The new Lenovo G550 is an update to the Value Line G530 with the primary difference being the shift from a 16:10 to a 16:9 screen. This is becoming a common trend for most manufacturers, as they shift to the now more standardized 16:9 screens. The biggest question on our minds is how well this updated budget notebook performs; considering the previous revision earned award.

Lenovo crafted the Lenovo G550 15.6-inch notebook to offer business professionals reliable, affordable and straightforward PC technology. While Lenovo is best known for its high-end ThinkPad laptops, it also offers a small range of high-quality entry level machines. The latest is the G550, a powerful, usable and portable system that vastly exceeds all expectations at this low price point.

The G550’s 2.56kg frame seems to promise equally thick-set build quality, but it isn’t up to ThinkPad standards. There’s nothing major to worry about, but the chassis is noticeably more pliant than Acer’s Aspire 5739G, and there’s a fair amount of give in the lid, too. If you do decide to take the weighty Lenovo on your travels, battery life is middle of the road: sitting idle with the screen set to mid brighness it lasted 3hrs 52mins on a full charge.

The fantastic 15.6-inch widescreen panel aids entertainment use. Stunning brightness, colour and contrast combine with deep black levels for truly vibrant images. The glossy Super-TFT coating is not overly reflective, making it easy to view in most lighting conditions.

The keyboard is easy to type on, sharing the same comfortable and durable feel as my ThinkPad T60 keyboard and only differing in layout. Individual key action is smooth with no audible click when pressed. The keys are textured with a smooth matte finish, giving decent traction for typing ... unlike the glossy keyboards we are seeing on a greater number of notebooks these days. Keyboard support is excellent, barely a hint of flex on the main section of the keyboard. The newer 16:9 chassis on the G550 allowed Lenovo to add a numberpad to the keyboard, but they didn't change the support under that side of the keyboard frame. It doesn't appear to have much flex, but it has just enough to make a squeaking sound against the optical drive when press down. Media-related keys are limited to touch-sensitive mute and volume up/down buttons located above the keyboard.

The 2.1GHz Core 2 Duo T6500 and 4GB of RAM are a powerful combination, and the G550 did extremely well in all our benchmarks, achieving an overall score of 62. Rather than Intel dedicated graphics, there's an Nvidia GeForce G 105M graphics chip. This managed only 9.4fps in our Call of Duty 4 test, which isn't much of an improvement over integrated graphics. However, it should provide enough power for older strategy games.

The 320GB hard disk provides plenty of storage space, and is a welcome improvement from the previous model's 250GB disk.

The laptops offer constant connectivity with WiFi, Ethernet and optional Bluetooth. They also come with VeriFace technology and built-in cameras. The G550 laptop comes equipped with a numeric keypad for ease in logging data, high speed memory, the latest Intel Centrino 2 processor technology and choices of NVIDIA graphics.

The new Lenovo G550 uses a slightly smaller battery than the G530, but with a more efficient processor it consumes less power and gets longer runtimes. The G550 stayed running for 4 hours and 18 minutes in our tests with the screen brightness reduced to 70%, Vista on the Balanced power profile, and wireless active. This is better than the original 3 hours and 29 minutes the G530 managed with a larger battery. While I hate to see the battery capacity decrease, at least the efficiency made up for it and gave us a net gain in battery life.

Pros:

• Almost tough enough to stand on

• Textured interior and exterior finish hides smudges and fingerprints

• Comfortable and solid keyboard

Cons:

• Missing features from previous revision