Lenovo vs Asus Laptop

Z

Zachary

New Member
Hi. I am a professional illustrator and concept designer. I use my computer for digital painting/graphic design purposes and plan on doing quite a bit of multitasking. I'll be using livestream, netflix, google, etc, while painting large images in photoshop. I am upgrading pretty much all my digital painting tools, because right now I have:
~10 year old mac mini w/ 2gb of ram
~10 year old wacom bamboo tablet
~11 year old original Adobe Photoshop CS

(all still work great, surprisingly!) Great tools, but for the higher res images that I'm starting to do, my computer just isn't enough juice, and sometimes Photoshop crashes and whatnot. I also have a nice 22" monitor, keyboard, mouse, so Is a laptop a good idea? I am still likely going to just plug in my monitor to the laptop and if I need to go somewhere, I can easily just unplug and go.
I am looking at: (both laptops are similar in price at about $1,500-$1,700)

Lenovo Y50 (I like this because it's 15" and is much lighter/portable)
http://shop.lenovo.com/ca/en/laptops/lenovo/y-series/y50/?sb=:000001CA:0000569F:
major specs:
Processor:4th Generation Intel Core i7-4710HQ Processor (2.50GHz 1600MHz 6MB)
Graphics:NVIDIA GeForce GTX 860M 4GB
Memory:16.0GB PC3-12800 DDR3L SDRAM 1600 MHz
Display:15.6" FHD LED AntiGlare Backlight (1920x1080)
Hard Drive:512GB SSD

Asus ROG G750JX (Seems in general a more commonly bought gaming computer, yet the Lenovo Y50 is brand new version from May!)
http://www.memoryexpress.com/Products/MX51347
major specs:
Processor: Intel® Core™ i7-4700HQ 2.4 GHz
Chipset: Intel HM87
Memory: 16GB DDR3 1600 MHz SDRAM -(32GB Max if I need to upgrade)
Display: 17.3" 16:9 Full HD 1920x1080
Graphics: NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 770M 3GB GDDR5 VRAM
Hard Drive: 750GB

I know both are really good brands, but I'd love to know which gaming laptop, in general is made better. Thanks, and if you guys have a different computer suggestion with similar specs, then let me know!
 
Well I can tell you that I just bought a Lenovo laptop (ThinkPad L540) and I like it a lot. I got it with the same 1080p FHD LED display you're looking at and it's a good display but you will need to adjust the settings on it in your graphics settings (NVIDIA Control Panel for you) to get optimum colour, gamma and contrast out of it. But it's a nice screen and assuming it's the same matte one as I have it's good outdoors too. Not sure if Lenovo use matte or glossy screens on their IdeaPads though.

1080p on a 15.6" display is nice - real estate is good. It will also be fine on a 17.3" display but obviously you will get slightly sharper images on the 15.6" display since the display size is smaller (physically) but the resolution is the same. And of course if you are travelling then 15.6" is more ideal.

Specs wise both are very similar but since you will be using the CPU a lot and the SSD as standard is a win, so the Lenovo is probably the better option since it has a slightly quicker CPU and also has an SSD. The graphics card should be fine for what you want to do.

I can also tell you that ordering machines directly from Lenovo's website is a breeze and my machine arrived at my door about 2 weeks after I pressed order (and it was built-to-order, if yours isn't then it should be even quicker).

So, I'd go with the Lenovo on the basis that it is slightly better-specced than the ASUS (and that I like mine. ;) )
 
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Spirit, Thanks for the reply.
The design of the Lenovo is 100x slicker as well. I do believe that the Lenovo Y50 has a matte screen from what I saw in reviews, which will be really nice for doing plein-air/outdoor digital painting. Question: Did you get extended Warranty services? I am thinking about getting the "2YR Depot + Accidental Damage Protection" - $129. Worth it? Yay, nay?
 
Probably worth it since Lenovo's warranties are good from what I have heard (never use to use one yet) but since I'm poor I just stayed with the included 1 yr warranty on my L540. :P

I think the Y50 looks awesome. Go for it! :good:
 
codgurl: I bought a beautiful 22" ViewSonic matte monitor off of Kijiji. I got it for $20 and it's like brand new, mint condition! Usually I wouldn't purchase anything used that has to do with computers, but this was a steal of a deal and it looks like it's only from 2013 or 2012. ViewSonic is one of the top monitor brands and originally I'm sure my monitor would have been $400-$600.

So, I would encourage you to look on kijiji if you're on a strict budget. Just make sure it works when you go to see it by bringing a laptop and DVI or HDMI cable to try it. That Asus probably isn't a bad option either, though.

spirit: Thanks buddy, I am going to go for that computer then. People say there is a problem with the Wifi cards in a lot of Lenovos? I still use Ethernet cords in my home, because of the radiation as well as the extra speed that I guess it has, but just curious for when I go to a coffee shop, etc.
 
Zachary said:
spirit: Thanks buddy, I am going to go for that computer then. People say there is a problem with the Wifi cards in a lot of Lenovos? I still use Ethernet cords in my home, because of the radiation as well as the extra speed that I guess it has, but just curious for when I go to a coffee shop, etc.
Click to expand...

Yes, some people have had problems with Lenovo's '2x2' Wi-Fi cards - usually ThinkPad users. *Some* people have experienced BSODs, but that's not to say they're all bad. If you have the option to get an Intel Centrino Wi-Fi card (like I did in my ThinkPad), then I'd recommend getting that since it's only like an £15 upgrade. Not sure if you can get them in the Y50 though.

I wouldn't really worry too much about it though, especially if you're going to be using Ethernet a lot of the time.
 
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