Two laptops - very similar specs - any ideas of the difference - will graphics card be the decider?

netrate

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I am not sure if I am ready to make the plunge, but they both look great. They are both from the microsoft store and ship to Canada.

One has the i5-5200U and the other has the i5-4210U. I wonder if there is a major difference between them? It might be moot point considering the one with the 5200U is sold out.
According to this site, the two cpus are pretty close :
http://cpuboss.com/cpus/Intel-Core-i5-5200U-vs-Intel-Core-i5-4210U

Also the graphics card is 4400 vs 6000.

http://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msca/en_CA/pdp/Dell-Inspiron-15-i5558-5718SLV-Signature-Edition-Laptop/productID.328114100

http://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msca/en_CA/pdp/Dell-Inspiron-15-i5558-5717SLV-Signature-Edition-Laptop/productID.327149900
 
The difference between the Intel i5-5200u and i5-4210u is marginal. On average the performance between the two generation CPUs is about 4%. Unless you run benchmarks, you will not be able to notice the difference.

The website has a typo though. The i5-5200u has an Intel HD 5500 graphics core, not the more powerful Intel HD 6000 graphics core. In comparison to the Intel HD 4400, the Intel HD 5500 is roughly 15% more powerful on average.
 
The 4th gen i5-4xxx CPU doesn't really have poor battery life. It's just that the 5th gen i5-5xxx CPU is a little more power efficient. I have not heard of any specific issues with the i5-4210 crashing a lot. It's likely the specific laptop(s) you were reading about.


I have a Dell Latitude 3540 with the 4th gen i5-4200u and Intel HD 4400. I can't really recall ever having problems with it. The only issue I have with it is that the Intel HD 4400 cannot run Fallout 4 (which the games does not even officially support anyway), but my laptop has a dedicated GPU anyway.

The only crashing I have experienced is when playing Fallout 4 which does not happen very often. But again, that is due to Fallout 4 not the laptop or the CPU specifically. The few crashes I have experienced are similar to other people's experience when Fallout 4 crashes on their PC / laptops.