My New Laptop Has JBL Speakers

[sholling]

Just to keep things on topic.

I am so jazzed. My new Lenovo Y560 arrived right after lunch and I've spent the day cleaning off all the trialware and loading my software. It's a 15.6" widescreen running Win 7 Premium 64bit and packing an i7-720QM, 4GB of RAM, an ATI Mobility Radion 5730 w/1GB, and a 500GB 7200rpm hard drive. It also has my other two must have built-ins - 802.11n and Bluetooth.

Dang it's fast and yes it has two Dolby certified JBL speakers.

It got here just in time. My main PC crashed Friday and I've been going nuts trying to get by with just my old Dell laptop. I'll be spending tomorrow replacing the dead drive in my main PC with an SSD and loading everything.

 

[adwilk]

Thats a nice machine... I'm partial to Lenovo as well. Thats what my LT is. Good stuff. You should bi-wire those JBL's.

 

[BoredSysAdmin]

Good choice sholling, very good specs, I hope it cost you arm and a leg

To kick it up a notch I'd thou in SLC SSD Drive and max ram to 8gb later on !!!

 

[sholling]

Good choice sholling, very good specs, I hope it cost you arm and a leg

Lenovo just started shipping the Y560s and I got in on the last hour of pre-order discounts. $400 off for an even $999.

To kick it up a notch I'd thou in SLC SSD Drive and max ram to 8gb later on !!!

I plan 8GB later but SSD are power hogs. The 7200rpm drive is fast enough. But my desktop is getting a 128GB SSD today to replace the 300GB Rapter that died. Western Digital is taking forever to ship the replacement but once I get the it my storage configuration will be "C" 128GB SSD, "D" will be the 300GB Rapter and will hold the swap files and one space hog of an app. "E" Will be my 2.7TB HW RAID5 (4x WD "Black") array where I keep my data.

 

[BoredSysAdmin]

Lenovo just started shipping the Y560s and I got in on the last hour of pre-order discounts. $400 off for an even $999.


I plan 8GB later but SSD are power hogs. The 7200rpm drive is fast enough. But my desktop is getting a 128GB SSD today to replace the 300GB Rapter that died. Western Digital is taking forever to ship the replacement but once I get the it my storage configuration will be "C" 128GB SSD, "D" will be the 300GB Rapter and will hold the swap files and one space hog of an app. "E" Will be my 2.7TB HW RAID5 (4x WD "Black") array where I keep my data.

Why would SSD's be power hogs?? I thought the opposite is true - there are no moving parts... I can see why they are money hogs, but power??

 

[sholling]

Why would SSD's be power hogs?? I thought the opposite is true - there are no moving parts... I can see why they are money hogs, but power??

It shocked me to but Tom's Hardware tested SSDs against 2.5" 7200rpm drives and declared SSDs power hogs. Tom's is pretty much the go-to source for all things computer hardware. Anyway I can't afford a 500GB SSD. The 128GB for my desktop was painful enough.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ssd-hdd-battery,1955.html

 

[95prelude]

Nice laptop but 2 things maybe 3 about the laptop would make me staying away from it.

1. ATI Graphics
2. LCD Res.
3. This one is a maybe according to your posted pics, bilingual keyboard.

Also, go with a ssd on the laptop.

 

[sholling]

Nice laptop but 2 things maybe 3 about the laptop would make me staying away from it.

1. ATI Graphics
2. LCD Res.
3. This one is a maybe according to your posted pics, bilingual keyboard.

Also, go with a ssd on the laptop.

Just for the record I've been a computer tech for 30+ years.

1. I like ATI graphics and the 5730 is a great mobile GPU.
2. My eyesight is going and I don't need or want higher resolution on a 15.6" screen. I have a desktop with a 28" monitor and a 20" monitor (dual monitors) for high resolution game play.
3. The photos were from Lenovo's website. It's a normal keyboard.

Also SSD isn't noticeably faster - I have one in my desktop, they eat battery life, and a 500GB SSD is $1500-2000.

 

[BoredSysAdmin]

It shocked me to but Tom's Hardware tested SSDs against 2.5" 7200rpm drives and declared SSDs power hogs. Tom's is pretty much the go-to source for all things computer hardware. Anyway I can't afford a 500GB SSD. The 128GB for my desktop was painful enough.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ssd-hdd-battery,1955.html

WOW I didn't expect that at all.... So, beside best random-access times, SSDs, (especially cheap MLCs) suck??
Well, live and learn

ps:
I agree Tom's - is very mature and very reliable or source of newest PC news/reviews
(I been building PCs last 17 years, since 80286s and reading TH almost since they started)

I like ATI graphics and the 5730 is a great mobile GPU.

