Project Reality Forums

Hey guys, another laptop buyer here

Seriously though, If I had a choice I wouldnt get another laptop, but my weekly commuting doesnt give me a choice really, so here I am.

Firstly what I want:
I need a 15" machine with FulHD display, an i5 (Haswell preferably), and a good nVidia card. And a really big thing for me is that it should last longer than 2 years. I would like this to cost me less than 25000 CZK, which is about 1000 Euros.

I am going to use it at home and at college and twice a week use it on train between those (2,5 hours), So while Im not really going to take it to school daily, I would like it to stay alive for those 2,5 hours all right.

I want to play games including PR, ARMA and KSP, do 3d modelling and render-to-texture

Now, lets go through these stats, because I have question regarding those.

the CPU, Is it worth waiting for Haswell on brands wehere they dont have a Haswell notebook out, or not available here at least? ( Looking at you ASUS!) I have read that it really does improve on every aspect a bit, surely I would notice that? And if I should wait, how can I know when will these new notebooks come?

then the good nVidia card, in this comparison, the most common GT 750M/755M looks like shit compared to the 760M/765M, as it has half the shader count. So, with the i5 im going to get, will this difference matter, or will the CPU bottleneck it either way?

And next is reliability. I found this reliabilty report, from which, after discarding Apple and Samsung as they dont really fit my budget, Lenovo and ASUS come on top. Lenovo did surprise me, because im not hearing a lot of praise on it from reliability point of view. Might it be the Thinkpads giving it extra points? Anywho, I would prefer an ASUS.

Given all of above, im considering these three pieces. I couldnt find english sites as the versions seem to be country-specific, but you should be able to read the specs all right:

ASUS N56VV-S4028
This is ASUS, so something I would think will live a somewhat long life. However, it does have the old i5 3230M as well as only having GT 750M.

Lenovo IdeaPad Y510p 59392835
This is Lenovo, so still should be reliable, though subjectively I dont trust it. While it has the newer i5 4200M, it still has only GT 755M. Also, while a small 8GB SSD is nice to have, faster HDD would be better IMO.

MSI GE60 2OE-244XCZ
This is MSI, really obscure as a notebook brand, it doesnt even show on the reliability test and from what I have read among forums and review sites, it wouldnt hit high. However, in adition to i5 4200M, it has a GTX 765M, and that is why im considering it.


If you have read all the way down here, i have a question:

Dear collegues, what would you suggest?

Thanks, lucky.Boy

All good choices,

some minor notes:
1. The MSI keyboards are "Chiclet style", idk what they call this in Europe, since Chiclet is a type of Mexican gum.. ...the keyboard keys are a love it or hate it proposition.

2. That Lenovo comes in many variations,
Whenever looking at Lenovo machines, use the Lenovo PSREF system to find all system specs, model numbers, submodel numbers etc..
Personal Systems Reference (PSREF) sheets is the worldwide website
Personal Systems Reference (PSREF) sheets for Western Europe is the Western Europe specific website.
(IDK the difference, I've never had to use the Western Europe website when buying work equipment from Lenovo)

For you, the IdeaPad notebooks specs pdf can be found here: http://www.lenovo.com/psref/pdf/ipbook.pdf


Why not this Lenovo on sale?
Lenovo IdeaPad Y580, Metal Gray 59352094 - Pou?it? zbo?? | CZC.cz

Lenovo IdeaPad Y580, Metal Gray - Second-hand goods
18 000 CZK
including VAT and all taxes


Don't be afraid of refurbished notebooks, just test them thoroughly within the first 2 weeks,

Difference between the 750m and 650m is huge, 750M is much better.
Difference between the 750m and 660m is very small, you can not tell difference in most applications.
The 750m is a rebadged 660M, with a slightly faster clock and slightly better energy efficiency.

IMHO , The best available comparison tool for mobile GPUs:
Mobile Graphics Cards - Benchmark List - NotebookCheck.net Tech

This website, Prodej tisk?ren, kop?rek a skartova?ek - PeKro spol. s r.o. seems to have hundreds of notebooks available... IDK if it's a trustworthy website/retailer though.

MSI GE60 2OD-267XPL - Po??ta?e - K24.cz - Internetov? obchod s po??ta?i a elektronikou

That price is so good, I'm not sure it's possible.

Thanks for the response(s)! Nice find on those i7 machines, but will those be able to pull off the 2,5h of battery life? You know, 4 cores and 47W TDP and all.

The MSI I found had a 765m, so that is even bigger shot than 750m/660m, right?

MSI GE60 2OD-267XPL - Po??ta?e - K24.cz - Internetov? obchod s po??ta?i a elektronikou

That price is so good, I'm not sure it's possible.

