Laptop Megathread: Your laptop doesn't have Haswell? More like Hasbeen~

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Serious Hardware/Software Crap > Laptop Megathread: Your laptop doesn't have Haswell? More like Hasbeen~

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Srebrenica Surprise: Aug 23, 2008; "L-O-V-E's just another word I never learned to pronounce."

No HD5000 on the 35W -M parts :argh:

Am I the only one that couldn't give a drat about CPU performance to the detriment of GPU performance in stuff that isn't Ultrabooks (especially with turbo hitting mid-2ghz in dual core operation anyway)? It seems like for most "mainstream laptop" work, CPU performance is already good enough. HD4600 as the baseline is hardly very exciting.

# ¿ Jun 4, 2013 19:04

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# ¿ Apr 24, 2024 07:30

Srebrenica Surprise: Aug 23, 2008; "L-O-V-E's just another word I never learned to pronounce."

Naffer posted:

There's an HD5100 dual core part at 28 W (i7-4558U). That might be a decent option if you can forgo having a quadcore. I imagine the lack of bigger GPUs on lower power quad-core CPUs has everything to do with how much wattage the GPU takes.

"Is this going to ship in anything that isn't in every respect a piece of poo poo" is my worry. The T series certainly isn't perfect, but an Ultrabook that isn't user-serviceable, has a sealed battery, has relatively poor build quality, etc is a dealbreaker, personally, and I'd hate to splash out on a high-end part in something that's not going to be built to last. We'll see within the month what's offered, I guess.

# ¿ Jun 5, 2013 00:02

Srebrenica Surprise: Aug 23, 2008; "L-O-V-E's just another word I never learned to pronounce."

Yeah, I saw that too. Earlier yesterday the T series link was redirecting to some random edge laptop (which I assume to be evidence they're working on the site), but the Lenovo site is all hosed up 100% of the time so that might not be the case. :f5h:

# ¿ Jun 13, 2013 23:04

Srebrenica Surprise: Aug 23, 2008; "L-O-V-E's just another word I never learned to pronounce."

Yeah I tried to make one earlier and it didn't work. Signing up through the regular Lenovo site might work (I just used my old account, I was trying to get a new username as the old one was very, very old). Lenovo's site is pretty much hosed up 24/7 though in one way or another.

# ¿ Jun 23, 2013 22:32

Srebrenica Surprise: Aug 23, 2008; "L-O-V-E's just another word I never learned to pronounce."

CaladSigilon posted:

Do we have any guesses as to when Lenovo is going to release new versions of the T and X series?

My computer is literally falling apart, but I would really like to hold out if possible.

The desktop i5s and i3s are coming out at the end of September, so probably then at the latest. It's always been an ambiguous "Q3" so it could be any day from now to then.

I'm waiting too, because this is way bigger than Ivy Bridge and not even a cheap T430 is worth shittier graphics and battery life.

# ¿ Jul 4, 2013 22:14

Srebrenica Surprise: Aug 23, 2008; "L-O-V-E's just another word I never learned to pronounce."

shrughes posted:

T440s will have FHD IPS screen option

Wait, did the regular non-s line get phased out or is this an announcement for a separate system ahead of the regular T440 or what? :psyduck:

# ¿ Jul 9, 2013 02:06

Srebrenica Surprise: Aug 23, 2008; "L-O-V-E's just another word I never learned to pronounce."

To this day I have no idea as to the differences between the powerful business premium durable business lightweight vivid SMB small business Ultrabook� laptop Ultrabook optimized for small and medium business T430s, T431s, and T430u are and hope it stops forever with the T440s. The Samsung thing is basically the Enterprise self destruct authorization phrase.

# ¿ Jul 10, 2013 22:37

Srebrenica Surprise: Aug 23, 2008; "L-O-V-E's just another word I never learned to pronounce."

