Lenovo G70-80 Review for Z70 80FG0037US 80FG005GUS / 80FG005BUS

Last week I gave you my picks for what I thought were the best Intel Broadwell laptops for 2015 as well as my list of what I think are the best budget gaming laptops. At the top of the list was a laptop I recently purchased, the Lenovo G70-80. I picked the G70-80 model 80FG005BUS because of its 1080p screen resolution and it’s high-performance specifications when compared to other similarly priced 17″ models on the market. This model seems to be known as the Lenovo Z70 80FG0037US at Amazon and other retailers.

Now that I’ve used this laptop over the last week I thought I’d give you some additional insight into it.

Lenovo Z70-80 Model Comparison

Lenovo G70-80	80FG005GUS	80FG005BUS	80FG005EUS	80FG005FUS
Processor	i7-5500U	i7-5500U	i5-5200U	i3-5010u
Graphics Card	NVIDIA GeForce 840M 2GB	NVIDIA GeForce 840M 2GB	HD 5500 (integrated)
Hard Drive	1TB 5400RPM	1TB 5400RPM	1TB 5400RPM	500GB
Solid State Drive	8GB	8GB	None	None
Memory	8GB	16.0GB	8GB	4GB
Display	17.3" FHD LED AntiGlare 1080p	17.3" FHD LED AntiGlare 1080p	17.3" FHD LED AntiGlare 1080p	17.3" FHD LED AntiGlare 1080p
Price	$779 to $849	$759 to $799	$659 to $679	$579 to $599

As you can see the only difference between the BUS and GUS models is the included memory. As I was able to get the GUS for just $20 more than the BUS model it seemed well worth the extra price. Comparing model 80FG005BUS to model 80FG005EUS at $650 you get a dedicated graphics card, 8GB SSD, i7, and more ram for around $120. That seemed well worth the upgrade.

In fact, because I was able to the 8GB solid state drive with this model I was also able to avoid purchasing an extra solid state drive to replace the hard drive altogether. That’s because the top two models use SSD caching which enables a hard drive to have much quicker speeds. It makes the entire system more snappy. I’m not sure why manufacturers can’t just give us a similarly priced 128GB or 256GB solid state drive to begin with; however, this was a good compromise.

In terms of graphics Broadwell is about a 20% boost vs previous generation Haswell models. All of the G70-80 models come with at least HD 5500 graphics which are pretty solid overall and good enough for most free to play games online. The integrated 840M will do significantly better than the HD5500 graphics; however, for some it may be unnecessary.

Battery Life

The last laptop I upgraded from was a Sandy Bridge model. Since that time battery life has been greatly increased on all models of laptops. This is because the 5th generation Broadwell processors use far less power. The G70-80 is listed as having up to 4 hours. For me, that is a bit of a stretch. While it was accurate on  the default setting, where the display is a bit light for my tastes, on a more comfortable setting I was able to get right around 2 and a half to 3 hours based upon what I was doing.

Packaging, Shipping, and Boxing

Lenovo sent their G70-80 by UPS 2 day mail and it got here as promised within 2 business days of their shipping it. For me specifically I ordered on Thursday, they processed shipping on Friday Morning, and then it arrived Monday. Had I ordered Wednesday it’s likely it would have gotten to my house by Friday.

The packaging itself was very well done with plenty of paddings to avoid any damage during the somewhat treacherous shipping process.

Display

I wanted a larger laptop that was affordable and had a 17″ screen. While some manufacturers are going away from 17″ models I appreciate the extra screen real estate. In addition, the fact that it had a 1080p resolution when others were trying to sell me a 900p or 768p model at the same price point was also a plus.

Touchpad and Keyboard:

I’m not a huge fan of offset touchpads and do wish that Lenovo had centered it rather than placed it slightly to the left. That being said that wasn’t a dealbreaker for me at all. The keyboard keys are about the size of my last Dell laptop. As I have big hands, I do wish they were a little bit bigger; however, there’s not a lot of better options out there.

Stainless Steel Finish:

There’s a stainless steel finish that covers the inside and outside of the G70-80. It looks nice but gets fingerprints very quickly.

Final Thoughts:

Overall the G70-80 seems like  a good choice so far. If you’re looking at it, I recommend it. You can ask me any questions about it below. For all intents and purposes, it appears that model Z70 80FG0037US is also the same as the BUS model shown above but shown differently at retailers.