Great Deal on Lenovo y560? Anyone care to comment on performance?

[thickly]

Hi all,

 

It looks like there is a pretty awesome deal on this laptop right now - about $1,100 with Core i7, 8 gigs RAM, ATI HD 5730 - and was wondering if anyone has experience with it or any comments on if it would be suitable for 3d archviz work - mainly 3dsMax/MentalRay, Maxwell Render and Autocad.

 

This laptop would be used to supplement my Core i7 Workstation, allowing me to be a bit more mobile during the summer. I was also looking at the Dell Studio XPS16, with an almost identical configuration the Dell comes in around $1,400 (though it does have a higher resolution screen than the Lenovo).

 

There are not a lot of customer reviews out there on the Lenovo yet so I was hoping someone around here would have some thoughts.

 

Thanks in advance for your comments.

[AJLynn]

The Lenovo has a 1366x768 screen. At 15", that's really weak. Some of these companies actually market this crap as "High Definition" because you can display a 720p video on it, but I wouldn't buy one for graphics work.

 

The Radeon 5730 is not the highest end they've got but it's still quite good. Comparables would be a Geforce GTS 360M or a desktop 8800GS.

 

The Dell is available in a 1920x1080. Now that's what I call a proper display. It's also available in 1600x900. I just got a new Mac in 15" 1680x1050 and it really is an improvement over their lower res option, which is 1440x900.

[thickly]

Thanks Andrew - yeah, its a shame about the display because an i7 machine with 8 gigs for that price was tempting. I can still configure the Dell with 6Gigs and a full HD display for about $1,400 which is doable. I would love to get the i7 PowerMac but a similar config. is +$2,500 which I just can't justify right now, especially since I would then have to purchase a Windows OS/Parallels on top of it.

 

If anyone else viewing this cares to recommend another similar laptop, your thoughts are always welcome.

 

Thanks,

Sean

[AJLynn]

If you don't mind a bit of hugeness: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834220695 - I tried one out at the store and if you're keeping track of Cinebench 11.5 scores, it got a 2.94 in rendering and a 25.6 in OpenGL, and that's a lot.

 

If you don't mind that you may have to upgrade the memory: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834127050

 

There's this, if you can find it in stock somewhere: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834127052

[thickly]

Thanks again Andrew - I had been eyeing that Asus too but there seems to be some dissatisfaction with Asus support as well as the lack of an OS disc shipping with the laptop (you must manually burn your recovery discs, 6 of them taking about 3 hours total), and apparently the thing comes loaded with bloatware. On top of that, I'm just not crazy about the way it looks. I'm sure it appeals to the 13yo gamer out there with the stealth look and all, but to me its just cheesy looking - we are all design professionals here - so it matters what it looks like.

 

I'll continue my search, but right now I think I'm leaning towards the Dell Studio XPS16 - I know a lot of people hate Dell, but I can honestly say I have never had an issue with their machines.