Lenovo IdeaPad U260: A Stylish Ultralight Notebook
Futuremark 3DMark 06 & PCMark Vantage
With a 1.33GHz Intel Core i5-470 doing all the work (and no discrete graphics processor helping out), how does the IdeaPad U260 compare against others of its kind? We ran the system through Futuremark’s latest system performance metric PCMark Vantage to see.
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This benchmark suite creates a host of different usage scenarios to simulate different types of workloads including High Definition video and movie playback and manipulation, gaming, image editing and manipulation, music compression, communications, and productivity. We like the fact that most of the tests are multi-threaded as well, in order to exploit the additional resources offered by multi-core processors. The four bars below represent each of the individual tests: Productivity, Communications, Music, Gaming, TV & Movies and the overall PCMarks.
As you can see, the IdeaPad U260 didn't outperform the higher-end $1,500 Maingear Clutch (mainly due to the SSD that came equipped in the system), but did outperform the others in most areas. The Asus Eee 1215N performed slightly better when it came to the music test.
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Next we ran the IdeaPad U260 against the Futuremark 3DMark06 CPU benchmark. This is a series of tests that use the CPU to render 3D scenes, rather than the GPU. It, too, runs several threads simultaneously and is designed to push multiple processor cores. The CPU score is represented in the graph below, along with the GPU related tests as well.
Again, the $899 Lenovo IdeaPad U260 clocked respectable scores compared to most of the other multi-core lightweight notebooks/netbooks we recently tested. Competitors employing additional graphics processors (like the Asus Eee 1215N) showed their strength against the IdeaPad U260, which relies on its integrated Intel HD Graphics core for any and all of its graphics processing needs. This is something to keep in mind if this ultra light notebook will be frequently called upon to run 3D-intensive interactive multimedia presentations and of course for gaming.
