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So, just to be clear, for someone such as me that has been happily chugging along with his E8800 + Radeon HD 4850 for the past 3 years, does this mean that this year I could, theoretically, buy a laptop that would completely replace my desktop and get even better performance? I mean, it would be fantastic just for the sake of being able to use it in my room, and then plug it into the living room TV when I want to play a steam game on it. Edit: I realize that this was probably the case long before, I meant in the sense that it'd be a relatively affordable, lightweight, less power consumption, etc. dpkg chopra fucked around with this message at 16:13 on Jun 17, 2013 |
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Jun 17, 2013 16:04
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Protocol7 posted:Absolutely. I really only game 3-4 hours a week and I'm usually buying games on sale years after they've come out. I have absolutely no problem in being behind the curve. My main concern is having a lightweight, portable, and silent machine for working but it'd be fantastic if it could also serve as my gaming machine. Edit: meant to say 3-4 hours a week. dpkg chopra fucked around with this message at 16:18 on Jun 17, 2013 |
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Jun 17, 2013 16:15
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Protocol7 posted:I'm not quite up to date on what machines are the greatest nowadays, but I'd be most worried with how the system performs with games 2-3 years down the line. For everyday performance, something like a Macbook Air would be great and has absolutely crazy battery life while still being usable. I'm honestly extremely surprised by how well my old system still runs fairly new games. I mean, I'm obviously not going to be running Crysis or whatever at max specs, and I honestly don't care to, but I'm running games like Max Payne 3 beautifully with a graphics card that was already old by the time I bought it. My max resolution for the forseeable future is 1440*900 or 720p, so that's not an issue. I'm sure a lot of it is the fact that this console generation has extended a lot longer than most, which means games have focused a lot on optimization. Maybe the new console generation will ruin it for the rest of us cheapskates. However, if I can get the kind of mileage out of a Haswell laptop that I got from my old-rear end desktop, I'd be more than happy.
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Jun 17, 2013 16:51
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T-Shaped posted:I would start looking through NotebookCheck, see which laptop GFX cards support your needs, and go from there. The graph in the OP seems to imply that Haswell chips will have decent-to-good integrated graphics, though?
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Jun 17, 2013 19:09
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So, I want to buy a laptop and I need it by or before September 30th. I'd like it to be able to play videogames decently well. I don't care about running stuff at max settings and for 99% of the time I'll be playing games at 1440*900 or 720p. I'm trying to get rid of consoles, so ideally it will also be able to run emulators as far up as the Dolphin, but that's optional. Videogaming will almost exclusively done when it's plugged in, so I'd like it to have a decent battery life when doing work stuff. I'd like it to have an SSD (I'm ok with buying an SSD separately). I'd like it to be relatively light. Not Macbook Air light, just light enough that I can carry it around from place to place in a backpack. Ideally it would be quiet enough that I wouldn't hear it over the sound of whatever game/movie I'm currently playing/watching. Would rather use Windows (will most likely end up installing Windows 7 even if it comes with 8). Don't care about touchscreens. My budget is up to $1200. Any recommendations? Edit: for reference, I've been gaming with an Intel E8400, Radeon HD4850, 6GB DDR2 RAM system for the past 3-4 years and I've never felt it to be a problem, so as long as the notebook is better than that, performance wise, I'm happy. dpkg chopra fucked around with this message at 18:46 on Aug 5, 2013 |
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Aug 5, 2013 18:41
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Has anyone used the Ideapad Y410p? Reviews are kind of all over the place, but it seems to hit the performance/portability sweetspot I'm looking for. I'm mainly concerned about battery life. Some reviews are saying 3-4 hours with brightness at 25% but they don't say what they were using it for. It's gonna be plugged in while gaming, so if I can get closer to 5 when working/browsing the web, then I'm happy. Also, how difficult would it be to install an SSD in there? I really don't need a DVD-RW.
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Aug 12, 2013 20:25
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Bob Morales posted:Seriously? Go back just one page. Well gently caress me, I thought those were about the y510p. Sorry!
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Aug 12, 2013 20:40
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InstantInfidel posted:They're basically the same laptop. They have pretty good internals at a pretty good price point without being as bottom of the barrel as a Sager/Clevo. Other lines worth looking at are the Asus G-series and the Razer Blade, although the latter is significantly more expensive. Thanks for the tip, but the Asus G series still hasn't upgraded to Haswell, and the Razer at $1800 is just not worth it (plus it apparently runs stupidly hot). I think the main drawback for the Y410p is that its battery life is not the best, but everything else clicks.