Not sure if this has been linked but here's the T440s hardware maintenance manual. Looks like mSATA is out in favor of NGFF/M.2 and there's one memory slot. No aftermarket NGFF SSDs have made it to market, right?

# ¿ Jul 11, 2013 23:30

Srebrenica Surprise: Aug 23, 2008; "L-O-V-E's just another word I never learned to pronounce."

Here is a document (.doc) with both the T440 and T440s listed as separate models, so doesn't look like any reason to fear the latter supplanting the former.

I don't see a T540, just a T540p.

# ¿ Jul 12, 2013 21:53

Srebrenica Surprise: Aug 23, 2008; "L-O-V-E's just another word I never learned to pronounce."

Dropping serious money on a laptop right now if you don't have some other pressing deadline seems pretty ripe for a lot of buyer's remorse ITT. SB -> IB wasn't as big of a deal, this is what Haswell was designed for. Getting some cheap blowout $500 system is one thing, but $1k will probably buy a pretty decent ThinkPad or other machine in what'll probably be a month and a half at worst. :shobon:

# ¿ Jul 14, 2013 04:06

Srebrenica Surprise: Aug 23, 2008; "L-O-V-E's just another word I never learned to pronounce."

I really can't imagine the mobile i3/i5 line will take longer than the desktop line (currently sometime in September), and the little we know points to Q3. Obviously none of us have any clue why the full lineup hasn't launched yet but it seems unlikely it'd be more than a month and a half to me.

e: more unconfirmed info: T440s/X240s will probably have HD5000, so if they stay within a similar thermal envelope to the rest of the -s line (rather than the 35W TDP IB CPUs in the X series, for the latter), that points to the i5 4350U/4550U & i7 4650U as available options. I'm glad this is at the very least an option, as GT2 would suck.

e2: also Lenovo would be nuts not to meet the Ultrabook spec requirements, so that's another reason it'll probably feature a low-TDP chip

Srebrenica Surprise fucked around with this message at 09:16 on Jul 20, 2013

# ¿ Jul 20, 2013 08:14

Srebrenica Surprise: Aug 23, 2008; "L-O-V-E's just another word I never learned to pronounce."

shrughes posted:

Apple's pricing remains pretty much constant through the generation, though. Lenovo's has fluctuated and generally trended downward already. At least upgrades cost less, the baseline T430s options disappeared. It would be interesting to play a guess-the-price game -- what will the price be on the baseline T440 and T440s on November 1, on Lenovo's main site?

I'm going to guess $790 and $999.

I'm thinking $760 for the T440 (i3 4158U/i5 4258U/i5 4288U/i7 4558U) with no discrete graphics, T440s (i5 4350U/i5 4550U/i7 4650U) at $950 (I can't imagine them breaking 1k), and a T440p around $899 (i5 4258U/i5 4288U/i7 4558U) with optional discrete graphics (some sort of GK208 derivative?) and maybe the option for i7 4702MQ but that's starting to butt into the W line.

All of that would be way too sensible though and the T440p probably will be some horrifying thing with a double sided screen you can turn into a tablet and there's no touchpad or nub mouse because of the future of computing or whatever.

e: here is the info from the service training doc for the T440s:

CPU: i5 4200U, doesn't jive with HD5000 driver update though. BGA, so probably optional i5-4250U upgrade to HD5000.
RAM: 4GB soldered, one DDR3L-1600 DIMM slot for up to 8GB (so 12GB total)
Display: 1600x900 TN, 1920x1080 IPS, 1920x1080 TN w/ touch
HDD: 320GB/500GB 5400/7200RPM HDDs, 320GB 7200 OPAL-compliant HDD, 1TB 5400RPM
SSD: 128GB mystery meat, 180GB Intel, 240GB Intel, 256-GB OPAL SSD
SSD2: Interestingly, this is saying mSATA unless an extra M.2 is ordered, because WLAN uses M.2 or something. 24GB iRST/Cache or 16GB cache. Drop your own in.
Wireless: lovely Thinkpad 2x2 or Intel BGN or AC options.
GPU: Feature page says N14M-GS, basically a 730m. Probably unannounced Quadro variant. Probably around K2000M & GT 645M in performance. Spec sheet says AMD. Who the gently caress knows, it has a discrete GPU option.
Better charging.
NFC.

