lenovo laptop ideapad Y530 any good for college?
I need a laptop for college with 3gb or higher and 250gb + hard drive, and it has to be able to run the data intensive AUTO CAD and CAD programs, is a lenovo laptop good for this , are they reliable......help???
Laptops & Notebooks - 2 Answers
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1 :
The lenovo y530 doesn't have that great of a graphics card - nvidia 9300, so it won't run autocad/cad programs well. Choose a more powerful laptop like the lenovo w700. Lenovo laptops are known for their reliability and excellent build quality.
2 :
All of the Lenovos I've seen have been very solid. They're not bad laptops. A similar laptop I've seen is the Dell E6400/6500. Looking at the design reminded me of it. Also, the Dell Lattitudes are similar. I've got one with a Nvidia Quadro card. I'll kind of help you on how to pick out a laptop so you can compare other stuff. *CAD needs a decent graphics card and processor. Get at least a Core 2 Duo or AMD X2. A Celeron or anything along those lines is asking for trouble. Get at least 2Ghz, though I'd recommend something more like 2.33/2.4. This part is usually expensive and a pain to upgrade. Graphics cards are a must. Do NOT under any circumstances, get anything with an Intel graphics chip. Those are complete trash. Optimally you'll want a Nvidia Quadro type card for CAD (can't game on them as well as a Geforce), but anything like an ATI HD 38xx or Geforce 9400M (or higher) will probably suit you. You generally can't upgrade this yourself. Also, a 8800M is about the same as a 9800M. Nvidia pulled a rename on that. RAM is cheap to upgrade. If you find a good computer without a lot of RAM you may want to just upgrade it yourself. $40 at most and you can do it in less than half an hour armed with just a Philips screwdriver. Watch the prices on the customization sites. They'll charge you $100 more if you're not careful. Hard drives are also easy to upgrade. For what it's worth, pretty much anything you get off the shelf (ie not customized online) will have a 250GB or even 320GB. I've seen $600 models with 3GB of RAM and 250GB drives. Get the screen size you want. 15.4" I will tell you is awful to carry around campus if your campus is large. I'd say 14.1" is a nice compromise. Consider getting an external display for your dorm room and/or a docking bay if you're using this as a desktop replacement. As far as extended warranties go (as laptops are good candidates for this), consider if you'll want the latest and greatest if/when it breaks, or if you just want it to be repaired. Figuring Moore's law, you can get double for your money in 2-2.5 years. Would you rather drop $300 or so on a extended warranty now, or put it towards a new one later?
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