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Aug 12, 2013 21:03
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comper posted:Asus G series has been updated with Haswell. Thanks for the tip, but that's a 17 inch laptop. I'm looking exclusively at 13-15 inches (that's what she said).
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Aug 12, 2013 21:40
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I understand there's a special type of SSDs that fit in laptops? Is there a recommended one?
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Aug 14, 2013 00:45
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Sendo posted:You're probably referring to MSATA drives, they are really only used in ultrabooks. If your laptop only takes MSATA drives then the regular SSDs like above will not work/fit. I'm almost surely going to get the Ideapad Y410p (14 inch) unless something better comes out before the end of September. I saw a few mentions of people putting SSDs on them, but I'm not sure if they were MSATA or just regular SATA. I have a regular 2.5 inch 240gb SSD on my current desktop that I could easily take out, so if I can use that, it'd be fantastic.
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Aug 14, 2013 01:53
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Doghouse posted:Sub $300 laptop Last year I got my dad a $350-ish Asus X54C at Best-Buy. It came with a 15-inch screen, Windows 7, a low-end i5, around 4gb of DDR 2 RAM, and a 500gb 5400rpm drive. Other than the drive being a bit slow, it's pretty much perfect for everyday office/internet use. It's even got HDMI out and handles 720p content perfectly. You might have luck checking there. Edit: poo poo, double post. Sorry.
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Aug 14, 2013 01:59
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sports posted:To those about to drop real earth :tenbux: on a Clevo/Sager/Alienware/Lenovo W530- I don't know. While i see your point when talking about 17 inch, SLI laptops, something like a y410p seems like a more than acceptable compromise. At 14" and 5.5 pounds it's not particularly heavy and bulky and it packs enough gaming power to fit an average gamer's needs. I mean, if you usually carry around a backpack, it's hardly going to make a significant difference. Regarding battery, I honestly don't understand why we can't have the best of both worlds. If I'm going to be using the machine solely for working/internet browsing, then it should be able to throttle down enough to maximize battery life. Once you start gaming, well, who the hell plays games while on battery anyway? Personally I love the idea of being able to take my gaming machine to my girlfriend's house when I stay for the weekend. Or being able to fire up a match of FIFA at a friend's house when he doesn't have a console, or switching (almost) seamlessly from my 19 inch monitor in my bedroom to the bigass TV in the living room. 99% of my work gets done in the office, anyways. I can honestly imagine more use-case scenarios for portable gaming than for portable work in my life. dpkg chopra fucked around with this message at 05:41 on Aug 16, 2013 |
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Aug 16, 2013 05:39
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Do any non-apple laptops even come close to the Macbook Air's 12 hours when it comes to battery life?
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Aug 20, 2013 15:11
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Bob Morales posted:The Haswell i7 in the MacBook Air gives a 20-25% boost - it's well worth it. 20-25% boost on what?
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Aug 20, 2013 16:35
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Cthulhuite posted:So I've gone back about 20 pages and I can't find any real answers to this question. I'm looking for a small-ish laptop (14-15") that's nice and light with a good graphics card. The Razer seemed perfect, but apparently people are having issues with theirs? Has anyone got one that can give me an "Is it worth the price?" answer and if not if there something around the same form factor. I'll be lugging it around everywhere for work, and if i'm buying a new laptop I may as well replace my aging home computer, so two birds/one stone. I was looking at the MSI GE40 last night. Fairly good reviews but it apparently runs pretty hot when gaming, which could be an issue down the line.
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Aug 23, 2013 15:12
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I don't understand the difference between MSATA and SATA. I have 2.5 inch SSD that I bought for my desktop PC some time ago. I have it connected via a (I think) regular SATA cable. Can I use that drive on a laptop that has an MSATA connection or will I need a special adapter or a whole new drive?
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Aug 30, 2013 21:40
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A few pages ago someone mentioned their Lenovo estimated ship date jumping around a lot. Mine just shot up to December 31st (what? On New Year's Eve, really?) for an order I placed on a week ago (which originally said would ship on september 23rd). Is this just normal shenanigans that will eventually settle down and come back to a logical ship date or should I be calling Lenovo to see what's up?
