[1] They were marketed as premium high performance laptops for multimedia and gaming, as part of the IdeaPad line.

The most significant differences from Lenovo's traditional ThinkPad business laptops were a more consumer-oriented appearance and performance-oriented components.

It uses Intel Core Gen6 i7 processors that can be overclocked (Lenovo has included utility software to make this easier for users).

[11] The Y40 and Y50 were announced at the 2014 International CES in Las Vegas and went on sale in the United States in May of the same year.

In a review for PC World, Hayden Dingman wrote, In terms of gaming performance, Lenovo's Y50 is one of the best laptops in its class.

Unfortunately, Lenovo compromised several key components—the keyboard, trackpad, and (most importantly) the display—in order to offer the Y50 at a mid-range price.

If you can't tolerate those compromises, you might have to bite the bullet and spend more money for a competitor's offering.

In 2015, some components were updated with more recent or parts of higher quality: The IdeaPad Y400 was announced at the IFA 2012 show in Berlin Germany.

The Y410p also comes with an UltraBay, which can house a second dedicated graphics card, a hard drive or an exhaust fan; and uses the secure boot UEFI protocol.

The Y500 is a modular laptop, where the BD/DVD drive[14] could be switched out for adding another Graphics card,[15] another Hard Drive,[16] or another exhaust fan with new feature called Always-On USB, a port which will ensure that even when your system is switched off and unplugged from the mains, you will be able to charge your mobile phone or any other compatible USB device.

The Y510p also comes with an ultrabay, which can house a second dedicated graphics card, a hard drive or an exhaust fan; and uses the secure boot UEFI protocol.

The main difference is that the Y400 and Y500 have an ultrabay slot which can be swapped for another hard drive, another fan or another GPU which will work in SLI with the already integrated one to increase performance drastically.

LAPTOP Magazine offered a similar opinion, stating that, "Lenovo delivers multimedia and gaming power in a portable design, complete with a one-of-a-kind navigation control".

About.com indicated that it was not very fast for high resolution PC gaming, suggesting that it was better suited for casual gamers and viewing HD videos.

[28] On the other hand, the reviewer at GADGETBASE was extremely enthusiastic about the laptop, calling it "the ultimate notebook" with "stellar performance" for "a die-hard gamer".

The design was also appreciated and as with previous IdeaPad Y Series laptops, both the keyboard and touchpad were positively received.

[33] PC World was enthusiastic in its review of the Y430 notebook, calling it "among the best midsized laptops available" and "a joy to use".

Summing up the notebook's capabilities, PC World said, "This is a solidly built unit that's a joy to use and has plenty of grunt for most applications.

It also has versatile networking options, including the ability to connect to 5 GHz IEEE 802.11n Wi-Fi routers.