. Our review system, as configured, will cost you around £600 (although the line starts at around £300).

The configuration we tested sports a list of components more impressive than most budget laptops. Along with the second generation Intel Core i5-2410M processor, there's also 6GB of installed RAM (upgradeable to 8GB) and a 750GB hard drive. The G570 also comes packed with integrated Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 2.1.Unfortunately, the Lenovo Essential G570's performance leaves something to be desired. In our World Bench 6 test suite, the G570 managed a score of 84. It can handle day-to-day tasks, but it's far from the fastest laptop on the block.The Lenovo Essential G570 has no discrete graphics card. Instead, it relies on the integrated graphics of the Intel processor. This is fine for video playback, but not for gaming or other strenuous 3D rendering. In a game such as Dirt 2, for example, the G570 managed a barely playable frame rate of 36.5 frames per only with the lowest settings at a very low resolution of 800 by 600. In our Far Cry 2 tests, the G570 did much worse with a frame rate of 19 frames per second (low quality settings, 800 by 600 pixel resolution).