V15 Gen 4 (AMD Athlon Silver 7120U, 8GB LPDDR5 RAM, 256GB SSD, 15.6'' FHD Windows 11 Home) includes FREE Mesh Laptop Bag + Norton 360 Deluxe Anti Virus

I needed an inexpensive laptop so that in the evenings I could study for my PhD in the kitchen or bedroom when the lounge, where I have my PC, was in use by others. A DVD drive was essential for me, which is why I chose this particular model, plus the cheap price (I paid £354 in May 2020 from Amazon). This is an excellent laptop with Windows 10 pro, and would be good for school or university students.

First of all, this is a budget computer so you shouldn't expect anything world beating. And for the money, it does what it's supposed to and has some good points. It's solidly built, has a built in CD ROM, the screen is good enough at this level, there were no issues in set up, and it works well for what it is.There are quite a few downsides though. The battery life is poor - about 2 to 3 hours of active use was all I managed out of the box. The camera is very basic indeed, though this was evident from the spec and I had already factored in the need to buy a separate web cam for Skype, Zoom, etc. It came with the 1909 version of Windows 10, not a problem in itself, but it was just a bit more hassle having to update it. And overall, it is a little slow, but then again I knew what I was getting when I bought it from the spec.I bought this as an everyday laptop for home use for my children's schoolwork over the next couple of years, and for that it works fine. It's certainly good value for that so I'm satisfied, but if it was for any other purpose I'd probably be looking at something else.

During the COVID-19 lockdown I am doing my regular one-day-a-week voluntary work from home. I pressed into this service my very-cheap-but-not-so-cheerful Acer laptop (specification: model Aspire ES1-531-C0XK with Intel Celeron N3050 processor, 4GB RAM, 500 GB HDD, running Windows 10). The Acer was appallingly slow with Task Manager showing 100% CPU, 100% memory and 100% disc nearly all the time. My work was being hindered by this sluggishness and I decided I simply had to upgrade.The Acer had cost a mere £200 in 2016 and could handle simple tasks reasonably well but was not up to all this videoconferencing and having numerous browser tabs open at once. So, I searched for a competent replacement at an attractive price and lighted on this Lenovo from Mesh Computers. The cost was just over £350, a figure that seems to be increasing over time. I had had a couple of Mesh desktops in the distant past and knew that Mesh had gone bust but were back in business.The (very) new beast has 8 GB of Ram and a 256 GB solid state disk plus an AMD A6 processor which reviews are a bit sniffy about. However, this new toy is a Ferrari compared with the carthorse Acer. OK, I would not want to use Photoshop on high-res images on it or play Call of Duty 27 on it, but for regular office work with videoconferencing it’s a dream compared the old laptop.I also thought it might be a refurbished machine but all the packaging and everything else was brand new. The only oddity was the date of 2018 on some literature, so I guess it’s a new-old-stock machine that Mesh has alighted upon. Having had less-than-satisfactory experience with Bull Guard anti-virus in the past, I uninstalled it straight away after getting running. You always have Windows Defender to rely on instead and it’s free with Windows 10.I may update this review when the Lenovo has gone a few miles, but in the first few days it has been great, and I am very pleased with it for the purpose intended.What about the Acer? Like the Lenovo It has a DVD drive, so I am going to use for experiments with digitising my CD collection.

Ideal for moerate domestic user. THe memory has plenty of capacity and all programs run at a good speed. Ideat laptop at the price.

Great value for the price - as others have said camera isn’t great and battery life on par with other laptops - quick delivery and has everything needed for my daughter for schoolwork

I wrote a long in-depth review, but Amazon blocked it, because I highlighted an issue, but also how to resolve. This mentioned a manufacturer and a phone number, which I included to be helpful, so others can resolve with a quick phone call.So, I shall briefly say a few things,The model series has three levels, 3, 5, 7. This relates to the processor.Within each series you have a choice of memory size and hard drive size.This is the customisation bit, the computer is bought as a bare machine and the retailer adds the memory & hdd to your specification. That is the extent of the customisation, there are no retailer splash screens or anything to worry about.The laptop comes with a sheet of paper detailing how to set it up, this is a a printed version of what is seen on screen, so it worth reading first, to get an idea of what to expect. Setting up is easy, just follow the on-screen prompts for language, country etc. If you have a Microsoft account, have the details handy, as these are asked for.The spec says it comes with Windows 11 Home. However mine came with Windows 11 Pro.I would suggest running a spec report (google how) and this will put a file on your desktop. This file also includes your Windows product code, which you will need if you have to reinstall Windows or hdd failure, so worth emailing it to yourself. This code is not supplied anywhere with the computer.There is also a sheet of paper detailing how to register the guarantee. When you do this, you will find your laptop has already been registered. My enquiries (and probably why amazon blocked my review) is that I detailed what/why/how. So to try to keep this review unblocked, the laptop is registered by the manufacturer when shipped to the retailer. You need to google the retailer phone number, as the one on amazon is not correct. They are really helpful & explained all to me. From here, call the manufacturer, who will raise a case and request you send proof of purchase. Download & forward your amazon receipt to them and they will reset the warranty. Not sure why amazon will not allow comments about the retailer in the review, surely one wants to ensure the retailer is ok? (No doubt amazon will block this again, for me saying this)For those wanting the laptop instruction manual, you can find it when following the warranty registration, or when connected to the interweb, press F9, which opens a browser and takes to the manufacturer support site.It is also worth a google to find how to use the touchpad, if you are not familiar with things like pinching or two finger swipes. I personally do not like touchpads, although the touchpad works perfectly on this laptop and is useful for zooming in & out by 'pinching'. I purchased a bluetooth mouse, which connects directly to the laptop bluetooth, without the need for a plug-in USB rx unit. It works perfectly.Laptop works fine, it is silent in operation, no fan or spinning hdd. /Everything works as it should.It has full size USB & HDMI connectors & a USB-C connector, which is for data only, not charging.The charger supplied is a plug in the wall time, not the older brick style. The cable length is 195cm.The keyboard/screen protector has a few useful snippets written on it, so read. It also doubles as a mouse mat.Lipo batteries need a few full charge/recharge cycles to get full capacity, so would try to run it on battery till it goes flat, fully recharge, run on battery again, for a few cycles. I'm currently doing this and can report the battery life is very good.