New Laptop... Finally!

[iceman]

I've been putting off getting a new laptop for probably 6-9 months, just wasn't happy with the specs of anything out there, didn't want an ultrabook, wasn't sure whether I wanted touch etc.

I finally pulled the trigger today and got myself an Asus N550J notebook. It's an i7 4700HQ, 16GB RAM, 4GB GeForce 750M video card. No SSD yet, just a 1TB hard drive, but it has a blu-ray optical drive so I'll probably swap that out for an SSD in the near future.

It's also got a full-HD IPS touch screen.

Got it from JB Hi-Fi for under $1800. A little more than I wanted to pay, but I just wasn't happy with anything in the lower-end range, and the specs of this will keep me going for many years to come!

Can't wait to install Photoshop on it and see how it flies!

Oh and getting used to Windows 8! Fail! :)

[pluto]

Sounds good Mike, nice one :)

I've been on Win 8 for ages, now Win8.1, and it's fine. Very fast and stable and everything I've ever tried to run has worked.
Just install "Start8" from Stardock if you can't live without a start menu. I know you shouldn't have to but it's $5, which is nothing compared to the cost of the lappy, and then you get the best of classic Windows with the speed and stability of Win8.

[Merlin66]

Sounds good!
I went for a Custom DELL......
A word of caution. We use Office 2003 and 2010 at home on other machines...these DO NOT RUN under Win8!!!
We ended up having to buy a Student/Home version just to allow us to do the basic Word/ Excel stuff.

[iceman]

I bought Office 365 subscription for only $95, includes 5 licenses.

So that'll get Office 2013 on 5 laptops in the house and keep them updated. And it's a tax deduction anyway so it's a bargain.

Hugh thanks for the advice re Start8.
Will search for it now.

[Merlin66]

Ahhhh
Tax deductions....those were the days!
On the pension everything now seems to be more expensive - everything going out - very little coming in.

[Larryp]

Tell me about it, Ken!

Sounds like a neat computer, Mike

[jamiep]

+1 for start8 - makes windows 8 livable....

[acropolite]

Before you spend any money on Start 8 try classic shell start menu, open source, free and it works.

[RB]

I'm very tempted by this laptop.
Are you happy with it so far Mike?
I found one at Domaye for $1520.

Looks great and has good specs !

[rogerg]

Congrats Mike, I bet you'll love it once you get over the Win8 thing ... took me a few weeks and a lot of heated battles :)

I am wondering how I lived without my powerful new beast. I've been routinely maxing out it's 16GB of memory and processor doing lots of nice astrophotography crunching :)

PS. I use "StartIsBacK".

[iceman]

Thanks guys.
Happy with it so far. Copying over many GB's of files across Wifi from my old laptop to the new one is a little painful ;)

Installed 8.1, installed Office365, all my other programs are getting installed one by one. Trying to get it finished for the first commute back to work on Monday :)

I'm using desktop pretty much exclusively now. I can't see why I'd ever go back to the Metro interface, but I'm not sure if that means I'm missing out on something amazing? :)

My daughter got a new HP Pavillion laptop for xmas, and it has Win8 on it and she's still using metro for the most part, but her use of a computer is much different to mine. I guess if you spend most of the day browsing and consuming content or playing games, then metro is probably nice.

The slow harddrive is definitely noticeable compared to the SSD. I'll still likely get a 480GB SSD and copy everything over. It means taking out the blu-ray but I'm unlikely to use that anyway.

So far so good but haven't given it a real test of speed yet.

[mithrandir]

Mike, doesn't it have ethernet? If it does it should be gigabit so you could use an ordinary Cat5/6 cable to connect it to the old lappie. Gig doesn't need a cross-over cable.

[acropolite]

Mike, I found the 8.1 update, once installed on my Lenovo, stuffed some of my video fuctionality (Mp4 from memory), no amount of coaxing would get it working, I ended up going back to the 8 install image to get it working again.

Although I didn't find an answer, the net was littered with complaints of similar problems, looks like from more recent posts that reinstalling video drivers for the Intel HD 4000 chipset after the update fixed the problem for some users.

[04Stefan07]

Metro interface is useless on my desktop. I have a Surface which it is much better suited for.

If you upgraded to 8.1 you can make Windows boot straight to the desktop bypassing the metro GUI.

Go to Desktop Mode, right click the toolbar at the bottom and go properties. There will be an option in there somewhere saying to boot straight to the desktop.

[iceman]

I haven't done any video stuff yet so haven't encountered any problems, but found it odd that it has an inboard Intel graphics driver as well as the Nvidia GeForce.

Apparently the OS is supposed to decide (based on the app you're running) which one to use. I changed it to use the GeForce all the time.

I've also found some issues with blurry text in some applications. Again the net is littered with descriptions and fixed - most of which is selecting the 'disable scaling in high DPI displays' in the properties.

With Start8 I boot straight to desktop but it's nice to know the option is there for 8.1 as well.

[pluto]

The onboard video card uses power much more efficiently than the Geforce and will be more than adequate to run anything you're doing other than playing games or working with 8k images in PS. I would leave it to auto switch for you as it'll make a huge difference to your battery consumption compared to using the Geforce all the time.
On my XPS lappy you can tell certain apps or games to use only either the onboard or the Geforce but I don't bother as it just works. On my old Vaio it had a physical switch so I could force it to use either card.

[iceman]

Thanks Hugh, I read that too and I was going to wait and see how it went with battery.

I use it on the train every morning and arvo so battery life is definitely important - it has to last the trip :)

I turn brightness down most of the time except when I need to look at images. I might leave it to autoswitch except when working in LR or PS. Will have a play.

[Pi]

The Intel graphics driver is a GPU contained within the CPU. It is alright for general computer activity and offers a good performance vs power consumption trade off. If you do much work away from a power source, the Intel GPU will extend the battery life. Additionally, using the Intel GPU your laptop will run significantly cooler.

On a different topic, a handy utility to install all your general "base load" software is Ninite (http://ninite.com/). Just tick the boxes for the software you want and it will give you a single one-click installer that will automatically download/install the latest versions whilst auto-rejecting bloatware and toolbars etc.

[BlackWidow]

Hi Mike. You have made a good choice. I work as a repair Tech and service and warranty repair many brands of laptops. Asus by far gives least amount of trouble and would the choice I would make if purchasing a laptop. I am also happy with the top end Toshiba models. You should get good reliable use. Good choice.


Mardy