Oppo, help me pick a new laptop!

"area man" (hurrburgring) 01/12/2015 at 19:04 • Filed to: None

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Since Nibby is AFK at the moment , I turn to all of you - I need to buy a new laptop ASAP and I could use a little guidance! Uses will be video streaming, moderate gaming and photo editing. Currently !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! for me ( UPDATE: Nibby concurs ), but I am fairly clueless so any and all suggestions are welcome. My budget is $1000ish.

Nibby > area man 01/12/2015 at 19:08

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I responded!

area man > Nibby 01/12/2015 at 19:09

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Yeah I think we both clicked publish at the same time. Whoops! I'll update to reflect.

CB > area man 01/12/2015 at 19:14

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I have a Lenovo Ideapad, and it works pretty well, minus the fact that the speakers are garbage. I don't know if they'll be the same for this computer, but just a heads up on it.

No Prius Needed > area man 01/12/2015 at 19:14

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Stahp. There is no way that 860M will even be slightly able to play games besides minesweeper at 4k. This is better for gaming and has a better processor. It's also new. http://m.newegg.com/Product/index?…

ly2v8-Brian > area man 01/12/2015 at 19:15

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yeah that's a nice setup right there.

Zipppy, Mazdurp builder, Probeski owner and former ricerboy > area man 01/12/2015 at 19:16

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does size matter much? I'm personally considering a Eurocom Monster myself. They're small, but are powerful. you can also configure them to pretty much whatever you want, and have a Geforce 650M on board.

http://www.eurocom.com/ec/configure%2…

Nibby > No Prius Needed 01/12/2015 at 19:22

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link borked

area man > No Prius Needed 01/12/2015 at 19:25

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Link's not working. Yeah, most reviews have said there's not enough power to back up running a lot of things in 4K, but it's still a nice screen and it should be able to handle video.

No Prius Needed > Nibby 01/12/2015 at 19:25

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It's the ASUS GL551JM-DH71 on newegg.

Axial > area man 01/12/2015 at 19:27

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I think the Y50 is inferior to the Y510p (especially the one with SLI), but it's not a bad option.

Nibby > No Prius Needed 01/12/2015 at 19:28

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Processor is barely better. You won't notice the performance... and it's still Haswell like the i7-4700.

No Prius Needed > area man 01/12/2015 at 19:29

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The ASUS GL551JM-DH71 is better if you want to play on it.

area man > No Prius Needed 01/12/2015 at 19:31

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Ah yeah, I've seen that one. You're right that it's better, but I really don't like how the WASD keys are highlighted like that.

area man > Axial 01/12/2015 at 19:34

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Like this one? http://www.ebay.com/itm/Lenovo-Y51…

No Prius Needed > area man 01/12/2015 at 19:34

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There is probably a way to turn it off. At least they aren't painted bright red like my Y40.

No Prius Needed > Nibby 01/12/2015 at 19:41

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I know that it isn't going to make a very significant difference, but both laptops cost the same and that is the only difference in terms of specs.

area man > Nibby 01/12/2015 at 19:48

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What about this one?

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Lenovo-Y51…

Axial > area man 01/12/2015 at 19:51

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Nice find, it even has the matte version of the display! But yeah, like that one. When you don't need the performance, you can yank one of the GPUs and place an optical drive in its place. It's really neat., you just need to find the optical drive.

area man > Axial 01/12/2015 at 19:54

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I do like the look better than the Y50 - do you think without an SSD this one will still be faster?

Axial > area man 01/12/2015 at 19:58

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Faster in what way? Boot times will be slower, but general use won't feel much different (speaking as somebody who has an SSD in his computer). You can also always stuff your own SSD in later for a performance boost.

I just think the Y50 is performance capped harder than its predecessor. Lenovo has a history of making sequels worse than the original hits.

Nibby > No Prius Needed 01/12/2015 at 20:12

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The SSD makes it a better buy.

Nibby > area man 01/12/2015 at 20:13

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The 24GB SSD thing is a gimmick... though I guess you could buy it and put in a 128GB mSATA SSD and keep the 1TB drive.

Nibby > Axial 01/12/2015 at 20:19

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MATTE FTW

Nibby > Axial 01/12/2015 at 20:19

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strange, an SSD makes a huge difference not just in boot time for me... but I do things like editing video, audio, photoshopping shit, etc.

chaozbandit > area man 01/12/2015 at 20:24

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The Asus G551JK / N551JK isn't bad, and looks a tad more professional than the Y50. If you don't mind waiting a bit and the smaller screen, the new Dell XPS13 looks pretty appealing.