e2: I'd expect all of this but in higher-TDP and maybe socketed form? for the regular T440. A N14P-GV2/N14P-GS (GT 740M/745M) Quadro like the NVS 5200/5400 divide... :shlick:

Srebrenica Surprise fucked around with this message at 10:52 on Jul 20, 2013

# ¿ Jul 20, 2013 09:37

Srebrenica Surprise: Aug 23, 2008; "L-O-V-E's just another word I never learned to pronounce."

Also even obsolete Apple stuff holds onto resale value ridiculously well, unlike extreme gaming laptops where a couple years later the hinges are cracked and the bezel is broken in two places. There's a little hyperbole in this thread sometimes but the only thing worse in build quality are $399 best buy shitboxes and those at least can't really overheat like hell anymore like dGPU laptops do.

Even if you want to stick with native Windows system for battery life, replaceable batteries, etc, it's also really silly to drop $1,200 on a system when the new ThinkPads are coming out soon-ish and the T440 will probably offer a Quadro version of the 740M (or at least the probably-Quadro-730M in the T440s) and a 1920x1080 IPS screen.

edit: T440/T440s/T440p/T540 lineup looks pretty set in stone. Wonder if the W series is getting dropped.

vv I didn't see the AU thing (there was certainly enough talk about it in the last few pages!), still stands for most dropping $1k+ right now tho

Srebrenica Surprise fucked around with this message at 07:30 on Jul 24, 2013

# ¿ Jul 24, 2013 06:51

Srebrenica Surprise: Aug 23, 2008; "L-O-V-E's just another word I never learned to pronounce."

Some German site had them up with "1-2 weeks" on it but I don't think that's a credible rumor considering we'd see reviews and stuff by now. Late Sept. should be the latest, with probably more leaks (what's going on with the T440s dGPU, almost everything for the T440) over that timespan.

# ¿ Jul 26, 2013 22:06

Srebrenica Surprise: Aug 23, 2008; "L-O-V-E's just another word I never learned to pronounce."

Young Hegelian posted:

I spoke with Lenovo Customer Service yesterday on the phone and they said "October timeframe." I asked how certain that was, vis-a-vis waiting until mid-August to buy a laptop and she said there was "literally no way" that I could get a t440 before class starts.

To be fair, Lenovo customer service has said the T440 would launch in May. They don't really know anything.

# ¿ Jul 26, 2013 23:08

Srebrenica Surprise: Aug 23, 2008; "L-O-V-E's just another word I never learned to pronounce."

Naffer posted:

I'm hoping they're offer a 440s with the 5100 Iris GPU.

The 730M would probably be faster anyway.

# ¿ Aug 1, 2013 19:27

Srebrenica Surprise: Aug 23, 2008; "L-O-V-E's just another word I never learned to pronounce."

Mostly stuff we know already, but here's the T440s final specs:

# ¿ Aug 13, 2013 01:49

Srebrenica Surprise: Aug 23, 2008; "L-O-V-E's just another word I never learned to pronounce."

I suspect that basic 19x18 screen will have touch, just not multi-touch, to comply with the Ultrabook requirements, it fits all the dimension requirements, has a tiny SSD (only really useful for hitting this), has the right CPU, etc. Not that it's useful at all.

e: It totally makes sense that it's part of the Ultrabook requirement as Ultrabooks were intended to drive adoption of:

1. noticeably different hardware - "faster" isn't quite doing it anymore. SSDs and touchscreens and thin laptops that look like MBAs drive sales.
2. Win8. Microsoft wants to push the Windows ecosystem and WinRT, even if they're totally incompatible. WinRT is dead but Win8 is looking a lot less pointless with touchscreens everywhere, and to many that means "buy a new system" and not "upgrade"
3. higher quality (to an extent) systems at a more reasonable price point, rather than "netbooks and $500 shitboxes and $1400 ultraportables"

I think it's doing a reasonably good thing to the general laptop market by bringing up build quality a little but probably detrimental to the solid Windows brands, all one of them.

