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2 laptops-Which to go with- i7HQ fixed 8 gigs RAM or i5 and 16 gigs of RAM

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Viper69

Member
Joined
Feb 26, 2003
Which is the better laptop? The notebook with the corei7 and 8 gigs of RAM, or the core i5 that can be outfitted with 16 gigs of RAM-- price is not an issue in this decision between these two. I'd buy the 16 gig RAM stick for the Lenovo.


The Samsung has the faster chip, better screen, a bit lower battery life, and slightly heavier in weight.

The Lenovo has more ports, a good digitizer pen built into the base that automatically charges (no battery needed for pen), and the red trackpoint in the keyboard

Basic specs>> Samsung - Notebook 9 pro 15.6" 4K Ultra HD Touch-Screen Laptop - Intel Core i7 - 8GB Memory - 256GB SSD



http://www.bestbuy.com/site/samsung...-256gb-ssd-pure-black/4526101.p?skuId=4526101

VS


Lenovo Yoga 14 with a core i5 chip, Geforce 940M (maybe MX), expandable to 16 Gigs (only 1 RAM slot).


ThinkPad Yoga 2-in-1 14" Touch-Screen Laptop - Intel Core i5 - 8GB Memory - 256GB Solid State Drive

CPU: i5-6200U

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/lenovo-...lid-state-drive-black/4456400.p?skuId=4456400
 
if you would ever use the extra cores I would instantly go with the hq cpu- every time. there is no comparison between them. the hq cpu's have 4 cores with 8 threads whereas the I5 6200U is only 2 cores with 4 threads. its not even close
 
Like dejo said, that 6700hq is not at all on even playing grounds with the 6200u. And the 950m is much better than the 940m.

What are your plans with the laptop?
 
Like dejo said, that 6700hq is not at all on even playing grounds with the 6200u. And the 950m is much better than the 940m.

What are your plans with the laptop?


My primary uses will be MS Office, internet surfing, some streaming music. On web surfing I typically have 3-10 tabs open in FF. I won't be gaming on it. If the Samsung was not fixed on RAM, it would be a no brainer to me, but it's fixed.

I realize the chip difference alone is an easy decision if I was building a rig of course. In this case based on my uses, I don't know what will extend my laptop's life cycle, a faster chip...Or a bit slower CPU but with 16 gigs of RAM (the ThinkPad can take a 16 gig stick).

There are so many spec tests out there that are not necessarily indicative of real word situations so many reviews are not that helpful in some ways.

The only good part is when I buy it, I have until Jan 15th to return it for a full refund OR exchange it for something else.
 
they will try and sell you on the I5 6200U being power conservative- but you pay a premium for that- yet they will also strip battery cells from the device and end up with a similar battery life between them. To me to charge a premium and strip the goods down is totally absurd.
 
they will try and sell you on the I5 6200U being power conservative- but you pay a premium for that- yet they will also strip battery cells from the device and end up with a similar battery life between them. To me to charge a premium and strip the goods down is totally absurd.

The store people have been fine, no sway either way. Maybe you mean the marketing people of each company?

You are right however regarding the battery life, they are both somewhat similar. The Samsung gets about 6 hr, though I found a guy on YouTube posting screen shots in the video of him getting a bit over 7 hr (I treat him as an exception).


I saw an Acer R15 for the same price as the Thinkpad, 15.6" screen, same resolution as Thinkpad 1920x1080, Core i7 7500U, 1 TB HDD (5400 rpms), similar vid card Geforce 940MX.

I remember Acer when they hit the market, and they were terrible, it was like burning money. I haven't been able to shake that impression since, and that was a long time ago.


After playing around with the laptops, it also comes down to other nuances at some level for me. The feel of the keyboard, I like beveled keys for example, require a backlit keyboard as I often work at night.

It was so much easier specing out parts for my PC. Notebook shopping is a pain in the rear.

I was going to go with an ASUS ultrabook, but it uses their ambient light sensor technology, thus the user cannot adjust the keyboard brightness, only the computer can.


I saw a few gaming notebooks, but they were all too heavy (4.5 lbs or more) for obvious reasons.
 
Well if it's just for simple usage, I say get what is most comfortable for you. 8 vs 16gb of ram for simple stuff doesn't really matter either.

