Help on Y580 decision

For all intents and purposes I have decided on picking a Y580 up this August. But I'm not sure which model to get. Essentially what I'm trying to decide between is the FHD with 500gb HD for $1029 or the FHD with a 750GB HD +32GB SSD for $1199 (but also comes with an Xbox). I was all set to pick up the version with the SSD but I have read that the hm76 chipset doesn't support all of the features I thought it did, mainly the rapid start.

So is the SSD worth it? I'm pretty decent with hardware so if it is not I would much rather save the money and put in my own SSD down the road. The caveat to this is that I'm somewhat of a lunk head when it comes to programming or setting something up on the software side of things. So is there any real advantage to getting the tiny SSD already installed or did they just throw that in there for eye candy?

Thanks guys.

 

Me personally, I ordered the 500 GB 7200 RPM model. Although from reviews and what I've seen, the mSATA SSDs certainly do increase performance. I figured I might as well wait until the HDD slows down in a couple years from now and just make an upgrade to a full SSD, especially since the prices are only getting lower.

Just out of curiosity, where are you buying this from?
Because I didn't think Lenovo had the Xbox 360 deal for students.

 

Its directly through the Microsoft store.

All Computers - Microsoft Store Online

Its still listed as pre-order but from what I gather it is supposed to become live here in the next week or so.

The thing that kind of concerns me is that in the description it says 1TB but then when you get to the specs portion of the page it says 750GB + 32GB SSD.

Edit: If I got the 500GB it would be through Lenovo's page with the Barnes and Noble Gold discount.

 

another option is bestbuy with the free xbox and 750gb hdd and 720p screen for 899 free shipping.
it said in store only but base on a review the guy got the free xbox. this might be done by going in to the store and order thru them.

 

I wouldn't ever touch a 768p 15.5" laptop again, especially for $900. FHD is much^much better than that, resolution- and quality-wise.

With that said, the mSATA SSD cache does bump up performance to near-SSD speeds. Playing around with a U310 with that set-up felt similar to my W520's SSD setup. The only times you'd be dropped to HDD speeds is when you try to access rarely-used files or programs (since the cache "learns" your computing pattern and adjusts to it).

 

Y580 doesn't work as cache. Chipset doesn't have RAID technology implemented like one in U310.

 

Lenovo Rapid Drive kind of makes it work like a cache.

But yeah it doesn't learn what is used and what isn't as such like the Intel solution.

 

No it doesn't. It just combine SSD with HDD in a way that OS is on SSD to speed things up. So you get better performance but not as big as with Smart Response.

 

So essentially no difference right? The SSD models don't have any special connections or programs that I'd have to set up later on (aside from obviously installing a fresh OS on the new drive) correct?

 

I went to Fry's and picked up a Y580 with a FHD screen, 8GB Ram, and a 1TB 5400 HDD.

It was $1080 after price matching off of Google Shopping, Lenovo.com with coupons was $1024 with a 500gb IIRC.

Since then I have replaced the HDD and RAM, for faster units.

Personally I'd go with the FHD screen and the least expensive ram/ hdd option. You can upgrade that later, the FHD not so much.