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Sep 12, 2013 21:22
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I was just checking my Y410 order and I realized that the model I chose has a GT755M instead of a GT750M. Normally, I'd assume that bigger number = better, but graphics cards will sometimes really gently caress you around with model numbers. Is the GT755M better than the GT750? Looking at the spec sheet for both, apparently the GT750M has a "6.3x" performance score (1x being an HD4000, for whatever reason), while the GT755M has a "6.7x" performance score. However, the GT750m has "GPU Boost 2.0" technology, which apparently automagically overclocks your GPU, which the 755m doesn't have. Basically, did I gently caress up by ordering the 755m? dpkg chopra fucked around with this message at 00:18 on Sep 16, 2013 |
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Sep 15, 2013 23:54
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DrDork posted:No, you're fine. Anything that talks about overclocking a GPU in a laptop is usually a terrible idea, anyhow. The 755M and 750M are pretty much on par for performance, and the 755M should be a bit more power-efficient overall. If anything, you got the better card. Fantastic, thanks. Now back to hoping that Lenovo will actually ship this thing at a reasonable date.
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Sep 16, 2013 00:19
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Bob Morales posted:If you (or your parents The review unit is actually priced at $3.844.
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Sep 16, 2013 20:41
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) have $2,000 and want to buy a gaming laptop, there's a review up of Alienware's latest 18" beast
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E30User posted:I don't know if it's similar to what you're seeing but I do recall running into an issue. After creating an account, I never got my activation email. So I tried creating another one and it said my email was already in use. So I just requested a password reset and got the email. I went through the reset process and the account worked fine. Ordered a T530 on 9/11 and UPS says it's shipped and supposed to arrive(CA, US) on friday the 20th. I think I'm supposed to consider myself lucky based on all the month long waiting stories I've read on their forums. Speaking of which, today I got an e-mail from Lenovo telling me that my shipment's been delayed but that I should expect it within 30 days from this notice (I ordered 12 days ago). Thanks a million, Lenovo.
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Sep 18, 2013 02:15
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bull3964 posted:Yeah, I got that email too. That's somewhat reassuring. Thanks!
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Sep 18, 2013 03:07
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In case someone was looking for a more ultrabook-like gaming laptop, Gigabyte just officially announced the P34G which is basically a better, cheaper Razr Blade. No release date yet, but prices should be around $1300-1600, depending on the configuration. There's not a ton of reviews yet, so we'll see if the quality holds up, but at the very least, it's very pretty.
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Sep 19, 2013 17:34
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Helicity posted:I saw some people in this thread (I think) asking about Lenovo and ship dates. I just bought a laptop from them on 9/15. The initial estimate was shipping on 10/1. Then it changed to shipping on 9/25. I just got a tracking number verifying it shipped on 9/19, but my order status still shows 9/25. Long story short - who the gently caress knows where they get those dates from. I hate you. My order (placed 09/05) still shows the estimated shipping date as 12/31, even though the sales rep assures me that it's still on track for the original shipping date of 09/23. loving Lenovo, how do they work????
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Sep 20, 2013 15:16
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Anyone have any opinions re: USB hubs? Any recommended ones out there? USB 2.0 is fine.
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Oct 1, 2013 01:23
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Fallom posted:Have y410ps been shipping lately? My order status is still on "Estimated shipping date 9/30" and I'm starting to think about what I'll have to do when I go on a 2-week trip on 14 Oct. FWIW, I ordered mine on Sept. 5 and the estimated shipping date was 9/23, about a week later my shipping estimate jumped up to 12/31. Called Lenovo and they assured me that it was website error and that my shipping date was still 9/23. Before 9/23 I got hit with two "you shipment is delayed" emails, and Lenovo still assured me that it was on track. Laptop ended up shipping 9/25, just two days late, and the laptop arrived in two days to my house. So I guess the answer is: who the gently caress knows? A bunch of goons in the thread ordered around this month and they all seem to have gotten their laptop in or around their original shipping estimate.
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Oct 1, 2013 01:37
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Is there any significant speed difference between the SATA connection in the y410p's ultra bay vs the one integrated into the motherboard (used by the original hdd)? I ask because everyone recommends installing an ssd into the slot where your original hdd was, and I'm wondering if that's because of speed issues or just for future convenience's sake.
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Oct 4, 2013 13:33
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The Iron Rose posted:Crossposting from the SSD thread because I'm an rear end in a top hat, but it's also a specific y410p thing so. When I did my y410p SSD install I had a similar problem and it ended up being that because I'd left the original Windows install in the mechanical HDD, Windows was having trouble recognizing both drives since they were both active drives with Windows installations on them (basically, two "C:" drives). I ended up having to boot off an Ubuntu LiveUSB install, ran gParted, went into the drive's Flags and turned off the "boot" flag. This allowed me to access the mechanical HDD's files normally (it sounds complicated but it's really not). That said, if you've gone into gParted and you don't have anything worth keeping on the HDD, you might as well just go ahead and format it right then and there.
