lenovo g580 or hp 2005ax

[hp_or_lenovo]

1) What is your budget? (INR or USD) 30k


2) What size & weight consideration (if any) would you prefer?


Thin and Light; 12" - 14" screen
Mainstream; 15" - 16" screen





3) Are there any brands that you prefer or any you really don't like?
a. Like: hp sony samsung lenovo
b. Dislike: all others


4) What are the primary tasks will you be performing with this notebook? surfing, casual gaming, movies, light coding, some small servers and scripts may be required to run for few days continuously


5) What screen resolution(s) & type (glossy/matte) would you prefer? anti-glare, though will be using external monitor anyway


6) Anything else you would like to say? (eg: local purchase, ASS,matte/glossy finish)

i expect it to perform for atleast 5 years, sometimes running continuously for 2 to 3 days, also i am in delhi, where can i get the best price?



*
i went through some threads and found out that these two laptops fit my requirements at best, both are available for around 32k at outside stores. 2005ax has little advantage of ram at 1600 mhz (1333 mhz in g580), grafix ranking better but cpu ranking behind i5.
after reading reviews of 2005ax i find it a great machine but i want to know more about g580 so that i can make an informed choice.
please share some information about g580 like looks, built, heating, how much advantage does amd discrete grafix have over intel hd 4000, how much advantage does i5 offer over amd a8, and can we get the ram running at 1600 mhz in g580? does ram 1600 speed is noticeable compared to 1333?
please help

 

[coderunknown]

if you don't play highend or modern games, go for 3rd gen i5 as it makes more sense. AMD's main advantage is better gaming performance and less heating.

HD4000 can run any modern game at low settings and old games at mid or high. and no you can't make ram work at 1600Mhz as it is not officially supported in case of laptops. Also even with 1600Mhz, A8 trails Core i5 so go with the Lenovo one or Samsung NP300E5X-A01IN as you should get it for less with another years warranty for free (not listed at flipkart). Also get a cooling pad as running the laptop for such long period will surely cause some heating problem.

 

[hp_or_lenovo]

if you don't play highend or modern games, go for 3rd gen i5 as it makes more sense. AMD's main advantage is better gaming performance and less heating.

HD4000 can run any modern game at low settings and old games at mid or high. and no you can't make ram work at 1600Mhz as it is not officially supported in case of laptops. Also even with 1600Mhz, A8 trails Core i5 so go with the Lenovo one or Samsung NP300E5X-A01IN as you should get it for less with another years warranty for free (not listed at flipkart). Also get a cooling pad as running the laptop for such long period will surely cause some heating problem.

thanks, yes i dont play high end games, so i5 should suffice, but i am skeptical about the g580 heating up and flickering display as there are many negative reviews about it on flipkart, i have ignored other i5 models as they lack usb 3.0 including the samsung one.
i use the laptop in an a/c room, and except some gaming (an hour or 2) my machine will be using very less cpu so cooling pad is ruled out unless laptop heats up unnecessarily.
on the other hand 2005ax has been thoroughly reviewed by people here (just hate the arrow keys), i have no doubt about its reliability.
also where to get the best deal, i want to wrap it at 32k + 1k at max

 

[vkl]

G580 has 1600MHz RAM.If gaming is a priority then take the hp g6 2005ax else G580 or Samsung NP300E5X-A01IN are good options for an i5 3rd gen based system
i5 3210m supports upto 1600MHz RAM.So no problem there.

 

[hp_or_lenovo]

G580 has 1600MHz RAM.If gaming is a priority then take the hp g6 2005ax else G580 or Samsung NP300E5X-A01IN are good options for an i5 3rd gen based system

thanks vkl, gaming is not priority but is there really speed difference in day to day tasks and booting etc that i5 will show clear lead?
also i read in another thread that you own a g580 yourself, can you tell me about heating, hanging, flickering display as said by many people at flipkart. also can you tell me what kinds of stress have you put your laptop to till now?

