i5 or i7 Laptop (school, minimum gaming, etc) SPECS inside!

[RiSaex]

Hi everyone!

I am debating between to laptops for me to purchase for college and personal use.

My usage for the computer will mainly:

School work - Microsoft word, web-browsing, etc

Gaming - League of Legends, Maplestory, Minecraft, Wizard101

Casual use - Web-browsing, some apps from the window store, iTunes


This is the i7 Laptop:
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/lenovo-edge-2-in-1-15-6-touch-screen-laptop-intel-core-i7-8gb-memory-1tb-hard-drive-black/2628028.p?id=1219550860913&skuId=2628028

it has
8 GB ram
graphic card of NVIDIA GeForce GT 840M
5th Gen Intel® Core™ i7-5500U mobile processor


The i5 Laptop is:

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/lenovo-edge-2-in-1-15-6-touch-screen-laptop-intel-core-i5-6gb-memory-1tb-hard-drive-black/2637139.p?id=1219551828885&skuId=2637139

It has
6 GB ram
Intel® HD Graphics 5500
5th Gen Intel® Core™ i5-5200U mobile processor


My budget is scarcely within the i7 laptop... I got the overall money for it, but not enough to cover the almost-$100 tax.

I am leaning towards the i5 because of a couple of things:

-people told me the i5 is capable and over-capable of running all the games I need
-the graphic card won't overheat my laptop as easily as the NVIDIA
- i7 is useless for my uses

I am not planning to overclock my laptop what so ever really. Money is a problem since if I do end up buying the i7, I won't be having much to spend as with the i5 I can use the extra money for school and laptop features.

So can someone help me look at further specs and give me an honest answer!

Thanks!

 

[DahMainahGaimah]

You should get the i5, because the i7 would be a complete waste of money. Modern games don't tend to be very CPU-intensive, and your standard use doesn't require much power. The GPU would also be enough to run the games you listed fairly well.

Basically, screw the i7.

 

[Sakata]

Well the i5 has an integrated gpu so Dah's reasoning and point are moot. Also have you looked at buying your laptop directly from lenovo they have a nice online store. But onto the i7 VS i5, yes the i7 may be overkill right now but in a few years it will be faring better then the i5, giving you essentially longer and better use of your laptop.

Edit : I would also give amazon a look, plus how long can this wait you may be able to get a deal on or around Black Friday / Cyber Monday

Edit II : Possible option ;
http://shop.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/lenovo/y-series/y40-80/?sb=:000001C9:000144D4:

 

[Solandri]

The screen on last year's Edge wasn't very good (only 50% sRGB = dull colors).
http://www.notebookcheck.net/Lenovo-Edge-15-80H10004US-Notebook-Review.132091.0.html

Dunno if they changed screens for this year. You just missed a hot deal on the Thinkpad Yoga 15 for $849. Everything the Edge is except goes into full tablet mode, much better screen, 840m, half pound lighter, has a slot for a SSD cache or small SSD, and probably much better quality since it's a Thinkpad (I got to play with the TP Yoga 14 for a month and would be comfortable using it to pound nails).

If you're not in a hurry and have your heart set on a Lenovo, try monitoring Lenovo's outlet website. That's where canceled orders, returns, and stuff with (usually) minor blemishes end up. They usually updated inventory on Thursdays a year ago. Dunno if they still do. The good stuff gets bought out pretty quickly.

http://outlet.lenovo.com/outlet_us/laptops/#facet-1=1,2,3,4

In fact checking right now, there's a refurb TP Yoga 15 for $639.

Edit: The 840m is a very cool-running card. The TP Yoga 14 I used had the 840m, and barely felt any warmer after 2 hour gaming sessions with GW2 and Dragon Age:Inquisition (the surface of the desk got hot, but the keyboard area was cool). The fan was barely audible as well.

 

[Suzuki@1473780084@1473780163]

Avoid hard drives, you want your computer to be fast all the time. And, if you accidentally lean on a hard drive wrong, you can erase everything on it, including Windows - in less than a second. You'll be moving your computer a lot. Look for one with an SSD. If you need more space, buy an external hard drive instead.

Example: http://www.amazon.com/K501LX-Laptop-GeForce-Upgrade-Windows/dp/B00YR6BMS2/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1442188721&sr=8-2&keywords=gaming+laptop+ssd

Backlit keyboard




All the best!

 

[DahMainahGaimah]

Well the i5 has an integrated gpu so Dah's reasoning and point are moot.

Have you checked out what games he's playing though? Do you really think Maplestory or Wizard 101 would see any improvements? League of legends doesn't perform absolutely perfectly according to benchmarks, but is it really worth shelling out all that extra cash when he could just lower the settings slightly? The i7 also doesn't seem like that much of an improvement over the i5; they both are dual-core, quad-thread, and perform pretty similarly according to benchmarks I've seen. Also, by the time he'll need to upgrade he'll be out of college and will probably be able to afford a good computer.