High quality feel and appearance. Light enough to be unobtrusive but not exceptionally so.
The keyboard has a good action but a slightly odd layout which slows me down a little. It has a number pad squeezed in on the right which is great if you use spread-sheets. Unfortunately, to make room, they have put the `Insert, Delete, Home & End' buttons on the top row - all small, indistinct buttons. As I tend to refine and edit my work a lot, I use the `Delete' button often and I always have to stop and look for it! They have also put the `Fn' key at the extreme bottom left corner of the keyboard and moved the `Ctrl' key to the right! Why? Every time my finger seeks out the `Ctrl' key I get `Fn' instead. If you only ever use the one keyboard you would obviously get used to it but most of us use multiple keyboards these days and we need them to be the same - so this and the tiny, `hidden' delete key are a bit of a pain and mar an otherwise excellent laptop.
Another oddity on the keyboard is a mini joystick set into the keyboard above the `B' key. It is useful for some purposes like web-surfing on the move if you don't have a mouse set up but I find the traditional touch pad more useful and intuitive if you are typing and selecting menu items. To go with the mini joystick there is a second set of right/left `click' buttons positioned above the touch-pad. These are in addition to the normal right/left `click' buttons below the touchpad. A clever idea but it is rather easy to hit the upper buttons with your thumb instead of the space bar when you are typing. Again, it should just be a matter of getting used to it but I would have been just as happy without the mini joystick and extra `clickies'. Perhaps the joystick would come into its own if you wanted to play games on the move. I presume the joystick could be used for flight simulators and the like (?).
With the i5 processor, it is a pretty fast machine. It opens and closes Word & Excel programmes together with very large files virtually instantly. Photos too are very fast to open and you can safely use the extra-large thumbnail images in Explorer without it hesitating to display anything. I never feel that I am having to wait during normal use. Videos also start without delay and play smoothly. Start up from `off' is pretty fast too - but it has slowed down a bit now that Windows 7 has loaded on about 20 updates!
The screen is non-reflective and comfortable to view in a variety of conditions but you do need to view it from the right angle. It is not especially detailed but neither are you aware of any pixilation. The screen is perfectly adequate but not spectacular. What is impressive though is a virtually complete lack of noise. You never hear the hard-drive operating and it is tempting to believe that there is no fan running at all. Excellent!
Having switched from a £500 Toshiba to this £380 Lenovo (almost exactly three years later) I feel that I have made a significant step forward in quality; almost like comparing a Kia with a Mercedes. The speed of operation is in a different league but that is mainly processor progress for you. The screen is frankly no better than the Toshiba but that is not a criticism; I primarily selected the Toshiba for watching videos on my boat. It has a few foibles but so far I am very happy with the Lenovo E520 and would give it a clear recommendation as long as you are well aware of the keyboard oddities.