 

[coderunknown]

If you run something really CPU intense like benchmark, rendering, compression then i5 will take a clear lead but for anything lightweight like browsing, coding the difference will be minimum as i have myself tested the HP and found it smooth for everything except compression where it took lot more time. as i am not much aware about servers so not sure which will be better suited but i guess more ram will be helpful here + A8 is quad core but you'll have to do some R&D on this front. Don't want to comment about something i don't have clear knowledge.

 

[hp_or_lenovo]

If you run something really CPU intense like benchmark, rendering, compression then i5 will take a clear lead but for anything lightweight like browsing, coding the difference will be minimum as i have myself tested the HP and found it smooth for everything except compression where it took lot more time. as i am not much aware about servers so not sure which will be better suited but i guess more ram will be helpful here + A8 is quad core but you'll have to do some R&D on this front. Don't want to comment about something i don't have clear knowledge.

servers are not worrysome except for the fact that it may require it to run for long hours. they are merely some java programs i use to track some websites and provide feed to me on my mobile. usually i come back to my room everyday and turn my laptop off at night but when i go to my home, i will leave my laptop on for 1 to 3 days so that it can send updates to my mobile. the programs are very light, even a 1GHz celeron precessor can run them with almost 0% cpu usage.

so only thing concerning is compression here, which i do rarely (you are talking about winrar/file compression right?), so can be neglected as well.

i understand both i5 and a8 are powerful cpus, but i5 take a clear lead in certain circumstances.
i also understand that both amd dedicated gpu and intel hd 4000 are mid range gpu, with amd taking lead in certain games.
i dont think any of laptops will show much difference speedwise according to my needs.
so only thing that remains is heating, robustness of laptops and reliability.

amd has disadvantage of real bad arrow keys, plus less future safe (inferior processor, lithography etc) but very reliable and cool temperetures.
i5 is 22nm, 3.1ghz future safe but there are issues with heating, flickering display, hanging of aplications as reviewed by some people at flipkart, dont know the reality of it.

so i would go for an i5 if the issues are not there else it will be 2005ax.

 

[vkl]

@hp_or_lenovo

In day to day usage one won't notice that much difference.If you use apps like photoshop 6 you will find the APU to be much faster than the i5 with hd 4000 thanks to better OpenCL acceleration support by the former.As said by Sam in tasks like compressing large files the APU can be much slower.But in Winzip which supports OpenCL accearation with AMD processors/graphics based system the APU will again be much faster.In applications like winrar i5 would take the lead.

As for the heating issues searching in google could not give many links.Just found one.The guy who posted has a different model with a "dedicated graphic card" most probably the gt630m.
In India as of now this comes with only IGP(hd 4000).So I don't think there can be any heating issue with just the IGP in it.
There might be issues with some people but I haven't got a single issue till now.It is run for 16hours+ a day.I use Virtualbox with a single guest VM which is quite smooth.
Video conversion speed is good enough.
I am not that much into gaming nowadays so don't game on it.Less demanding games like CS,FIFA can be handled easily by it.It can handle some higher games but hd4000 is not what a gamer should look to due to reports of crashes in some games and not playable in many.Also intel is not regular at releasing drivers for its graphics as of now.If you are playing older titles then it might be good enough for casual gaming.Ubuntu runs smooth in it(nothing to see there it would run smoother with lower specs just fine).


Rest,you can do a bit of research yourself and pick a model that suits your workloads.There are quite a few models in that price range.

