21-30k Lenovo G40-45 advice

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xplicit

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Hey all,

After some research over the last couple of days, I have found this 14 inch laptop on Flipkart at a decent price of Rs.26.5k.

Config:
  • APU Quad Core A8 (6410)
  • 8 GB DDR3 RAM
  • 1 TB HDD
  • Free DOS
  • ATI EXO PRO R5 M330 (2Gb)
Need advice / opinion / criticism on this, specifically on the following points:

1. The customer reviews reveal an issue with the display (gradation). Is this really a deal breaker, or something one can live with? (I am not going to do much gaming, except occasionally FIFA). Will the gradation issue be a visible problem while viewing movies at say 720p?

2. Any opinion on heating issues for this particular APU model?

EDIT: Here is the link: Lenovo G40-45



Thanks in advance...
 
I've got the G50-45, which is the 15in model.

The screen isn't the best, and there's a noticeable difference in picture quality on it and on my TV. Colours aren't very accurate. The banding is present, but tolerable (to me). It isn't noticeable during games.

It doesn't get hot during normal use, and it's fan isn't loud, and rarely switches on.

In daily use, it's about as responsive as an i5. It's not as fast, but I've used a two year old i5 laptop, which though faster, wasn't blazingly so. When doing something intensive the A8 will show it's lack of power, but for general computing it's competitive (and runs cooler). The biggest bottleneck is the HDD. It's slow. You can buy a caddy to install an SSD in the DVD tray's space, and that's something I plan on doing.

The speakers aren't great (but they're good enough for movies), and music though headphones sounds really good.
Battery life is about 4 hours with screen brightness at about 40%, and the APU is powerful enough to play games like Far Cry 2 smoothly, at high settings.
It's a good laptop for general computing, and development, but it's not something you should buy to primarily consume media.
Getting Linux to run on it is a pain because of switchable graphics and the realtek wifi chip. Ubuntu runs on it without issues, but I prefer using Debian, and had a hell of a time getting the drivers to install. I gave up on Linux almost 6 months back. The kernel's been updated since then, so there will be better support.

I've been using the laptop with Windows and it's suited me wonderfully. I don't watch movies on it though.
If you do decide to buy it, and you are planning on running Windows, then unless you have a spare Windows license, I'd suggest getting a similar model with Windows pre-installed. The slight premium will be worth it.
 
Thanks mate, thats very helpful !

I am planning to run Windows, but I can't seem to find a similar laptop with pre-installed Windows and these specs (8gb RAM + 2Gb dedicated graphics memory). Will it be a major issue finding the correct drivers for say, Windows 7?

Another question: Is the GPU memory really 2Gb? Read somewhere that it's actually 1Gb...
 
Finding drivers for Windows isn't a problem.
The GPU does have 2GB RAM, but the discrete GPU is switched off almost all the time. The only time I've seen it spin up is when I'm gaming.
1GB of system memory is always dedicated to the APU's graphics, and you can't change that.
 
The display is pathetic and cheap TN panel and the viewing angles are not great. WHats worst is a glossy screen, You will see your face all the time and its a lot reflective compared to other glossy panels.The ram is slow. Its 800 mhz instead of 1600 mhz.

For movies 720p/1080p the A8 will handel it easily. You can even run a BluRay and remuxes without any lag.
 
So in effect, the usable RAM is 7gb? Flipkart specs mention the RAM 1600mhz!

And does it come with a DVD-RW or only read?


Also, my search for a device with pre-installed windows has yielded this HP model. It has a better processor, but less RAM and no separate GPU. Comes with Windows 8.1 and costs 1,500 less. I am indifferent to the screen size.

Slight dilemma now, what do you guys who have used the Lenovo G40-45 advise in retrospect?
 
The RAM speed is 1600mhz.
Usable RAM is 7GB. With 4GB RAM the usable was 3.5GB.
In the HP the usable RAM will be 3.5 GB.
The screen is glossy, and viewing angles aren't great. But then,why do you need great viewing angles for a laptop? The screen is clear for you and a companion on either side. I don't think you'll ever have more people looking at your screen.
And yes, it's a TN screen, like every other budget laptop out there. And you'd be hard pressed to find a non-glossy screen now-a-days.