Srebrenica Surprise fucked around with this message at 07:37 on Aug 13, 2013

# ¿ Aug 13, 2013 06:41

Srebrenica Surprise: Aug 23, 2008; "L-O-V-E's just another word I never learned to pronounce."

For those wondering, the T440s on the Japanese site's base model (crappy 1600x900 screen) seems to be around the equivalent of $100 more than the T430s when relative prices are compared (not a currency conversion as that's way more inaccurate), and the upgrades are all pretty reasonable ($100 for the 1920x1080 IPS screen). The GPU option apparently is coming on the website but hasn't shown up yet, so assumedly you can customize it without the 730m. I imagine with the B&N discount one would be able to get a pretty decked out machine with a 6-cell + 3-cell internal battery, the top-end screen, and a dGPU for around $900 at the very most, but we'll see.

# ¿ Aug 24, 2013 00:26

Srebrenica Surprise: Aug 23, 2008; "L-O-V-E's just another word I never learned to pronounce."

Personally, I'd get any screen upgrade and just run everything at a lower resolution with the same aspect ratio if the laptop was 14" or higher. Scaling is apparently really good nowadays and when the T440 comes out I doubt I'll even try to run things at native 1080p.

# ¿ Aug 26, 2013 16:35

Srebrenica Surprise: Aug 23, 2008; "L-O-V-E's just another word I never learned to pronounce."

The Wonder Weapon posted:

$500 isn't a hard cap, but rather a starting point.

Let me reframe my question then: Which laptop would be the best intersection of price, portability, quality, and meeting my (minimal) requirements as described above? Is it going to be a different Thinkpad model, or is there an HP/Dell/Whatever that is well situated to my needs?

X230 maybe? You can get it with a i5-3230M for $666 (spooky) with B&N discount, and add a 9-cell battery for $30 and/or the IPS display for $50 if you want. The refresh will be coming soon but it'll probably be pricier. Between that and a Chromebook (which can apparently play FTL and stuff fine), I don't think there are any better options - you end up in the Best Buy craptop zone.

Doctor rear end in a top hat posted:

This is news to me, as I only heard that it was good on ultra-high resolution devices like the rMBP. I guess on a game it wouldn't matter so much.

Yeah, I just mean in the context of games, in which I've heard pretty rave reviews about image quality in the desktop thread (of all places). I used to be skeptical but it's persuaded me to give it a shot.

Srebrenica Surprise fucked around with this message at 17:08 on Aug 26, 2013

# ¿ Aug 26, 2013 17:06

Srebrenica Surprise: Aug 23, 2008; "L-O-V-E's just another word I never learned to pronounce."

I bought an overpriced Atom netbook during their peak (~$500) thinking the build quality and battery life would be generally superior to the EEE stuff coming out, and unwilling to buy a Best Buy 15" craptop as I had gone through school with a huge, clunky piece of poo poo. Despite the resolution, it was a great machine, light, 6hr battery life, fast enough for me with 2GB ram in Win7, could play 720p video with CoreAVC, and could surprisingly play some 3D games at lowest settings. Wonderful near-full size keyboard, too. Despite this, the hinges and frame broke which affected the LCD cable, and either the DC jack or charger went out soon after - surprisingly, I think I got about three years out of it. I've learned from that that I'm willing to lower my standards on raw power in favor of portability and durability and so it was a good mistake to make, in the long run.

Srebrenica Surprise fucked around with this message at 05:34 on Aug 28, 2013

# ¿ Aug 28, 2013 05:32

Srebrenica Surprise: Aug 23, 2008; "L-O-V-E's just another word I never learned to pronounce."

