Please help me choose a laptop!

Hi everyone I need to choose between two laptops, both are at roughly the same price (400€) below are their specs and what I need it for, any help is welcome!

- Lenovo Ideapad Gaming 3: i5-11320H, 16 GB, 512 GB, GeForce GTX 1650, comes with Windows 11
OR
- Lenovo Legion Y530: i5-8300H, 16GB 1TB HDD + M2 500GB SSD (idk what this means!), Nvidia GTX1050, comes with Windows 10

I would mainly use it to play online games as well as Genshin Impact mainly, as for work, I only need to make Word documents, spreadsheets and Presentations.

Which one is better in general? Which would you say is better suited for me?
I don’t know much about computers so any advice that comes my way is welcome as I need to make a decision in the next couple of days.
Thanks a lot!!

 

Hello,
In simple terms, SSD will have higher writing speeds and faster boot times in a laptop or desktop. Whereas, for HDD (7200rpm) will have a lower writing speeds and takes longer time to boot Windows in laptop/desktop.
If your laptop has Windows installed on SSD, it would take hardly 2-3 seconds to boot up with no issues. If the Windows is installed on the HDD, nevermind you can make a cup of coffee while your laptop boots up.
I would also suggest transferring your softwares (gaming or work related) to SSD for better performance.

Coming to the laptop buying guide, I would suggest you to take the i5-11320H processor laptops as it performs faster and is newer than the i5-8300H. i5-11320H is 3 years newer than the 8300H, 10nm processor, higher score on single & multi core performance.
The graphics that comes with the Ideapad Gaming is absolutely marvelous. My laptop has the same graphics card with Ryzen 3550H processor. It runs most of the games with no lag or frame drop (Minecraft, AC games, Call of Duty). I didn't play the Genshin Impact game a lot, but was installed on my laptop for 2 months and I got bored of the game and removed it. My laptop is running on 8GB RAM, so 16GB is no competitive to my laptop.

If your Ideapad Gaming comes with 16GB installed on 2 slots of the laptop, better keep it that way or upgrade it to 32GB if needed in the empty slot.

Your work of Word, Spreadsheets can be acheived with any laptop that can be available during these days. For gaming, I would suggest the Ideapad Gaming laptop with i5-11320H Processor and 1650 graphics or greater graphics.

If you are into Ryzen laptops, you can check out the similar processor Ryzen 5 5600H with almost same performance given by 11320H processor. Its just a different brand.
I posted a link of comparing the 11320H & 8300H processors for your clarification and also the comparison of Ryzen 5600H & i5-11320H processors.

Intel Core i5 11320H vs AMD Ryzen 5 5600H: https://nanoreview.net/en/cpu-compare/intel-core-i5-11320h-vs-amd-ryzen-5-5600h
Intel Core i5 8300H vs i5 11320H: https://nanoreview.net/en/cpu-compare/intel-core-i5-8300h-vs-intel-core-i5-11320h

 

Lenovo Ideapad Gaming 3 better than Lenovo Legion Y530

 

From the options you've provided, I recommend the Lenovo Ideapad Gaming 3. Here’s why:

The Ideapad Gaming 3 has a newer processor (i5-11320H) and a more powerful graphics card (GeForce GTX 1650), which will handle Genshin Impact and other online games better than the Legion Y530. It comes with a 512 GB SSD, which is faster and more efficient than the HDD in the Legion Y530. This means quicker boot times, faster game loading, and overall better performance. The Ideapad Gaming 3 comes with Windows 11, which has the latest features and updates.

While both laptops have 16 GB of RAM, which is great for both gaming and work tasks, the newer hardware and better graphics in the Ideapad Gaming 3 make it the superior choice for your needs.

Hope this helps you make your decision!

 

However, if you are using your laptop to run applications such as photo editing and video streaming then you will likely need 16GB or more.