 

[coderunknown]

servers are not worrysome except for the fact that it may require it to run for long hours. they are merely some java programs i use to track some websites and provide feed to me on my mobile. usually i come back to my room everyday and turn my laptop off at night but when i go to my home, i will leave my laptop on for 1 to 3 days so that it can send updates to my mobile. the programs are very light, even a 1GHz celeron precessor can run them with almost 0% cpu usage.

thanks for the info.

so only thing that remains is heating, robustness of laptops and reliability.

if you game, the HP heats up badly but otherwise runs really cool irrespective of how long you run. Also build is decent and lid doesn't wobble, brightness and viewing angles are excellent. Only weak point is the lid's front cover. feels cheap and as always prone to fingerprint.

i5 is 22nm, 3.1ghz future safe but there are issues with heating, flickering display, hanging of aplications as reviewed by some people at flipkart, dont know the reality of it.

i doubt it'll heat up if you don't stretch the laptop. and flickering + hanging maybe caused to heating as heat may cause display problem and throttling will surely cause hanging but they may have tried gaming on it.

if you go for HP, grab the extended warranty but it'll cost whereas in lenovo it is free.

 

[pratyush997]

Grab HP dude...it got dGpu which is far more powerful than HD 4000

 

[jibin1991]

Got the G580 couple of days back.Added another 4gb ram.
Haven't faced any issues till now.Surprisingly good speakers.Played fifa 12 in full settings and played NFS Run in low-mid settings.
Laptop running cool and quiet.Decent build quality but catches fingerprints quite easily and all plastic build makes it look cheap.

 

[hp_or_lenovo]

thanks vkl, Sam, pratyush997, jibin1991
i think i will go with the lenovo, any idea where i can get the best deal in delhi? not much into freebies except extended warranty

 

[pratyush997]

^^Do Review it after u get it..
PS- Do check this...

 

[jibin1991]

i'm preparing a short review.will post it by tomorrow.

go through this
*www.thinkdigit.com/forum/reviews/162755-lenovo-g580-quick-review.html#post1742486

 

[cacklebolt]

between the Lenovo and HP ,I would prefer the HP for gaming anyday....go for it if u r into gaming and/or don't require the processing power.
but this seems better for the price :
Samsung NP300E5X-S01IN Laptop (3rd Gen Core i5/ 4GB/ 750GB/ DOS/ 1GB Graph): Flipkart.com: Compare, Review Samsung Notebook
the 3rd Gen i5 with GPU seems an irresistible deal...but the question I'd whether or not and how capable is the 610m gpu.

 

[coderunknown]

610 is slightly (5-10%) better than HD4000 but biggest advantage is that Nvidia releases driver at regular intervals and game will run without any blackscreen or artifacts which is common to all Intel graphics.

 

[cacklebolt]

610 is slightly (5-10%) better than HD4000 but biggest advantage is that Nvidia releases driver at regular intervals and game will run without any blackscreen or artifacts which is common to all Intel graphics.

which implies dat dedicated gpu on g6 2005ax > HD4000???
and how is the 610m gpu on the samsung as compared hd 7670m on hp???

and also why is everyone saying that w should wait for asus to launch trinity or ivb??? and why only asus???

and @Sam which is better acc. to this comparison???
HP Pavilion G6-2005AX Laptop (APU Quad Core A8/ 4GB/ 500GB/ Win7 HB/ 1.5GB Graph) vs Samsung NP300E5X-S01IN Laptop (3rd Gen Core i5/ 4GB/ 750GB/ DOS/ 1GB Graph): Compare Computers: Flipkart.com
and is the i5 on samsung a dual core or quad core???
nooby question but i have seen mobile variants of desktop processors launch with 2 cores instead of 4.

 

[coderunknown]

fusion GPU (7640G) is better than HD4000. 7670 way better.
610 is based on GT520 which is actually slower than HD4000 but maybe cause of high clock speed and better driver, it suppresses HD4000 else 610 should actually trail HD4000.

found something:

Graphics Card: Nvidia GeForce 610M

The "6" in the name might indicate a new generation, but the GeForce 610M is still based on the Fermi architecture of the old GeForce GT 520M. Thus, the entry level graphics card, manufactured in a 40 nm process, is equipped with 48 shader units and a 1024 MB DDR3 VRAM (64 bit interface).

To make things even more confusing, Nvidia offers the graphics card (once again) in two different versions. While the GF119 version runs with up to 900/900/1800 MHz (core/memory/shader), the GF108 counterpart only clocks with 672/800/1344 MHz and is consequently slower than a standard GT 520M (740/800/1480 MHz).