I've long past given up on the Haswell IGP if I can get a T440 with the 730M (or better). -s might be over $1k but I can't see the regular one being that pricy, and it seems to have enough spill/drop/whatever protection that I'd feel safer not getting any accidental damage warranty.

# ¿ Sep 1, 2013 08:33

Srebrenica Surprise: Aug 23, 2008; "L-O-V-E's just another word I never learned to pronounce."

For what it's worth, a few people have messed around with the T440s, some articles are coming out, and there's very strong hints we will see announcements next week. Both IDF and IFA are happening around then. If it doesn't pan out, a Y410p is a pretty decent alternative, but I wouldn't put too much stock in Lenovo's never-ending sales.

# ¿ Sep 1, 2013 21:11

Srebrenica Surprise: Aug 23, 2008; "L-O-V-E's just another word I never learned to pronounce."

DrDork posted:

e; Then again, what the gently caress, Lenovo? No 730M in the US (but offer the 1080p that would make a dGPU make sense), and then limit the T440 to 1600x900, but offer a dGPU which makes little sense at that resolution? It's like they want to make sure that it's impossible for people to get all of what they want in one laptop.

You're misreading it:

quote:

Like the T440s, it's offered in touch and non-touch options, with resolution as high as 1,920 x 1,080.

The S440 is the one with the lower end screen option and the lovely AMD mobile GPU.

e: lack of any announced dGPU on the T440 is concerning though. Maybe this is what the -p model is for?

e2: wait, looks like I'm wrong and the X240 gets 1920x1080. that is terrible

Srebrenica Surprise fucked around with this message at 06:53 on Sep 3, 2013

# ¿ Sep 3, 2013 06:48

Srebrenica Surprise: Aug 23, 2008; "L-O-V-E's just another word I never learned to pronounce."

At this point since I can afford to wait a while, I'm going to see what the T440p looks like, but the Y410p is indeed a lot better than it used to be at B&N $900 + whatever it costs for an extra battery. If the T440 uses a standard-TDP processor, it should have HD5100, at least, but at this rate I'm expecting them to announce it has a 4200U and also features an innovative, consumer-focused automatic user-blinding laser system.

All I want for Christmas is a laptop that sits between "chintzy plastic 6lb gaming laptop" and "_{_{professional business thinkpad}} Ultrabook!!!! _{_{at the lowest possible specs}}" and doesn't cost $1500. Just a basic dGPU, a nice screen, and something that doesn't fall apart when you look at it. Just one, Lenovo.

# ¿ Sep 3, 2013 09:58

Srebrenica Surprise: Aug 23, 2008; "L-O-V-E's just another word I never learned to pronounce."

Games on HD4400 will probably suck, though. The T440 will probably use a full-TDP processor and therefore HD5100, so that might be a better pick if you plan on doing anything more intensive than 2D games.

# ¿ Sep 4, 2013 23:36

Srebrenica Surprise: Aug 23, 2008; "L-O-V-E's just another word I never learned to pronounce."

DrDork posted:

Yeah, I bet you'd like that. Too bad you'll be stuck with the HD4400 because Lenovo wants literally no one to be satisfied by the T440:

What the gently caress why are they using a 15W TDP processor in a full-size SKU. If they do this for the mythical -p model I am going to scream.

e: there was some hubbub over HD5000 in a driver download for the T440s but who cares about HD5000, the TDP limit makes it as pointless as Lenovo's model differentiation strategy

Srebrenica Surprise fucked around with this message at 04:22 on Sep 5, 2013

# ¿ Sep 5, 2013 04:20

Srebrenica Surprise: Aug 23, 2008; "L-O-V-E's just another word I never learned to pronounce."

Also possibly a wait for new Quadros for the -p announcement, but there's been pretty much nothing but silence on that front.

