A quick look at the specs:
- AMD A6-5200M Quad-Core-processor
- AMD Radeon HD8400G
- 1 TB HDD
- 16 GB RAM @ 1600Mhz
So all in all it's a good laptop, some of the (small) flaws with it is that it has no indicator when num lock is on, no power indicator on the actual power button and a few other minor annoyances.
Hardware wise the biggest annoyance is the lack of a 3.5 mm jack for a mic.
Software wise tho.. I've got a few bones to pick.
It comes preinstalled with windows 8, something I knew going in but I had no idea it'd be so hard to get rid of.
Since I'm very familiar and as far as windows OS go very fond of Windows 7, I of course want to switch to it. However since I have no recovery DVD I want to maintain the recovery partitions in order to be able to factory default it when it needs a trip to Lenovo HQ/nearest service station.
When I try to install windows 7 it gives me an error regarding drivers, my guess SATA drivers I am lacking.
From what I've read from those that HAVE installed windows 7, there are a few things that just don't work well since the drivers are hard to find/non existent. Things like media keys and such.
Not something I can't live without but still a plus if I'd had it.
So in my attempts at tweaking windows 8 to my liking I can't help but feel as if the whole OS is designed to gather information. Everything that before was simple and local now feels simple and clouded. Everything that is a basic feature of windows 7 and earlier seem to need a microsoft account connected to it, with seemingly no option to do local stuff.
I've noticed that my Chromium shortcut on the taskbar just doesn't work, neither does it work on my start menu.. Windows keeps telling me to define a default browser but won't just let me browse to an executable, it demands I use an app.
Games takes me to an xbox like marketplace rather then local games.
Video requires a login, etc etc..
It's not all doom and gloom tho as I do LIKE some stuff that windows 8 does.
Probably one of my favorites is that the theme changes based on the wallpaper, that one is kind of neat.
Metro, while I still think it looks out of place on a non touch screen device is visually appealing and the transition animations are smooth.
Another nice improvement is the WIN+TAB behaviour, instead of having the kind of useless alternative to ALT+TAB it's now something that I wish my Win 7 machine did, it shows an ALT+TAB like menu but on the side of the screen, keeping it from cluttering up the screen like ALT+TAB does.
That's all I've got to say about it for now, I'll probably write more as I go through it and find more annoyances/niceties.
