Question 1

Is this screen glossy or matte?

Accepted Answer

It's matte. However, I'm pretty unhappy with the colors. I bought this laptop without doing much research assuming a gaming computer would have true colors. It's colors are no better than my old HP.

Question 2

Can this laptop handle Sid Meier's civilization beyond earth?

Accepted Answer

Yes, this laptop chews through even graphically intense modern games at medium settings pretty well. Until I upgraded my gaming PC a few weeks ago, it actually outperformed my old rig pretty substantially and I was using it almost exclusively for gaming.  It'll handle Civilization just fine.

The one thing to look out for is that it has an integrated Intel HD4000 graphics chip in the processor, which it uses for desktop (low power) tasks; the Nvidia graphics chip is only used for window objects that make the correct D3D calls when launching.  This can cause older games (think 2003 and older) to actually run like crap, as they wind up using the HD4000 chip instead.  I've encountered this with a couple of older games I wanted to play, and it's somewhat disappointing.  Unfortunately, it looks like all of the Haswell processor (intel 4000 series) laptops are built this way, which improves battery life pretty drastically but causes backwards compatibility problems.  The only way to get around it is to go with an AMD FX laptop, which has abysmal battery life as the trade-off.

Question 3

According to a video review that I watched of this laptop, playing games at 1080p puts black bars around the screen. Is this still a thing or is there a workaround?

Accepted Answer

No, there is no black bar around the screen. I've run Dark Souls 2, Starcraft II, Diablo 3, and a few other's and haven't had any issues. Just be sure to update ALL your drivers as this was a reason I was getting an extremely hot hdd and random shut downs. Look at Lenovo's site for a bios update too.

Question 4

does the 860m on this particular laptop have the newer maxwell architecture?

Accepted Answer

Sorry Brandon, I don't know - I can tell you that I am very pleased with the speed. After about a month the mainboard went pop, click, hiss and died, but after they replaced it, and the harddrive, and the power supply, it worked fantastic. well, except for the touch pad, its basically impossible to use, but who uses that anyway?

Question 5

does this laptop run loud could i play it in a library?

Accepted Answer

No, it does not run loud, however it does heat up quite quickly and stays at a solid 70 C when gaming.  That is why I recommend a laptop cooler... but that is obviously going to increase the noise level.  If you're going to game at a library make sure it is not for hours as it is not healthy to keep your laptop running at high temps.

Question 6

Is there any performance decrease while gaming, between the i5 or i7 model?

Accepted Answer

I only have the i5 model but my pc is an i7 model and to be honest, no. I've never seen a difference in gaming. Though, I don't play highly demanding games like crysis but other people told me they haven't seen a drop in performance. Just make sure to update your drivers because mine would heat up a lot without a few driver updates. All in all, I LOVE my laptop. For a while it was my replacement desktop and performed admirably.

Question 7

What sort of battery life does this laptop get while not gaming?

Accepted Answer

It honestly depends on how you prefer to have your brightness settings, and your net usage of RAM; for me, the battery life while not gaming is anywhere from 5-8 hours (with the brightness on medium watching Netflix), while gaming, it's not far off (3-5 hours depending on overall usage of resources).

P.S. If you are gaming, I would suggest keeping it plugged in, as it gets better FPS than without.

Good luck!

Question 8

Does anyone know if having a touch screen will affect game play in games such as battlefield 4 or call of duty: Advanced Warfare? Not saying how you play the game, but does it change the FPS or anything?

Accepted Answer

No, a touchscreen has all of the hardware necessary to process touch inputs without having to resort to the CPU for an assist; any touch device is basically treated as a mouse at the kernel level, and does not result in a performance impact, any more than attaching an external mouse would.

Question 9

Does this come with a Windows 8 disk so I can reinstall the OS?  I like to do fresh installs from time to time.

Accepted Answer

No it does not, however you can download Windows 8 off of microsoft's website with your product key.  Look up the "Check your windows product key" and go to the wikihow article.  I'm not allowed to link sites, so this is your best buy.

Question 10

Would you recommend this laptop for someone's  first gaming laptop?

Accepted Answer

The biggest issue with this as a gaming laptop is that it may not run older games as well as you'd expect.  It has an Intel HD4000 graphics chip integrated with the processor, which handles the desktop perfectly fine, but the discreet Nvidia graphics chip doesn't engage unless a window element makes the correct D3D calls on launching; I've seen this happen with modern CAD programs as well as some older games (one from 2000, one from 2003).  If you're looking for something that plays modern games, it does great, and I love it.  If you're looking to explore the extensive back-catalog of good games out there, it might not be the best choice.  Still, even though I can't play Ghost Master(2003) or Sacrifice(2000) on anything other than low settings, I'm definitely happy with this purchase.

Questions & Answers