# ¿ Sep 5, 2013 04:29

Srebrenica Surprise: Aug 23, 2008; "L-O-V-E's just another word I never learned to pronounce."

Seamonster posted:

I just hope the GT730 isn't the lovely neutered 64 bit vram version.

Still would be faster than anything up to Iris Pro, as far as I can ascertain. We'll probably get some piece of poo poo HD4400 options for the processor.

# ¿ Sep 11, 2013 20:49

Srebrenica Surprise: Aug 23, 2008; "L-O-V-E's just another word I never learned to pronounce."

CPU speed, like most paper-specs on laptops, has been absolutely meaningless for years. Every piece of poo poo Best Buy $500 special has an i5 something or other a thousand times beyond what any application cares about, the deciding factor for performance is overwhelmingly I/O bottlenecked. Don't buy laptops on specs, buy them on ergonomics and build quality.

# ¿ Sep 17, 2013 00:42

Srebrenica Surprise: Aug 23, 2008; "L-O-V-E's just another word I never learned to pronounce."

I hope something like the T440p is offered without the i7 HQ but I'm not betting anything on it. It's either anemic GPU or ridiculous CPU. Is this the reason the y410p seems to get poor battery life or is it moot with turbo/power gating?

# ¿ Sep 19, 2013 20:19

Srebrenica Surprise: Aug 23, 2008; "L-O-V-E's just another word I never learned to pronounce."

For anyone buying, since it's not obvious at all: getting the base or higher quad-core CPU in the T440p auto-upgrades you to the 730M. This adds an extra $80 to the cost over what it says if you have the integrated graphics selected - the normal 730M upgrade cost is $130.

I would think that would make the real cost difference $155 instead of the listed $205 for the i3-4000M -> i7-4700MQ upgrade when both systems have the 730M, but it's $175 instead, maybe to cover the cost of the increased adapter size. Regardless, there's still a small discount over what it claims the price difference to be if you planned on getting the 730M anyway.

_{_{or you could get a Y410p but that doesn't have a 9-cell battery}}

# ¿ Nov 2, 2013 02:07

Srebrenica Surprise: Aug 23, 2008; "L-O-V-E's just another word I never learned to pronounce."

Buying a Y510p when the only gaming needed, from your post history, is going to be Minecraft seems a little.. excessive? The GT 755 is like "running Battlefield 3" graphics, which isn't ideal for a school environment. Wouldn't a T430 or something be better suited? Lenovo "sales" are continual and random, so you might want to do a little more research rather than getting pressured into a 6lb behemoth.

# ¿ Nov 14, 2013 04:19

Srebrenica Surprise: Aug 23, 2008; "L-O-V-E's just another word I never learned to pronounce."

The 24GB SSD version is the best deal anyway right now since you get the upgraded wifi card with 5ghz that would cost the same $30 to install aftermarket if not for Lenovo's stupid whitelist. If you paid like $100 for it that sucks but at current prices it's hardly a huge mistake.

# ¿ Dec 14, 2013 00:10

Srebrenica Surprise: Aug 23, 2008; "L-O-V-E's just another word I never learned to pronounce."

snoozeallday posted:

Anyone have an Acer V7 or p645?? These look very interesting.

I'll be getting a V7 pretty soon after a lot of deliberation. To me, the P645, V7 (dGPU version), and y410p appear to be a pretty nice spectrum if you're interested in 14" systems with discrete graphics.

- I haven't done as much research on it since there aren't any reviews, but the P645 appears to have the best build quality, IPS 1080p display, and a touchpad with buttons (wow!). It looks to weigh less, although I don't know how accurate the figures are. Battery life might be slightly higher, not sure if it has a removable battery. However, the dGPU is slightly slower than Iris Pro, and it's pricier than the other two ($1,150+ for the upgraded model, which is all you'd really want). AMD's mobile drivers are pretty bad and I don't hear very good things about Enduro. This is probably the closest thing to what the T440 should have been but wasn't, and the price premium isn't terrible if you really value the SSD. I'd guess a better keyboard than the V7 and tied with the Y410p. If your priorities are "anything but HD4400 in a solid machine", it's not a bad pick, but it really needs GT 730 or something.

