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Build and Design
The Y550's body is a dark color mainly with some hints of orange around the sides of the screen and base. The case design is very modern with rounded corners and a case design/pattern. Despite the case being plastic the laptop showed only minor flex on the screen cover and the chassis, I expected this from Lenovo from previous experience with their laptops. The only design problems were the lid hinges which are on there pretty tight so you need two hands to get it open unless your really strong. The lip of the lid snaps onto the base pretty tight so that adds some difficulty when trying to open the Y550 with one hand. The model we looked at had a dark palm rest but also available is one with a white palmrest.
Display, Keyboard, Touchpad and Speakers
The 15.6 -inch HD WLED screen was great, watching movies was a treat on this laptop. The only problem with the screens resolution isn't 1080p like it's competitor the Dell Studio 15. The resolution is maxed out at 1366x768 which isn't exactly horrible but it would have been nice for Lenovo to put full 1080 in the Y550. The picture quality is good colors are how they should be viewing angles are similar to any other notebook, to sum the screen up it's good but not the best you can get.
The keyboard's that are on other Lenovo machines like the Thinkpad have set the bar pretty high for the Y550. The keys on this laptop have the same feel of the Thinkpad key's when pushed but they lack that feel on your finger tips. However the keyboard was still pleasant to type on and an easy transition if your coming from a Thinkpad notebook. The touchpad on the Y550 is spacious and has a somewhat bumpy texture that feels great. The buttons below the touchpad a of fair size and make little noise when you click but still enough to let you know you clicked. Also worth noting are the touch sensitive media keys above the keyboard, they control things like volume.
The speakers are at the top corners above the keyboard and a subwoofer on the bottom of the laptop. The speakers are good but not better than other laptops that have a dedicated subwoofer. The speakers can get loud but don't expect them to overpower a lot of background noise. However they performed well in a medium to small sized rooms with both movies and music. | 
