Is this AMD laptop good?

[Juusuhako]

Hi,
im on the verge of buying a laptop for my studies (adobe software).

I've come across a Lenovo Yoga 500. It has an AMD Quad Core A8-7410 and a Radeon R5 M330. The more expensive model has an i5-5200U but only HD5500 graphics, and I believe I need the dedicated GPU for more heavy tasks in Photoshop/Premiere.

But, I've always connected AMD with heat and noise, especially in laptops. Can anyone tell me if they've improved on this front, and if this laptop in general is a good purchase? I find it odd the model with dedicated GPU is cheaper...

Product page (translated)

 

[Kushiro]

Its pretty decent, however you should know that the graphics isnt much better than the Intel integrated.

You are better off springing for one with something like an i5.

Its by no means bad though. how much is it?

 

[Feronix]

The i5 will have more CPU power though, which is what PhotoShop relies on a lot. Afaik, a lot of the filters are GPU dependent but for general processing power it tends to use the CPU.

 

[Juusuhako]

Its pretty decent, however you should know that the graphics isnt much better than the Intel integrated.

You are better off springing for one with something like an i5.

Its by no means bad though. how much is it?

Okay... But how do vram work on internal GPUs like HD5500? How much do they have?

The AMD-model is £589, the i5/HD5500 is £638

The i5 will have more CPU power though, which is what PhotoShop relies on a lot. Afaik, a lot of the filters are GPU dependent but for general processing power it tends to use the CPU.

Its not just Photoshop though. Were also gonna be working logos in inDesign/Illustrator. And at some point we will be working with Premiere, although probably not too advanced as this is a little area in the education (video that is).

 

[Feronix]

Yeah I was hoping you wouldn't do video editing on it cause honestly... that's a pretty bad experience on any laptop, or at least under 900 pounds or so.

I do a uni course in Art & Technology and got a cheap €400 laptop for it with an i3, HD4000 graphics, 4GB RAM and I put a 120GB SSD in it. It does PhotoShop faaairly alright but for the video editing (Premiere) I just use my rig at home, or if I have to do it in school there are computers available.

 

[Juusuhako]

Yeah I was hoping you wouldn't do video editing on it cause honestly... that's a pretty bad experience on any laptop, or at least under 900 pounds or so.

I do a uni course in Art & Technology and got a cheap €400 laptop for it with an i3, HD4000 graphics, 4GB RAM and I put a 120GB SSD in it. It does PhotoShop faaairly alright but for the video editing (Premiere) I just use my rig at home, or if I have to do it in school there are computers available.

We have the Adobe Suite so it makes sense it will be Premiere we'll be using, but I havent been told officially.

Lets look away from the video-editing then... I have a powerhouse at home I can use. So just for PS/Illustrator/inDesign... The one with dedicated GPU (AMD) or I5/HD5500? Also I still dont know how vram works with HD5500...

 

[The_Mard]

Heyyo,

The HD5500? I'm quite sure it does shared VRAM with the System Memory. I don't think they do dedicated RAM. Then again, same thing with that AMD APU just like the desktop A series APUs.

I dunno how video editing works, but if it goes by GPU compute power? That AMD APU would be better suited for it I believe. The Intel i5-5200U is barely faster than the previous gen i5-4200U so I'm guessing the iGPU isn't the same as we have seen with the desktop i5-5765c with that lovely Intel Iris Pro...

 

[Juusuhako]

Actually turns out Lenovo sell the 5200U/8GB/920M model on their own website for £542... not sure why I didnt check that until now.

Specs are here. I think its a non-IPS version though, but other than that it should be the same. My only concern is a 2-cell battery, probs doesnt last very long.