Tiny differences between few gaming laptops

[Kogure]

Hello,

I need a laptop for college, IT work, and I need some opinions on few minor details that are the only differences between two models.
The specs are "at least core i5 and 8GB of RAM", so you know it's nothing too serious. Running a VM every now and then is officially the most demanding thing they'll do.
I just wanted to buy something better for myself, and found these laptops. At first I was only looking at the HP, but then I found the Lenovo for similar prices and with small differences.



These lower end ones both have Core i5-9300H, 16GB RAM, GTX 2060, 512GB SSD, IPS panels.


Lenovo Legion Y540-15IRH - 81SX0081MH:

HDMI: 2.0
Audio: Dolby Atmos for Gaming PC
Battery: 57Wh, 5 hours, Li-ion
1 extra storage slot
Cost: €1199


HP Omen 15-dc1620nd:

HDMI: 1.4
Audio: B&O
Battery: 70Wh, 5.25 hours, Li-pol
No extra storage slot
Cost: €1199



The higher end ones both have Core i7-9750H, 16GB RAM, GTX 2060. The speces from above still apply. These are the only differences:


Lenovo Legion Y540-15IRH - 81SX007YMH:

1TB SSD
1 extra storage slot
Cost: €1399


HP Omen 15-dc1621nd:

512GB SSD + 1TB HDD
No extra storage slot
Cost: €1499



The last major difference are the looks. The Omen looks great, and I do want it to stand out. However, in both cases I'd be paying an additional €200-300 for JUST the CPU alone (and extra storage which I don't need), and that has a similar performance to the Core i5, but has 2 extra cores. I'm overpaying with the Lenovo and greatly overpaying with the HP.

I guess that the advice I need is on the CPU and the battery.
Will the i5-9300H be able to handle VMs and gaming on GTX 2060?
And which battery will last longer/need less maintenance? Aren't Li-pol's more unsafe? I won't need to run it on battery, so I just don't want it to explode on me in the future

 

[balkeetsingh]

i5 with 2060 should be able to give similar gaming performance(fps) as i7 except in cpu intensive games like bf5, far cry 5 etc. If multitasking while gaming is your requirement then go for i7, if only gaming or not much multitasking get i5

 

[Sagar_20]

An i7-9750H is not going to make a big difference.

Both are very capable processors.

Any laptop with an Intel i5-9300H + 6 GB RTX 2060 will be great for gaming.

Manufacturers charge a lot of higher capacity models so it's better to go for the basic model and if needed, you can later upgrade RAM and storage as per your requirements.

Battery life will be better on laptops that have just 1 SSD.

 

[Kogure]

Yeah, that's kinda what I was thinking. The i5 and i7 have very similar performance in benchmarks that don't use multi-core. The multithreaded i5 should be more than enough. And even at home I have an i7-7700K for high end gaming. 4 cores that perform well are really not the end of the world. Maybe I'd get it if it was like €100 cheaper.