- The V7-482PG has solid build quality (for a non-Thinkpad) but doesn't use the materials the P645 does. Same IPS 1080p display. GT 750M is faster (by a good 30%) and probably has a lot less hassles than a AMD discrete solution. No touchpad buttons and no real SSD, but a mSATA slot for the latter, and the 840 EVO mSATA versions are coming soon. Only a 500GB 5400RPM drive. Battery is around 5-7hr depending on settings, it's a big 4-cell and Anand was pretty impressed. $830 or so if Amazon doesn't charge sales tax in your state, MSRP was originally $1300! A little heavy but certainly portable. 10pt multitouch if you care about that. You can take it apart and fiddle around with it and replace the battery, unlike many other "ultrabooks". It's a pretty good balance.

- The Y410p is recommended quite a bit here but I couldn't bring myself to prefer it over the V7. It comes with a quad-core, which is a little overkill. Its 755M is about 10-15% faster just by virtue of having GDDR5 rather than the DDR3 on the 750M, but they're identical otherwise except for a slight clock speed difference. However, the screen is 1600x900 TN, it runs hotter, is thicker (1.3" vs 0.92"), and it's a lot heavier, with pretty bad battery life. 1TB drive by default. Ultrabay is nice for capability to use two standard drives, as mSATA carries a premium. Build quality is up in the air depending on who you talk to, definitely some flex but that may not be a horrible thing. Good keyboard. For $779 B&N and a good chunk of tax, it could be equivalent in price to the V7. You can buy an extra battery, but that adds even more weight. If maximum gaming performance is needed this is probably the way to go though, it's criminal that any midrange dGPU would be hobbled with DDR3.

Srebrenica Surprise fucked around with this message at 16:21 on Dec 15, 2013

# ¿ Dec 15, 2013 15:29

Srebrenica Surprise: Aug 23, 2008; "L-O-V-E's just another word I never learned to pronounce."

babydonthurtme posted:

I currently have my eye on the Lenovo Y410p (which my partner got earlier on this year, and loves), but I've been hearing good things about the Acer Aspire V7-482PG, and I'm wondering how they compare, plus if there's any big hardware changes I should be waiting on since Haswell is already out.

I know the Acer is lighter and supposedly has a better screen, which would be a serious plus for me, but I'm worried about the fact that it only comes with the stupid 24GB caching SSD + HD option. Would I be able to replace the hard drive myself with something more decent? Also, since I'm not planning to keep the laptop for more than a couple years, do I need to worry about build quality, warranties and support and so on? I ask this more wrt the Acer, since Lenovo seems to have decent support.

Lastly, I know an MBA or MBP is out of my price range (or at least it would be for what I want a laptop for), but I can't help drooling after one anyway. The screens on those things, goddamn. Flash is still terrible on OSX, though, right? I'd be wasting my time saving up for one, right??

Check my post last page. Both the 1TB on the Y410P and the 500GB on the V7 are 5400RPM 2.5" drives and can be replaced with better drives. The difference is that the Y410P can take two regular size drives (one in the ultrabay, where the DVD drive normally is) and one boot drive in the laptop itself, whereas if you want two drives in the V7, the SSD has to be mSATA. mSATA SSDs carry a premium over 2.5" ones, but if you're just switching out the drive for a 7200RPM drive or something none of this matters.

Given the huge difference between Lenovo's Thinkpad line and the Ideapads, and the separate support, I don't think there's much reason to worry about the build quality or support in relative terms. The Ideapad is built (and supported) like a regular consumer laptop, not like a Thinkpad, and so if you're already considering it the V7 is, from all accounts, equal to or better build quality.