There are tons of portable laptops out there that will do everything you need it to do for less money. I paid less for my xps 9550, but I did get it from dell scratch and dent. You can also find yoga's for pretty cheap from time to time. Also if you're a student I recommend signing up for the best buy student coupons. I often see 100-150 off of laptops.
 
Well if it's just for simple usage, I say get what is most comfortable for you. 8 vs 16gb of ram for simple stuff doesn't really matter either.

There are tons of portable laptops out there that will do everything you need it to do for less money. I paid less for my xps 9550, but I did get it from dell scratch and dent. You can also find yoga's for pretty cheap from time to time. Also if you're a student I recommend signing up for the best buy student coupons. I often see 100-150 off of laptops.


I did look at the Yoga's. I liked the Yoga 900, the trackpad was so SMOOTH! I owned a netbook last time and wanted a bit bigger screen this time around 14-15.6", no larger. I was heavenly considering the Yoga 710. If I had trusted Acer, I would have picked up their R15, a lot of tech for the money.

Thanks for the BB tip, I didn't know that!
 
It's a bit more powerful and so somewhat more 'futureproof' if you will. I originally had my eye on a getac laptop with a 4 core I7 running at 3.7GHz. I should have done a little more research into the actual pricing as I may have gotten it if I had pushed for it a little more. Then again, with all it's options it probably would have been waaay over my budget. I'm quite happy with my R12 even though at full blast it is only 2.9GHz and dual core. Plus I've got close to 4g's in it even though it only cost 3, and I still need a spare $175 battery, a second charger, and a bigger sd card-the 512gb's are not cheap. My basic requirements were win7pro, gps, rugged, and ts of which the r12 is all of that. I can even get a proper car mount for it, if I had a bigger better car that is.
Whatever you get just make sure it has what you want even if you have to spend a bit more than you would like to. The R12 has recovery discs which I have used when I borked it. I did have to pay $30 for them, though it was $ well spent.
 
It's a bit more powerful and so somewhat more 'futureproof' if you will. I originally had my eye on a getac laptop with a 4 core I7 running at 3.7GHz. I should have done a little more research into the actual pricing as I may have gotten it if I had pushed for it a little more. Then again, with all it's options it probably would have been waaay over my budget. I'm quite happy with my R12 even though at full blast it is only 2.9GHz and dual core. Plus I've got close to 4g's in it even though it only cost 3, and I still need a spare $175 battery, a second charger, and a bigger sd card-the 512gb's are not cheap. My basic requirements were win7pro, gps, rugged, and ts of which the r12 is all of that. I can even get a proper car mount for it, if I had a bigger better car that is.
Whatever you get just make sure it has what you want even if you have to spend a bit more than you would like to. The R12 has recovery discs which I have used when I borked it. I did have to pay $30 for them, though it was $ well spent.

Thanks for following up. Yeah I get the futureproofing part, hence the appeal of the chip. The 8 gigs, I don't know... We will see.
 
Thanks for following up. Yeah I get the futureproofing part, hence the appeal of the chip. The 8 gigs, I don't know... We will see.

Honestly I wouldn't be terribly turned off by "only 8GB" of ram. I'm on my work laptop right now which has 8gb, and have outlook, Chrome with 7 tabs, Excel, Word, IE, Foxit Reader, and company provided McAfee running. Looking at under 5.5GB of memory used, and that's with whatever Windows adds in there for caching. If you're not doing anything too beefy you'll probably be bogged down by a lesser CPU before hitting the 8GB wall.
 
Honestly I wouldn't be terribly turned off by "only 8GB" of ram. I'm on my work laptop right now which has 8gb, and have outlook, Chrome with 7 tabs, Excel, Word, IE, Foxit Reader, and company provided McAfee running. Looking at under 5.5GB of memory used, and that's with whatever Windows adds in there for caching. If you're not doing anything too beefy you'll probably be bogged down by a lesser CPU before hitting the 8GB wall.

Thanks! That is basically the type of work load I will use this for. I've always gone over what is needed in terms of RAM. But maybe in this case I won't have to. i7 HQ would be nice to have that's for sure.

As I said earlier, I haven't seen one laptop that everything I'm looking for.
 
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