We've created a small chart for a better overview:
Graphics card (chip) Clock: core/memory/shader Memory interface memory type
GeForce GT 520MX (GF119) 900 / 900 / 1800 MHz 64 Bit DDR3
GeForce 610M (GF119) 900 / 900 / 1800 MHz (max.) 64 Bit DDR3
GeForce GT 520M (GF119) 740 / 800 / 1480 MHz 64 Bit DDR3
GeForce 610M (GF108) 672 / 800 / 1344 MHz 64 Bit DDR3
GeForce GT 520M (GF108) 600 / 900 / 1200 MHz 128 Bit DDR3

this shows why some GT610 based laptop performs slightly better than HD4000 when HD4000 thrashes GT520 itself. but biggest of problem, we have no idea what 610 is shipped but my guess is its the GF119 but overall performance will be more or less the same. bad. 610 is not a gaming GPU, neither was 520 or even 525. minimum you need GT630 or 7670 to be safe for a few years.

Asus means IceCool tech which really helps. Works lot better than HP CoolSense which is a fan control mechanism and so under load it becomes useless and laptop starts to heatup real bad. IceCool is not a software but a way of building the laptop placing the hot parts (fan, processor, GPU) close to the battery and not under/close to the palmrest like HP did (morons). Also Asus doesn't always ship Windows with laptop so end price is low. Just only problem is their service is no where near HP and no idea if they provide any extended warranty here.

it depends fully on how you use it. with the samsung forget gaming by the end of 2012. even with 7670 you can't max out on most modern games without choppy framerates. someone tried Dirt Showdown at Ultra settings and it was just playable but Battlefield 3 will lag even at high. try the same with HD4000 or GT610 and enjoy a slideshow instead of showdown if not a blackscreen. but i5 is lot faster than A8 so that will keep ticking for a few more years unless someone find a way to overclock the A8 to 2.5Ghz+ which is impossible as of now. With HP, you get a allround package, nothing exceptional.

all i5 are dual core. find the model no and check if it has a Q. Q means quad. there are many i7 with extremely high clock but dual cores.
those are not exactly mobile variants as the mobile lineup is slightly different from desktop line and Intel doesn't cut off 2 cores of a quad desktop and sell it as a mobile proccy directly
i guess you have seen some i5 models which have similar names for desktop and laptop processors.

 

[coderunknown]

-ve:

• slower than i5 (2nd gen or 3rd gen)
• left side heats up when you game (dual GPU on or off doesn't matter)
• crossfire works only in DX11 games and only few games show real improvement
• under load battery backup is pathetic.
• heavy and attracts lot of fingerprint

+ve:

• turn discrete GPU off and laptop stays absolutely cool.
• screen brightness and viewing angles are best i have seen at this price.
• best in class GPU.
• performs same as core i3.
• processor turbo upto 2.5Ghz under load and easy to configure to save power at idle.
• Windows 7 preloaded.
• max backup (low load, min brightness) is around 6hrs.
• brownish body so fingerprints are not easily spotted

 

[hp_or_lenovo]

well,i inquired at few places and turns out that lenovo is not available below 34.5k (including a free but probably shitty backpack ), i must rule it out.

then i inquired about the 2005ax, someone in janakpuri is selling it at 33k (free 4 gb pendrive, what the hell!! i mean 4 gb really?), the deal is 1k cheaper than flipkart. Infibeam people are giving it away for 32.5k but i am not sure they will give extended warranty.

what do you guys suggest?

i also have a few questions about 2005ax,
can we turn both gpus off to save power and produce less heat, as i will be running it for long periods continuously, does it serve any benefit? and does it increse battery backup?
and does overall performance except graphics/games remains unaffected if we turn off dedicated gpu?
Also since i will be using external monitor (22"), can we use dedicated gpu output? as sometimes only integrated gpu works in video out