Lenovo Y70 Touch

Is it a pipe dream to expect serious gaming performance out of a laptop? It's an expensive one to ponder, for sure. But the Lenovo Y70 Touch makes the convincing statement that no, it's not a dream. You don't even need to flush the savings to game on this laptop, which is its brightest shining point. The Y70 Touch is a generally well-built bundle of hardware for a $1,199 (£1,199, about AU$1,458) starting price.

But at such a bargain, can it hang with those that have earned the moniker "gaming laptop?" After all, a look at the specs will show that this rig is not even close to the echelon of performance put out by the MSI GT72 Dominator Pro and the Origin EON17-S.

Let's just say that it's a budget-friendly gaming laptop, okay? As such, it's well worth investigating to see if it can pump pixels pretty enough to be worthy of your consideration.

Design

It's not often that we review every single member of a family of laptops, but with the Y series's excellent value play, we couldn't help digging deeper. (I reviewed the 14-inch Lenovo Y40, while Kevin Lee critiqued the Lenovo Y50, its 15-inch model.) On the whole, these laptops look identical, but there are a few design choices that differ with the Y70 Touch.

They may be smudge magnets (despite what Lenovo says), but the brushed metal panels comprising the outer shell of the Y70 rise above that complaint and other top-dollar gaming laptop designs. The cross-hatched pattern looks simple and feels cohesive in the way that meticulously crafted technology does.

Opening up the Y70 requires a bit of elbow grease, but - woah, this thing is massive - the inside is just as pretty as its shell led us to believe. What's most immediately eye-catching is the super-smooth matte palm rest. It covers nearly the whole keyboard deck, wrapping around every key and ending near the screen hinge. I could just sit here and feel it all day.

Chiclet keys & tweeters

I know I'm not alone, but Lenovo's AccuType keyboard is my favorite keyboard on a Windows laptop. On this machine, the backlit red chiclet keys dazzle as much as they provide comfort and quiet, responsive feedback.

You'll get this quality keyboard in all of the Y series laptops, but only with the Y70 Touch do you get a full-sized setup with numeric keypad. That may sound cool, but I've got to say, the implementation of the extra keys is really half-baked. A design hiccup in any piece of tech can be forgiven, but not when ease of use is impacted. In this case, the right Shift key and directional arrows are nearly impossible to feel without looking down. It's a shame; I otherwise love the way this keyboard looks and feels.

Moving past the keyboard, the matte palm rest makes way for a horizontal slate of metal to house the speakers just beneath the hinge. On its left and right sides, we have the impressive JBL speakers' shining red accents through black trapezoidal grilles. Identical to the audio setup in the Y50, the slick appearance of the speakers are backed up by a subwoofer planted on the bottom of the machine near some fan vents.

WTF 3.0

A complaint that I had with the Y40 quickly resurfaced again with the Y70. That is, why are there so few ports? Especially for a gaming and multimedia-focused machine, 3 USB ports - only two of which are USB 3.0 - is a paltry offering.

Moving on from that oversight, the port situation otherwise is standard fare, including HDMI-out, a media card reader, Ethernet and audio jacks. I'll dive deeper into the spec sheet in a bit.

Touch, I remember touch

Another feature setting the Y70 Touch apart from the competition is, well, touch! A 10-point multi-touch layer is embedded in the 17.3-inch, 1,920 x 1,080 display. This means that the screen can register 10 points of contact simultaneously, say 10 fingers pressed against the screen, playing the brown note on a piano app.

Touch controls are a pretty big initiative in Windows 8, and it works as expected. I'm interested to see if the touch screen will be rendered useless or be taken greater advantage of with Windows 10 coming soon. But as it stands today, I could have done without a touch screen, especially if it would lead to shaving a few bucks off the asking price.

I have no complaints about the trackpad other than that it's fairly small proportionate to the laptop's hefty size, like an island in the middle of an ocean. Sure, it could have been bigger, but it feels smooth and works as expected.

Aside from touch and a cramped, but full-sized keyboard, the Y70 looks just like its smaller siblings. However, compared to other high-performance laptops, its design marks a stunning stroke of mastery on the part of Lenovo. But let's get to the good stuff: how does it play?

The Lenovo Y70 Touch measures 17.3 inches diagonally, an undeniably large chassis size on your lap or your desk. Let's see whether Lenovo stuffed impressive hardware inside to justify the size.

Here's what's inside the $1,399 Y70 Touch configuration sent to TechRadar for review:

Spec list

• CPU: 2.5GHz Intel Core i7-4710HQ (quad-core, 6MB cache)
• Graphics: Nvidia GeForce GTX 860M (4GB GDDR5 RAM)
• RAM: 16GB DDR3L
• Screen: 17.3-inch, 1,920 x 1,080 FHD multi-touch screen
• Storage: Hybrid 1TB (5400 RPM) plus 8GB SSD
• Ports: 2 USB 3.0, 1 USB 2.0, combo mic/headphone jack, HDMI-out, 4-in-1 card reader, Ethernet, SPDIF
• Connectivity: Intel Dual Band Wireless-AC 3160, Bluetooth 4.0
• Camera: 720p HD webcam
• Weight: 7.5 pounds
• Size: 16.64 x 11.44 x 1.02 inches

At the time of writing, the Y70 Touch is offered in 3 configurations starting at $1,199 (£1,199, about AU$1,458) and making its way up to $1,499. Tier by tier, the upgrade options are minimal, offering boosts in the way of GPU performance, RAM and storage.