Macbooks are fantastic but they won't play games nearly as well as either of these systems. You might check HD5000 benchmarks. The T440p or the P645 might be options to look into, although if you're only keeping them for a couple years and you care about graphics performance you're probably better off getting a cheaper system and saving the rest to buy another one down the road.

e: Here's a good review of the V7, although it's the upgraded version with the i7 and a 1TB drive, that doesn't affect much.

e2: also see the P34G which might be a nice system too

Srebrenica Surprise fucked around with this message at 23:26 on Dec 16, 2013

# ¿ Dec 16, 2013 17:45

Srebrenica Surprise: Aug 23, 2008; "L-O-V-E's just another word I never learned to pronounce."

If you're not going to spend much time gaming a 730M system is probably a better choice, although I've noticed with the desktop thread that it's very common for a low-end capability to hook people into wanting to do more.

# ¿ Dec 19, 2013 18:15

Srebrenica Surprise: Aug 23, 2008; "L-O-V-E's just another word I never learned to pronounce."

It's best to go to notebookcheck and go look at benchmarks for the GPUs, people tend to have wildly different expectations of what's acceptable and unacceptable. I'll post my thoughts on the V7 soon, but the 750M does get pretty hot and might be overkill (or lock you out of other good choices with lower-end cards) if you don't plan on playing many AAA games and don't care about settings that much. I don't see much point in going for the Y510p unless there's some difference I don't know about besides the ridiculously inefficient SLI thing and the screen that's vastly inferior to the V7's anyway - it's just pointlessly big for what you get.

e: I guess I'd say something like the P645 is a much better fit, although the V7 might be a good competitor depending on what you think of the relative benchmarks. I wouldn't factor in an SSD, with any of these you have room in budget to drop $200 on a 256GB SSD of your choice.

e2: this was a reply to LogicNinja's post btw

Srebrenica Surprise fucked around with this message at 19:54 on Dec 19, 2013

# ¿ Dec 19, 2013 19:10

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Srebrenica Surprise: Aug 23, 2008; "L-O-V-E's just another word I never learned to pronounce."

Straker posted:

Case in point, I just upgraded my desktop from a 7990 to a pair of 290s and so I can't help but see the 755M as marginally acceptable, instead of thinking of it as "so much better than the 740M that I might have accidentally dismissed a bunch of perfectly good even cheaper laptops" or whatever

And even if I think it sucks, I don't have to play BF4 all the time, I still have basically every game from every humble bundle/other recent good bundle to play through still.

I will say though that driving games at 1080p is probably better suited for the 755M's GDDR5, which makes the fact "1080p screen" and "755M" are mutually exclusive kind of suck (outside of the Y510p, which has huge portability drawbacks). I'm going to be doing a little memory-speed-only light overclocking like Anandtech did to try to alleviate this. The pixel difference does mean more settings sacrifices than I'd think I'd have to make, but like you I have high expectations based on desktop gaming. In my case I've actually done less and less gaming recently, but the times I do it, I want it to be fluid and look good and work right. It's so much more difficult to decide with this stuff on mobile than it is on the desktop - lower end GPUs are plentiful but nearing obsolescence, midrange GPUs perform like budget desktop cards and age quickly, and high-end GPUs age even faster in certain ways and have huge mobility drawbacks. I may think the V7 is the best combination for me, but it's a lot more personal and subjective than it would be because of the form factor.

e: I made a post comparing similar systems, LogicNinja - the V7 has a vastly superior screen to most systems, as it's IPS (well, AHVA).

e2: the W230ST is also a decent contender against the V7 but is significantly chunkier and a little pricier, with some pretty bad battery life even if you aren't using the dGPU. The V7 puts up about 4-6hrs.

Srebrenica Surprise fucked around with this message at 19:51 on Dec 19, 2013

# ¿ Dec 19, 2013 19:36

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Serious Hardware/Software Crap > Laptop Megathread: Your laptop doesn't have Haswell? More like Hasbeen~

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