Decisions decisions

pkeno

Hi all.

I'm currently in the market for a new laptop. Have had a Vostro 1500 for a long time and it has just about given up the ghost.

Budget: ~€1500

Intended use: MATLAB image analysis, 3D image rendering, casual internet use, word processing, light gaming, multimedia consumption.

Mobility: I want a 15 inch laptop, weight is less of an issue, but the lighter the better I guess.

Warranty: I intend on having this for a long time so warranty is quite important.

OS: Windows. Not a Mac fan


I have done a bit of research myself and have come up with a few contenders.

Dell XPS 15 - only GT640m grpahics
Lenovo Y580 - seems difficult to locate 1080p screen variant. 5400rpm drive
Asus N56VZ - Rumours of poor customer service. 5400rpm drive


I'm hoping that you fine folks know of something I may have missed in my travels, or could perhaps set me straight on my qualms above.

Basically I'd like an i7 processor, at least 8Gb RAM, a dedicated graphics card (preferably GT650m and up), speedy disk, 1080p screen, bluetooth, decent speakers.

Backlit keyboard would be welcome too! I am based in the UK but come home regularly so could get it either side of the water.

I know it is quite a specific request but you never know what may come up.

Thanks and Happy new year to all!

pkeno

Yakuza42

pkeno wrote: »

Hi all.

I'm currently in the market for a new laptop. Have had a Vostro 1500 for a long time and it has just about given up the ghost.

Budget: ~€1500

Intended use: MATLAB image analysis, 3D image rendering, casual internet use, word processing, light gaming, multimedia consumption.

Mobility: I want a 15 inch laptop, weight is less of an issue, but the lighter the better I guess.

Warranty: I intend on having this for a long time so warranty is quite important.

OS: Windows. Not a Mac fan


I have done a bit of research myself and have come up with a few contenders.

Dell XPS 15 - only GT640m grpahics
Lenovo Y580 - seems difficult to locate 1080p screen variant. 5400rpm drive
Asus N56VZ - Rumours of poor customer service. 5400rpm drive


I'm hoping that you fine folks know of something I may have missed in my travels, or could perhaps set me straight on my qualms above.

Basically I'd like an i7 processor, at least 8Gb RAM, a dedicated graphics card (preferably GT650m and up), speedy disk, 1080p screen, bluetooth, decent speakers.

Backlit keyboard would be welcome too! I am based in the UK but come home regularly so could get it either side of the water.

I know it is quite a specific request but you never know what may come up.

Thanks and Happy new year to all!

pkeno

Hey, not sure if its what your looking for, or if this crowd are reliable (have not dealt with them before, although have never heard of any trouble either) but it's another option. Comes in under 1500 with an i7, a 128GB SSD and a GTX 675M

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=LT-011-OE&groupid=959&catid=1828&subcat=

pkeno

Yakuza42 wrote: »

Hey, not sure if its what your looking for, or if this crowd are reliable (have not dealt with them before, although have never heard of any trouble either) but it's another option. Comes in under 1500 with an i7, a 128GB SSD and a GTX 675M

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=LT-011-OE&groupid=959&catid=1828&subcat=

Thanks very much, I'll check it out.

I would prefer to go with an established brand because I perceive them as being of better quality. This may be a mistake though. Anybody any experience with that site?

machalla

Overclockers are well known for selling computer parts for several years so they are well established in that regard. As to their own laptops, I don't know what they are like, I can only assume they have another company making these for them to order (some small uk companies build are still in that busines) or provide the service themselves.

On a personal basis I've only ever had problems dealing with them, sending the wrong items, issues with repairs etc. As such I stopped dealing with them. Other peoples experiences may be very different though and perhaps I was just unlucky with them.

I've been looking at the Y580 in pcworld myself at €1099 at the moment for a friend. Having looked at in the store the resolution seems to be full hd not the usual 1366 x 768 thats often the case. Its listed as that on the pcworld website but that is incorrect as far as I can tell. So it might tick the boxes for you. Replacing the drive with either an ssd or a 7200 with an onboard cache wouldn't be an issue for you given the budget you mentioned.