The $1,399 configuration provides the best value. That's especially so when you consider that, with this option, the extra $200 investment doubles the GPU and RAM carry-load. But what if you dig the design, but you're not especially sold on 17.3-inches? It's possible to get this exact configuration one step down with Lenovo's smaller, 15-inch Y50 for $1,099 (about £890, AU$1353).

Comparing the price configurations of the Y70 to other gaming laptops isn't too useful. If you're looking at this review, value is obviously as big of a concern as performance is. TheMSI GT72 Dominator Pro starts at nearly $2,300 (about £1,863, AU$2,832) and the Origin EON17-S configurations bottom out at just below $1,900 (about £1,539, AU$2,334). With the Y70 Touch, what Lenovo offers for $1,199 isn't necessarily a steal, but you are getting a 17.3-inch gaming laptop with decent specs at a more digestible price.

Performance

If you, like me, are hoarding a huge backlog of games to play through on Steam, the Y70 will likely be able to plow through most of them on medium to high graphics setting, depending on their intensity, of course.

Just Cause 2, for example, was a blast at 60+ frames per second (fps) on very high, with only a few of the more intensive settings, like GPU water simulation checked off. But with Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor, I encountered some slow down on medium settings. I'm not entirely surprised, but the results are telling.

Frankly, I definitely wouldn't consider this machine if your focus is exclusively on playing the games of 2015. Here's how the Y70 Touch performed under a few of our synthetic benchmark tests:

Benchmarks

• 3DMark: Ice Storm: 85,342; Cloud Gate: 13,981; Fire Strike: 3,710
• Cinebench CPU: 497 points; Graphics: 90 fps
• PCMark 8 Home: 2,491 points
• PCMark 8 Battery Life: 1 hours, 48 minutes
• BioShock Infinite (1080p, Ultra): 43 fps; (1080p, Low): 135 fps
• Metr Last Light (1080p, Ultra): 16 fps; (1080p, Low): 75 fps

With a bit of a graphical tuning, I found that the Y70 Touch can handle the modern classics of yesterday at full resolution quite well. Better yet, it does so while keeping fan volume at a pleasingly quiet hum. This is an issue with a lot of gaming laptops. They look like a slick charm, but sound like a plane taking off.

But again, interfacing with the Y70 Touch - especially in games - fluctuates between dreamy and nightmarish. The perfect example of this is how the near-perfect keyboard is muddled by its forced abundance of keys, making it hard to discern crucial ones like "Enter" and "Backspace" without looking down, taking myself out of the action.

A monstrous movie machine and multitasker

While the laptop's massive size was certainly something to get used to, I eventually warmed up to it. Its proficiency at handling a host of tasks within Windows 8 helped make it feel close to a desktop experience. The 17.3-inch FHD screen is bright, crisp and the colors are mostly faithful in their reproduction.

When it came to handling spinning plates, so to speak, the Y70 did just fine. A Google Chrome browser with close to 20 tabs displaying GIFs, two of which were used for streaming high-definition video and audio, ran flawlessly. I beamed a few gameplay sessions and movies over HDMI to my TV at 1080p, and the experience was also seamless.

Also, in its smaller siblings, the Lenovo Y40 and Y50, the twin JBL speakers rock the house. They're by no means a replacement for a full home theater solution, but you'll be impressed with their room-filling capability. Games, movies and music all sounded decent. Consider it a compliment that I never immediately reached for headphones while listening to something.

Super-sized, but short lived

One of our benchmarks, PCMark 8 Battery Life, measures how a laptop battery holds up under the weight of an assortment of relatively basic tasks, like video chats, web browsing and editing photos, to name a few. After the test, it concluded that the battery would last 1 hour and 48 minutes. Lenovo claims 5 hours of battery life, so what's going on here?

To make sure the test wasn't fibbing, I drained the battery down myself. The approximation was close, but I squeezed a few more minutes out of it on the "Balanced" power setting, shutting down after 2 hours and 3 minutes. This sounds horrible, but a 17.3-inch screen requires serious power. It's best to stay near an electrical source for this one, especially if you're gaming. Lenovo's advertised battery life could likely be achieved without activity of any kind.

Bundled software

Most of the software that Lenovo included can be tossed without a second thought - like McAfee Internet Security, Zinio and Amazon Kindle - though some of it may be of interest. Here are the highlights:

• VeriFace Pr This app uses the integrated webcam for face identification in lieu of typing in a password.
• Microsoft Office 365 Home Premium (30-day trial): A free 30 days of Office 365 - use it while it lasts.
• Evernote: The popular note taking and sharing app comes preloaded on almost all Lenovo PCs, this one included.

The Lenovo Y70 Touch is a budget gaming laptop, a peculiar title in and of itself. Lenovo runs with the title though, issuing a slick design and affordable price in hand, only tripping up with just-above decent graphical competence and some questionable design flaws.

We liked

From top to bottom, the Lenovo Y70 Touch has class. Simply put, the design gets top marks. And the user experience, whether you're gaming or surfing a browser, is mostly a fluid and enjoyable one.

We disliked

There are a few boneheaded inclusions here, like the cramped full-sized keyboard and the unnecessary touch screen. Despite their good intention, both of these ultimately mar the user experience, or - at least in the case of the touch screen - do little more than fluff up the price.

Final verdict

It's commendable for the Lenovo Y70 Touch to wedge itself in as an option between low-end and high-performance laptops. Looking at it from a value perspective, being able to play several games at reasonable framerates, and on top of that, providing a good user experience overall are valuable features.

This is a smart buy for those crave a mobile PC gaming experience and aren't graphics nuts or short of desk space. (However, that's a rather niche use case.) Otherwise, if you're prepared to spend over 1,000 clams on a gaming machine, I recommend saving to pony up an extra $500 at least for a high-performance gaming laptop.