This looks really good, but I never heard of that shop, and is says that it is a Polish version with ENG keyboard, and missing czech markings on keyboard would suck. But with those specs for that money...
Again, wont it blow up after 2 years?

Currently im most inclinded to this one, if it can make a 2,5h ride on just battery:

Lenovo IdeaPad Y580, Metal Gray 59352094 - Pou?it? zbo?? | CZC.cz

I would love a 760M card, but Im not going to go all lottery with MSI.

Btw new reliability report is here, with Lenovo being a sure winner: Computer Reliability Report 2012 Q3

Edit: made this quote on pcspecialist.co.uk :

[ATTACH]7911[/ATTACH]

Pretty much on par with that polish MSI, for a little more money, and you got only 1 year warranty on parts, as oposed to 2 years here.

So many options..

Another million dollar question, what is faster for gaming? a 7200 HDD, or a 5400HDD with 16GB SSD locked for "faster system" (its not even for OS, as it "wouldnt fit there").

New update, I found this baby: ASUS N56VV-S4027, ?ern? | CZC.cz

After you showed me that i7 notebooks are not as expensive as I thought, and after that Lenovo got bought by someone else, I decided not to waste tears on not having a GTX 760M, as I dont trust MSI to be reliable, I found this nice ASUS. It also does have a good fast HDD as oposed to a hybrid HD which Lenovos have, at the moment im mostly inclined to this one.

Opinions?

Y u don't trust MSI? :/ I'm happy with my notebook so far...

I've had an MSI GX720 based on 1722 barebones chassis for year now.

It's been reliable and I'm happy with it, on thing I really appreciate about it is the ease to open it for the big fan an heatsink out annual clean, after 5 screws, the fan, Graphics card, RAM are all accessible.

Think about this with laptops as mine needs a annual fan removal to get the dust out of the inside of the fan vents.

The 1722 MSI chassis was on of the best, but I've got no idea about the newer 1762 ones.
http://forum.notebookreview.com/msi/722 ... nge-2.html

Nice look inside here

Thanks for your input guys.

The thing is, the fact that there are two happy customers doesnt say anything about the brand. Heck, even Acer, being the shittiest NB brand, surely has two happy customers out there.

But even If I take your word for it, MSI wont give me more power for my buck compared to that MSI. Either I can trade its i7 for a haswell i5 and get a better card (765M), spend 80 Euro more and I get this:
MSI GE60 2OE-244XCZ, ?ern? | CZC.cz

Or I can go for this Polish import,
MSI GE60 2OD-267XPL - Po??ta?e - K24.cz - Internetov? obchod s po??ta?i a elektronikou
which mainly doesnt have any czech markings on the keyboard, which will make any writing in Czech a big pain, plus Im not entirely sure on how long the possible failures would take to fix. This extends to all MSI btw, as they dont have a servicing centre in Czech Rep. and everything is done in Poland.

Ploddit, how do i tell which case is the notebook in?

lucky.BOY wrote: which mainly doesnt have any czech markings on the keyboard, which will make any writing in Czech a big pain, plus Im not entirely sure on how long the possible failures would take to fix. This extends to all MSI btw, as they dont have a servicing centre in Czech Rep. and everything is done in Poland.

Ploddit, how do i tell which case is the notebook in?

Don't you have these stickers to put on your keyboard for the alphabet? I have Cyrillic alphabet on this Belgian keyboard

Yeah, you can budget in ~10 euros for stickers:
Netbook Czech English Keyboard Stickers Black Color | eBay
Anything like that,

Maybe you should work backwards, make a list of all the notebook manufacturers that have a repair/refurbish factory in Czech Republic, and then find one of their notebooks to fit your needs.

Update, finaly went with ASUS N56JR-S4044, ?ern? | CZC.cz

for 24 500 CZK, which translates to a little more than 900 Euro. I had to wait for them to start selling it here

Though I have a pretty big issue with it now. I got it without OS, got Win 8.1 from school, and the cd with drivers that came with the NTB said that it works only with Win 8, period. So I proceed to get the drivers from from ASUS' page, (guys remember to install the chipset driver first!), got nearly everthing working at last.

The only thing that isnt working is discrete GPU
I got Geforce GTX 760M, I got newest drivers installed (311.93) along with GeForce Experience, And everytime an application tries to use the dedicated GPU, it just crashes without a message (3DMark), or freezes up with black screen (Kerbal space program). They both run fine (albeit slower) when I force them to use integrated HD4600.
My question is, why is my discrete GPU ingoring me? All drivers and monitoring software seem to detect it just fine.

Cheers, lucky.Boy

Nvm, figured it out. I had the wrong drivers for the Geforce. drivers from Nvidia wouldnt install, so I checked ASUS page again and found some different ones. Those work just great.

Thanks to you all for your input, now im officially content with my new pc