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Oct 8, 2013 17:44
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The Iron Rose posted:Yeah, that's definitely it. Quick question, as I've never used Ubuntu or gparted before in my life - do I just put gparted on one usb and ubuntu on another? No, no. gParted is an Ubuntu application (well, a Linux application, but whatever). It's super simple. Just download the Universal USB Installer and fire it up. On Step 1 select "Ubuntu 13.04 Desktop amd64", check the box on the right that says "Download the iso (Optional)". A file will start downloading on your browser of choice. When that's done, on Step 2 browse for the file you just downloaded. On Step 3 choose your USB drive (you'll probably need a 1gb pendrive or more). Step 4 is optional, it lets you set a small persistent file inside the USB drive that will serve as Ubuntu's "hard drive" for storing files and such. Since you'll probably just be using this Ubuntu install for gParted and nothing else, you can skip it. That said, if you can spare the USB drive, an Ubuntu install can come in handy for other problems down the line, and setting your persistence file to a reasonable amount will let you download other apps or save settings within Ubuntu. After that just go ahead and hit "Create". After the USB drive is ready, just go ahead and shut down the laptop. Hit the Novo button and choose "Boot Menu". From there select the USB drive. If it doesn't show up then you need to go into the Bios settings (the option to access the Bios is in same list as "Boot menu") and enable "Legacy devices" in the Boot options. You might also have to disable "Secure Boot" (or something like that), which is in another page of the Bios options. Once you've booted off the USB drive, you'll get an Ubuntu welcome screen which will give you the choice to either "Try" or "Install" Ubuntu. Just choose "Try". After Ubuntu has loaded, choose the first icon on the application bar on the left side of your screen. A search bar should come up; just type "gparted" and the program should appear. Open it up. On the top right hand side of the gParted window you'll see a dropdown menu with all your drives (they'll be labeled something like dba1, dba2, etc.). The easiest way to identify the mechanical HDD is by it's size (assuming your SSD isn't also 1TB). Select the correct drive. On the main part of the window, you'll now see your drive with all its partitions. There'll be a whole bunch of System partitions ranging from 0-1000mb. After those you'll see your main partition (around 900gb), and the Lenovo Recovery partition (around 25gb). Now, if you're only interested in clearing the HDD so you can use it for storage, you can just right click on each partition and delete it. Once you've deleted every partition you can create a new one (if you don't know which file system to use, just choose FAT32) that takes up the entire drive. If you feel like it you can create multiple partitions to your liking. However, if you need to access the files inside the HDD for some reason, then you're going to right click on the main partition (the 900gb one) and select "Flags". In there you're going to deselect the "Boot" option. After you've configured the drive to your liking, hit the green check mark on the top section of the gparted window, and it'll start executing everything you just set up. It shouldn't take very long. In both cases, on the application bar to the left of your screen, at the very bottom, you should now have a few more icons corresponding to the partition or partitions that you've just created and/or enabled. If you want, you can just go in and copy/paste whatever file you want from inside Ubuntu. Then you can format the drive if all you needed was to retrieve some files. If for some reason you kept the original Windows install on the HDD, I presume that if you reboot back into Windows you will now be able to access the drive within your new Windows installation (the drive will automatically be assigned a new letter that is not C), but I honestly have not tried this. This got a bit long, but it's really not complicated (as long as nothing goes wrong!). Good luck! dpkg chopra fucked around with this message at 19:27 on Oct 8, 2013 |
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Oct 8, 2013 19:21
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QuarkJets posted:gParted + the Ubuntu LiveCD (on a USB stick or otherwise) are great utilities and make fooling around with several disks a much easier prospect Yeah, this might be a bit simpler if all you need to do is reformat the drive, but if you need to recover any files off the original HDD you need something a bit more powerful that lets you gently caress around with the Boot flags so that the OS will let you browse the files. Plus, I don't think the Windows Install disk lets you create new partitions (other than the one needed to install Windows), but I might be wrong. dpkg chopra fucked around with this message at 20:17 on Oct 8, 2013 |
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Oct 8, 2013 20:11
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Speaking of the yX10p, is the thing supposed to be throttling down the gpu/cpu when running on battery? I was playing Just Cause 2 last night, and when plugged in it would run it like a dream, but then I unplugged it and took it over to my TV so I could play it on the home theater setup. I didn't bother plugging it in because it was just going to be a short session. Performance went way down when on battery. I tried lowering the resolution and pretty much every setting, and I barely got it up to playable FPS. Plugged it back in at my desk, and performance was back up to normal instantly.