On the asus front, I've only ever had excellent customer service from them the few rare occasions I've needed to get on to their technical support. They provided everything you would expect from a quality organisation when I dealt with them for a netbook issue a couple of years ago. Perhaps they have changed since then but their European support from the netherlands was the best I ever encountered. It has disposed me well towards them. Again others may differ in their experience.

pkeno

Thanks machalla, appreciate hearing your experiences.

I wandered into PC World this morning had had an eyeball of the two machines. The Asus is definitely the better looking and seems to be of higher quality construction.

I messed around with the Lenovo and saw the same as you, 1920*1080 resolution. It also had a 3630 processor instead of the listed 3610. Seems like they don't really know what they are selling in there.

If I can avoid it I would like to not have to tinker with components straight away. Just wondering what the real world disadvantage of the slightly slower drive speed will be. No point having that blazing processor and graphics card when the HDD is the bottleneck.

machalla

No problem as long as its a help.

Well my last laptop arrived with a 5400rpm drive in it and after a month I gave in and got a 7200rpm which made a significant difference in terms of boot up times. You can also get hybrid drives that have a small ssd cache but use a standard 7200 rpm hard disk for data. The cache learns what apps you use most and moves them into the ssd cache on the hybrid giving you a nice speed bump with a lot of hard disk space at the same time.

If you want speed an ssd is the only way to go. They are incredible in terms of the speeds you would normally get from a standard drive vs the ssd. If you got one your only complaint would be in terms of the cost of space. Given you can get a 256Gb for well under €200 these days this is absolutely the way to go if you can live without the space of a 1Tb drive. You save in terms of heat generation on the laptop, power, resilience if the machine gets dropped.

Yes the Asus is a far prettier machine theres no doubt. Apart from build quality though the specs on the Lenovo are higher (the 660 vs 650 nvidia card). Its down to what you value more. I think the asus is prettier and lighter but weaker on graphics. I think it was more expensive though for a lower spec. I'm not sure what speed of hard disk it had in it but I'd be surprised if it was 7200.

Lenovo seem to have a solid reputation in the business laptop field, I'm not sure about home machines. I do prefer the look of the asus myself but the higher spec graphics has an appeal too on the Lenovo. In any case I wouldn't limit yourself to pc world, if you don't need the higher graphics its quite possible you can find a better deal on amazon uk or saveonlaptops.

I can't seem to find the y580 anywhere cheaper though so it appears it may be the nearest to a "bargain" at the moment. Which is not really something I associate with pcworld but they have started to improve somewhat in more recent times.

pkeno

Thanks again for your input. Very kind. Yeah an SSD would be great, and to be honest I think I'll end up keeping most bulky things (movies, photos) on an external disk anyway.

For what I will be doing a 650 is probably sufficient. Though it's always nice to future proof a bit more.

If the XPS 15 had a better graphics card in it I would be typing out this response on it but alas.

I reckon I'll go in and see if I can get the Lenovo and an SSD for a bit of a discount. I don't need 1TB on the machine anyway, just asking for trouble if it fails. Changing the disk will hardly void the warranty will it?

pkeno

Doing a bit more research and it seems I can add an mSATA drive into the Y580 as well as the 1TB HDD to act as a speedy cache to boot from. Looks like all my boxes are now ticked!

machalla

pkeno wrote: »

Doing a bit more research and it seems I can add an mSATA drive into the Y580 as well as the 1TB HDD to act as a speedy cache to boot from. Looks like all my boxes are now ticked!

That is a nice combination of the best of both worlds. I noticed something about some feature not being available on the y580 mSata which is mentioned below so it might be worth keeping mind.

http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/IdeaPad-Y-U-V-Z-and-P-series/How-install-msata-into-Ideapad-Y580/td-p/860715

I think you've just made the decision for my friend also so thanks for pointing that out. Its a nice feature I wasn't aware of on the laptop.