Axial > Nibby 01/12/2015 at 20:49

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I never installed that type of software on my SSD, only on the 10k HDD. The SSD did make a huge difference for load times in games like Battlefield 3, and it allowed me to stream the textures from RAGE in 16k without pop-in. However, for some games it was irrelevant. Metro 2033 was no faster with the SSD than it was with the HDD.

Also, yeah. Matte FTW!

415s30 W123TSXWaggoIIIIIIo ( •_•))°) > area man 01/12/2015 at 22:34

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I've had several Toshiba Satellites with no issues.

gergey - Wishes vette was Datsun > area man 01/13/2015 at 00:53

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I had a look at the specs, and it was great until I got to the part about the 3840x2160 display. There's not a bloody chance that an 860M will run anything at an acceptable framerate on that. You'll either have to run it set to 1920x1080 screen resolution, giving up 3/4ths of some pretty damn nice resolution, or just not be using this for gaming?

Also: Find out if it has another drive bay that you can put a 1TB drive hard drive in, because you'll eat up that SSD in a real hurry.

Satoshi "Zipang" Katsura > area man 01/13/2015 at 03:22

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That be a Lenovo Y50 (I currently own one and I am using it for this post.)

Satoshi "Zipang" Katsura > Axial 01/13/2015 at 03:28

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Ugh, that laptop. I actually had the Y510P and a lot of people complained about the heat. Sure, the laptop may come with SLI but it's barely a noticeable difference - it's not worth the heat and short battery life over the GTX860M's efficiency.

Axial > Satoshi "Zipang" Katsura 01/13/2015 at 04:10

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Which version of the Y510p did you have? The one with the 750M in SLI or the 755M in SLI? Because the latter compares favorably to the 860M. As for heat, the Y50 gets just as hot even with only one card. It's the form-factor. Unless you are buying a Razer Blade or MacBook Pro, pretty much everybody skimped on the thermal engineering for powerful components in thin form-factors.

Here's the review for the Y50.

Here's one for the Y510p.

Y510p is definitely more compelling to me, even taking into account the year of separation. Better screen, better keyboard, better touchpad. That I can swap out the second 755M for an onboard optical drive (something I use frequently) to improve the power profile makes it all the more appealing.

Basically, the Y50 is a shameless attempt to improve profit margins without returning anything to the consumer.

All that said, the extent of my experience is playing around with them at MicroCenter and BestBuy. I liked the 510, do not like the 50.

Satoshi "Zipang" Katsura > Axial 01/13/2015 at 04:24

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Actually, you'd be surprised with how well the Y50 handles heat. Even with the laptop pad off, the keyboard rarely warmed up and the fans aren't at full power. Also, even with an SLI, the 755s weren't even that great when it came to heat management. I should know. Sold the laptop and bought the Y50 because I got fed up with the heat. Had the Y510P came with the 860M (I don't think they do), then my money would be better invested with the 510.

And I fail to see how the Y50 is a shameless attempt to improve profit margins when it combined with the i7 is far better than the 510P.

Axial > Satoshi "Zipang" Katsura 01/13/2015 at 05:53

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Y510 never came with the 860, which is a shame because it's a better overall package and with two it would have been a real beast.

As for the i7...both of them have i7-4700s. The 510p uses the MQ while the 50 uses the HQ. They have identical performance (actually, the MQ is a tad faster). The Y50 is an attempt to improve margins because the screen is lower quality, the keyboard is shallow, there is a non-existent performance boost, and Lenovo ditched the one concept that actually made them worth considering over the competition: the Ultrabay.

I can't recommend a Y50 because, unlike its predecessor, it is not offering anything that the competition isn't doing better. The Y510p was an excellent machine at an incredible price point. It still kind of is. The Y50, on the other hand, is an also-ran. If I'm going to recommend a laptop with those internals, then I recommend the Alienware 13 because it offers significant advantages over the Y50 for a mere $100 extra (to get 1080p); all you have to do is not mind the looks.

1337HPMustang > area man 01/16/2015 at 00:47

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I got a y510P and gotta say, Lenovo is great with customer service. I, uhh, spilled something on my laptop, sent it in because "it stopped working" and they fixed 'er up. Hopefully recommending them will make up for the fact I scammed them a little.

bob and john > area man 01/16/2015 at 15:26

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dam, i missed this one.

weirdly, i would have done with a low-mid end alienware with a good processor.

REASONING: they have this little box that you can attach and run a FULL sized graphics card of your choice.

area man > bob and john 01/16/2015 at 15:28

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I'm just not a fan of Alienwares look.

bob and john > area man 01/16/2015 at 15:42

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some like it, some done. I do, hence this little guy sitting on my desk:

area man > bob and john 01/16/2015 at 15:46

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oh id love an Alienware desktop. Just gotta have a profesh looking laptop in corporate America.