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Oct 9, 2013 23:19
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Socrates16 posted:So, turns out there is a major wifi issue on the y510p. Anyone else experiencing this? It looks connected for the computer but the internet won't work. There's a massive thread on it in the lenovo forums: http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/IdeaPad-Y-U-V-Z-and-P-series/New-y510p-with-a-wifi-problem/td-p/1163533/page/2 I think this is just a driver issue you can fix by updating to the latest intel drivers. It definitely went away for me after I reinstalled windows, at least.
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Oct 10, 2013 12:44
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QuarkJets posted:Did you pay extra for the 1TBHDD + 24GB SSD? The small SSD is actually just a cache; a copy of files that are used regularly will wind up in there for faster access. You can't use it like a normal hard drive and have wasted some money. Sorry! Why would you not be able to use the 1TB + SSD as a normal drive? I think the worst case scenario is that the SSD caching won't work if you don't use it as your main drive. Hillridge posted:It came with the build (y510p can't be customized like the Thinkpads). I'm trying to clone the 1TB to an SSD, but it's being such a pain in the rear end that I may just do a clean install. I honestly wouldn't bother cloning the drive. Just download all (well, most) of the drivers in this page into a USB drive and then flatten/reinstall Windows. Once you have Windows back up, go ahead and run all the .exes and you'll have all the relevant programs installed again. The only thing to look out for is that for whatever reason Nvidia won't let you install the 750m's drivers until you've installed the Intel drivers. Edit: apparently I'm wrong and those are supposed to be partitions that Windows 8 sets up to support UEFI and Secure Boot. I haven't seen those partitions replicated in my SSD after a clean install, and I've booted up the machine without the mechanical drive, so I honestly don't think they're necessary, but I don't want to tell anyone to delete them until I'm sure. Someone asked about Antivirus. Windows 8 comes pre-installed with Windows Defender, which bundles up Microsoft Security Essentials (Microsoft's antivirus) and the Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool (anti-spyware, basically) into one handy integrated solution. You can opt to install another anti-virus if you want, but I think they're good enough. Edit: small caveat, when I did a clean install of Windows 8 on my y410p, I had a strange issue where Windows would freeze for a few seconds once a minute or so. That went away after I installed the drivers from the Lenovo page. dpkg chopra fucked around with this message at 00:41 on Oct 11, 2013 |
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Oct 10, 2013 23:39
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I like that they couldn't even unplug it for the photograph. Probably shuts right the gently caress down if you do.
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Oct 11, 2013 05:14
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TasogareNoKagi posted:You can't (trivially) install 3rd party wireless cards in Lenovo laptops. The BIOS/UEFI will prevent you from booting if it detects a card without the "Lenovo OEM" secret sauce. Is this not something you can get around by disabling Secure Boot or is this an additional restriction Lenovo itself places on the bios?
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Oct 16, 2013 17:41
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Zuhzuhzombie!! posted:So I asked about 6 months ago and held off hoping for a good hardware refresh. Here I am again. If budget isn't an issue, the Gigabyte P34G v2 has been getting some solid reviews. It's as close as you're going to get to a gaming laptop that feels more like an Ultrabook with a kickass monitor, from what I've researched. Biggest cons are a poo poo battery life (4 hours on normal usage, maybe an hour while gaming), loud fan (this is true of any gaming laptop), and a huge-rear end powerbrick which is kind of difficult to find a replacement for. I personally haven't bought it because a) $1400, and b) I'm hoping that the next revision will have a better battery life, but it seems like a solid choice. dpkg chopra fucked around with this message at 13:04 on Oct 9, 2014 |
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Oct 8, 2014 21:16
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HalloKitty posted:Surely it's the Gigabyte P34G-v2, and yes, a great gaming laptop to look at Ugh, yes, meant to say Gigabyte, sorry. I'll edit my post.
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Oct 9, 2014 13:03
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I have a friend that's looking to buy a laptop. He needs: 1. 12-14" screen. 2. Light (not necessarily MBA light, but he travels so he needs something that won't weigh him down). 3. SSD 4. Good battery life. 5. $800 budget (with some wiggle room). Main use will be Office and Internet but I do know that he needs to have a lot of tabs open at the same time + Excel files. Any suggestions?
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Oct 16, 2014 19:27
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Macbook Air is a bit too light and I'd rather he get something that he can just buy a bit more ram and/or a new HD if he starts running out of space. Is the T440 with the i5-4200 and the HD+ display a decent option? I can use the difference in price to get him an aftermarket SSD + extra memory.
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Oct 17, 2014 04:30
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