+1

My main rig runs 4870

 

[sholling]

WOW I didn't expect that at all.... So, beside best random-access times, SSDs, (especially cheap MLCs) suck??
Well, live and learn

I've had a mid-level (200MB/s reads; 160MB/s writes) 128GB SSD in my desktop for almost a week now and it's pretty good. Maybe 15-20% faster bootups and application launches when compared to my 10,000rpm Velociraptor. Not enough difference that it grabs your attention but nice for a boot/application drive. I just don't think they're quite ready for use in a single drive system. Not until the price per gigabyte comes way down and the power efficiency goes way up.

Now that WD finally got around to replacing my dead Velociraptor my configuration us "C" (boot drive) 128GB SSD; "D" 300GB WD Velociraptor with the swap files and an application that does a lot of database type writes to the drive. "E" is a 2.7TP HW RAID5 array that holds my important data.

 

[Hi Ho]

There are a lot of crappy SSDs out there. There are very few that are really worth the cost over time. The Intel X25M is still king. TRIM support keeps it fast over time.

A good SSD can have a dramatic impact on performance. Many of the cheapest SSD's use JMicron or Samsung controllers which are mediocre at best.

PCPerspective's SSD Decoder Ring is a useful tool and Anandtech is also a great resource.

I'm going to need to upgrade my laptop hard drive at some point. It has a measly 160 GB 5400 RPM drive. A 500 GB 7200 RPM drive would be a nice upgrade.

 

[sholling]

I went with the 128GB Kingston V-Series desktop kit and I think it's a darn good deal.

I think you'll find a 500GB 7200rpm drive a nice choice for your notebook. I've seen them as low as $130 and it's hard to beat that. I even have a 500GB 5400rpm drive in my PS3 and a 4TB home NAS - I can't abide being short on space.

 

[Shock]

It shocked me to but Tom's Hardware tested SSDs against 2.5" 7200rpm drives and declared SSDs power hogs. Tom's is pretty much the go-to source for all things computer hardware. Anyway I can't afford a 500GB SSD. The 128GB for my desktop was painful enough.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ssd-hdd-battery,1955.html

That article is from 2008. I would assume SSD's have come a long way in almost two years.

SSD's are the next big hurdle that these HD manufacturers need to get over. Their prices are much to high for the standard customer and their overall performance isn't that much better than much cheaper high capacity hard drives such as the Black series from WD.

Also 95prelude mentioned something about ATi graphics being a worry for him. Well ATi is mopping the floor with price/performance. Nvidia came out with a card half a year after ATi and their performance is nearly identical in real world tests. I'm running a eVGA gtx 260 super clocked GPU in my system at the moment, but considering you can get 5770's for 130 bucks these days on sale and crossfire them, you can get a system that doubles the performance of a single 260 for only slightly more.

Nvidia has really dropped the ball recently, they are playing catch up. I'm glad I scored my 260 months ago when they were significantly less money.

 

[sholling]

That article is from 2008. I would assume SSD's have come a long way in almost two years.

You would think, but I'm not yet seeing a big push in that direction by laptop makers. That's where the big money is for the SSD makers. Maybe if tablets really take off next year we'll see a capacity/battery life race. In the mean time I think the majority of the market right now is the enthusiasts and gamers looking to trick out desktop gaming rigs, with some going into high-buck hardened notebooks destined for the military and utilities.

considering you can get 5770's for 130 bucks these days on sale and crossfire them, you can get a system that doubles the performance of a single 260 for only slightly more.

I agree with you. I'm running a 5770 in my desktop and it's fast and the drivers a lot less crash prone than those for the old 8800 it replaced.

 

[Hi Ho]

Nvidia came out with a card half a year after ATi and their performance is nearly identical in real world tests.

Not only that, but the Nvidia card also uses significantly more power. It is highly inefficient.

http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=888

I built a new desktop back in November. I considered waiting until Nvidia released their cards which they said would be a month or two from then. I'm glad I got my 5870 and I haven't looked back (barely got that because of low supply).

I still have my old 8800 GTS in my other machine and I'm sticking with an older driver because it seems that every newer release causes issues.