Circa 2014, I'd bought a Lenovo Z50-70 15.6 inch laptop for my father-in-law to use. It came with Windows 8.1 pre-installed and a 1TB HDD.
Coming from the days of DOS and having used Win 95,98,XP and 7 in my office laptop, I had placed full faith in Microsoft to bring any latest hardware to it's knees. I wasn't disappointed. Everything ran sl-o-o-w on it. Even accessing the internet through a Tata Indicom Photon Plus (yes I know it's a PoS service) dongle was slower on this Windows 8.1 laptop as compared to browsing with the same dongle on my HP 6470b ProBook company laptop running Windows 7.
At the time, I could not delve further into why a brand new laptop ran so poorly. Come early 2016 and my FIL gave the laptop back to me (I guess he'd had enough) for my wife to use. The thing still ran like a PoS and my wife had entrusted me with the task of getting it "fixed". Between work and home, I was just fed up of trying to optimize the OS and began to h-a-t-e Microsoft with a vengeance, and what they'd done to a proper desktop OS.
My wife finally gave up on me and through contact of hers, put me in touch with an IT guy to "help" me with this and another unrelated (IP surveillance camera) problem. Grudgingly acknowledging my inability and disinclination to help due to a lack of time and knowledge of recent Windows OSes, I had a word with him. But, as it turns out, I was pleasantly surprised to meet him and just talk to a fellow techie.
I'd asked him to replace my laptop HDD with an SSD and replace Windows 8.1 with Windows 7. He suggested that I upgrade to Windows 10 however, since I'm eligible for a free upgrade. I did not agree to it but I asked him to decide what was best.
The laptop was returned to me with a Samsung Pro 128GB SSD and Windows 10 installed. After using it for a couple of days, I was blown away by how it would perform. I always knew that an SSD would make a lot of difference but experience just b-l-e-w my mind. I've opened over 30 tabs in Chrome (I have only 4GB of memory) and yet, the OS did not flinch. Hibernating and resuming is a breeze. The laptop is so silent now that there are no/less moving parts.
In conclusion, I believe the turnaround was achieved by a combination of the OS and the SSD. I think that Windows 10 though bloated, seems to be much better than Windows 7 (yes, my office laptop with a 500GB HDD still crawls in Windows 7 for even the most basic of tasks. I never bought into the notion that 7 ran better than XP and based on what I've experienced, I think I'm right) or Windows 8.1.
I also think that using a 5400 r.p.m. HDD in a 2.5 inch form factor is a crime and with SSDs now having gained mainstream acceptance, it's time that manufacturers stop dumping this decade old technology on us especially looking at the current prices of laptops these days (waiting for Xiaomi to bring some serious competition in this space).
I'd like to know if it's the euphoria of using an SSD talking or if other folks have had similar experiences. Folks on the forum...can you please share your experience if you have replaced your laptop HDD with an SSD? Maybe this will help others make the switch if they've been considering it.
More than the improvement in speed, it's the satisfaction of having rescued a 2014 laptop for whch I'd spent 50K and was virtually unusable. I also love the fact that the laptop performs so much better than what can be bought today.
Yes, the screen is poor (Full HD was a scam at that time, should've looked at the 14 inch Lenovo Flex with an IPS screen. But, don't care that the screen is non-touch.) but the build of the Z-series, discrete buttons below the trackpad and presence of a DVD-drive are something that I appreciate in this laptop.
I know that I will never go back to using a 2.5 inch HDD in a laptop again if I have to buy another one. I will simply ask my IT guy to replace it with an SSD. Thanks for reading.
Coming from the days of DOS and having used Win 95,98,XP and 7 in my office laptop, I had placed full faith in Microsoft to bring any latest hardware to it's knees. I wasn't disappointed. Everything ran sl-o-o-w on it. Even accessing the internet through a Tata Indicom Photon Plus (yes I know it's a PoS service) dongle was slower on this Windows 8.1 laptop as compared to browsing with the same dongle on my HP 6470b ProBook company laptop running Windows 7.
At the time, I could not delve further into why a brand new laptop ran so poorly. Come early 2016 and my FIL gave the laptop back to me (I guess he'd had enough) for my wife to use. The thing still ran like a PoS and my wife had entrusted me with the task of getting it "fixed". Between work and home, I was just fed up of trying to optimize the OS and began to h-a-t-e Microsoft with a vengeance, and what they'd done to a proper desktop OS.
My wife finally gave up on me and through contact of hers, put me in touch with an IT guy to "help" me with this and another unrelated (IP surveillance camera) problem. Grudgingly acknowledging my inability and disinclination to help due to a lack of time and knowledge of recent Windows OSes, I had a word with him. But, as it turns out, I was pleasantly surprised to meet him and just talk to a fellow techie.
I'd asked him to replace my laptop HDD with an SSD and replace Windows 8.1 with Windows 7. He suggested that I upgrade to Windows 10 however, since I'm eligible for a free upgrade. I did not agree to it but I asked him to decide what was best.
The laptop was returned to me with a Samsung Pro 128GB SSD and Windows 10 installed. After using it for a couple of days, I was blown away by how it would perform. I always knew that an SSD would make a lot of difference but experience just b-l-e-w my mind. I've opened over 30 tabs in Chrome (I have only 4GB of memory) and yet, the OS did not flinch. Hibernating and resuming is a breeze. The laptop is so silent now that there are no/less moving parts.
In conclusion, I believe the turnaround was achieved by a combination of the OS and the SSD. I think that Windows 10 though bloated, seems to be much better than Windows 7 (yes, my office laptop with a 500GB HDD still crawls in Windows 7 for even the most basic of tasks. I never bought into the notion that 7 ran better than XP and based on what I've experienced, I think I'm right) or Windows 8.1.
I also think that using a 5400 r.p.m. HDD in a 2.5 inch form factor is a crime and with SSDs now having gained mainstream acceptance, it's time that manufacturers stop dumping this decade old technology on us especially looking at the current prices of laptops these days (waiting for Xiaomi to bring some serious competition in this space).
I'd like to know if it's the euphoria of using an SSD talking or if other folks have had similar experiences. Folks on the forum...can you please share your experience if you have replaced your laptop HDD with an SSD? Maybe this will help others make the switch if they've been considering it.
More than the improvement in speed, it's the satisfaction of having rescued a 2014 laptop for whch I'd spent 50K and was virtually unusable. I also love the fact that the laptop performs so much better than what can be bought today.
Yes, the screen is poor (Full HD was a scam at that time, should've looked at the 14 inch Lenovo Flex with an IPS screen. But, don't care that the screen is non-touch.) but the build of the Z-series, discrete buttons below the trackpad and presence of a DVD-drive are something that I appreciate in this laptop.
I know that I will never go back to using a 2.5 inch HDD in a laptop again if I have to buy another one. I will simply ask my IT guy to replace it with an SSD. Thanks for reading.
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Cheers !