Lenovo IdeaPad Y650 Unboxed, First Thoughts

Lenovo’s IdeaPad Y650 is the world’s thinnest and lightest 16-inch notebook/ The IdeaPad Y650 is designed to offer a full media experience, without the weight and bulk found in other 16-inch notebooks. Lenovo sent us an IdeaPad Y650 and I unboxed it today.

The IdeaPad Y650 comes in a box that’sthick considering how thin the notebook is.

There’s not a whole lot in the box besides computer and the power adapter. There are a few CD-sized pamphlets with instructions to get setup and a flyer for a 14-day Napster trial.

The Y650’s lid has a rubberized finish with a geometric pattern. It looks and feels good in the hand, but I disllike the enourmous Lenovo logo.

It’s hard to get over how thin and light the IdeaPad Y650 is. At only one-inch thick, it’s only slightly thicker and a couple of ounces heavier than my 15″ MacBook Pro. It’s much thinner than than HP’s and Dell’s 16-inch offerings.

The keyboard and palm-rest area are white and an orange stripe wraps around the edges of the entire notebook. The trackpad and left/right-click buttons are enourmous. In fact, the touchpad and clickers dwarf my iPhone 3G in terms of width and height.

The keyboard is set back pretty far, which means the palm rests function more like wrist rests. Despite all this room, the keyboard feels a little cramped. The right-shift, arrow keys and the entire top row of keys are all smaller than should be expected. All the white space around the keyboard feels wasted.

There’s a tray-loading DVD-RW drive that ejects towards the front of the notebook. 

I look forward to spending some more time with the IdeaPad Y650 and will be blogging about my experience with it.