The camera on the Lenovo is just about adequate.

Get the HP if you're not into gaming. With the extended warranty offer, it's a pretty good deal. If you like playing games the Lenovo's a pretty good option. The only negative IMO is that it doesn't come with Windows.

I had to opt between an HP and the Lenovo when I was making my purchase, and chose the Lenovo because a similar HP at that time didn't have a second RAM slot.
Lenovo was also offering a great extended warranty deal back then. And it was reported to be easier to open up and upgrade (which it is), and all that combined tilted the balance in it's favour for me.
 
Hi ch@ts, I went for the Lenovo after all.

Yes the display gradation issue is visible, but not a deal breaker for me. Viewing angle is fine for a 14 inch screen.

Can you tell me which version of windows are you running? Is it 64 bit?

I installed Windows 7 x86, which shows only 3gb usable RAM (CPU-Z confirms that 8gb is installed). I understand this is a limitation with 32 bit OS. I'm assuming installing Win 8.1 x64 and the relevant graphic drivers should fix this?
 
Congrats on buying a new laptop!
If you can, then buy the extended warranty from: http://lenovopromo.net/
I'm running Windows 7 64bit and Windows 10 64bit.
Yes, installing a 64bit OS will let you access all your RAM.
 
Thanks!

Installed Win 8.1 x64, and the RAM shows up fully (6.96gb).

One last question, where do i get the graphics card drivers from? I installed all the drivers which came with the machine (see screen 1), however i am not able to see the graphics card on my display properties (see screen 2). Also, i'm not able to adjust screen brightness.

upload_2015-7-23_18-54-4.png


upload_2015-7-23_18-55-48.png



Any thoughts? The Lenovo website doesn't show any graphics card drivers.
 
Hey guys,

I found and installed the latest AMD Catalyst drivers for the graphics (amd-catalyst-15.7-with-dotnet45-win8.1-64bit).

The drivers installed successfully but, after reboot, the screen went down to a low resolution and displayed the following error message:

upload_2015-7-26_2-18-36.png


It appears that the graphics card did not install at all, i cannot see it in the display settings or in the Catalyst Control Centre. It shows up in Device Manager with a missing driver icon:

upload_2015-7-26_2-20-42.png



I have tried installing and uninstalling the Catalyst suite but the problem persists. Has anybody successfully installed the graphics drivers in a G40, G50 series laptop running Win 8.1 x64?
 
The graphics drivers and the chipset drivers are the same.
Uninstall the driver manually by right clicking on the device in device manager, and opt to delete the driver from the system when presented with the choice.

I haven't tried using the latest drivers with windows 8, but last weekend, when I was updating my Windows 10 installation, the updated video driver gave an error and my Windows 10 install became unusable.
 
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ch@ts, which was the driver version that worked for you with Win 8.1 x64? Can you link me to it?

Because the VGA driver which comes in the Lenovo DVD do not work for me.
 
I don't have Windows 8. I used amd-catalyst-15.5beta-64bit-win8.1-may27 for Windows10, and that ran without a hitch.
I'm running catalyst 14.12 on Windows7.
Lenovo has an updated driver on their website, you could try using that.
Alternatively, you do a Windows update, and that should also fetch you a working driver.
 
The latest catalyst drivers (15.7) and the ones which came with the laptop didn't work. Downloaded v14.502, which are now working successfully with Win 8.1 x64.

Cheers!
 
Hey ch@ts, do you know how to enable hardware acceleration for this graphics card? Can't seem to find the option anywhere on Catalyst CC
 
If you're asking about video, you should be able to enable hardware acceleration for video decoding in your media player app.
If you're asking if you can force the linked GPU to run, then the answer is no. It comes on automatically.
 
The second case.

I was trying to run an older game, which gave a popup error asking hardware acceleration to be enabled, and refused to run.
 
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