Please recommend one of these 3

[Kashif Malim]

I'm getting a laptop that I'll primarily use for content writing, followed by gaming and design work while traveling out of the city and as an everyday computer as well. I can't decide which one to go for. I really like the Zenbook's profile and FHD screen but I'm not sure which would be best in these 3. Need some recommendations.

Which is better?

1. Asus Zenbook UX32LN with a Core i5 4200U, 500GB HHD (maybe just an HDD), 4GB or 8GB DDR3, 13.3" FHD, 2GB GeForce GT 840M - http/www.asus.com/Notebooks_Ultrabooks/UX32LN/

2. Dell Inspiron 14 5000 Series with a Core i7 4510U, 8GB DDR3, 1TB HDD, 14" HD Display, 2GB Radeon R7 M265 - http/www.dell.com/pk/p/inspiron-14-5447-laptop/pd

3. HP Envy 15 k000nx with a Core i5 4210U, 12GB DDR3, 1TB HDD, 15.6" FHD (maybe) Display, 2GB GeForce GT 840M - http/www8.hp.com/sa/en/products/laptops/product-detail.html?oid=7149150#!tab=specs


Need to decide and order one right now. Input needed guys!

 

[jaguarskx]

Based on the links the Dell and HP laptops have 1366x768 resolution screens. That for me is an automatic disqualification. I generally prefer laptops with 1920x1080 resolution screens so that I can see more things on the screen at one time. This is useful when multitasking such as cross referencing two documents side by side, or being able to work with a large spreadsheet so that I can see many row and columns without having to scroll.

That leaves the Asus. Overall it seems like a fine laptop. I would get it with 8GB of RAM though. The small size means it should be light and easy to carry or shove into luggage if you decide not to carry around in a laptop case. The downside is that you might find that 1920x1080 resolution on a 13.3" display might mean text is too small to read if you have poor vision. You can always go to a computer store and check out a 13.3" laptop with a 1080p screen to determine if that may be a problem for you. At worse you may need to lower the resolution to 1600x900 to make the text larger. Or you can scale up the text DPI which can mess up menus though. If you find that 1920x1080 on a 13.3" makes text too small for your eyes to read comfortably, then consider a 15.6" laptop with a 1080p screen.

For gaming the nVidia GT 840m is definitely more powerful than the AMD R7 M265. However, it is not really going to provide good performance at 1080p resolution. But it should be fine for most games when you drop the resolution down to 1600x900 which should allow you to play many (but not all) games using medium graphics quality and decent frame rates.

 

[Kashif Malim]

Thanks Jaguar. I don't mind 1080p on a small screen so that's not much of an issue. My main concern with this is will the 840m be able to run the new Call of Duty or GTA V? If it can run those two even on low settings, I'm fine with it. If it can't, then it'd be a major downside.

 

[jaguarskx]

You will certainly not be able to play many games at 1080p, but dropping the resolution down to 1600x900 or 1366x768 should be fine. Laptop graphic chips are not as powerful as their desktop counterparts because of power draw and heat issues. Click the following link to see many game benchmarks for the GT 840m. 1600x900 is not used for any of the benchmarks. Click the frame rate numbers to see basic specs of the laptop that provided that frame rate. Overall, the GT 840m is a good consumer level GPU.

http/www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-GeForce-840M.105681.0.html

 

[Kashif Malim]

Thanks for that link Jaguar! The 840M looks pretty decent as per these benchmarks. If I slap on an SSD in the Zenbook, it should perform a bit better. Guess that seals this deal!