That's an all around awesome buy. Lenovo has always had excellent value if you knew where to look. My only question is does it run cool when streaming movies? My last laptop was an HP 16t with a dedicated nVidia 130m. I'm not sure if it ran hot because of the dedicated card... or because of the lack of hardware accelerated h.264. I'm leaning towards the latter.
There was a lot of confusion about whether the system supported Optimus graphics card switching or not, and this was entirely due to poor support info somewhere in the chain. So there were a lot of people actually modding their firmwares to turn Optimus back on; but this isn't necessary.
From the context menu in Windows, you can actually set which application will use which graphics card outright. It's incredibly intuitive. I almost exclusively use the Intel HD card because it's fantastic and supports WiDi out of the box! So streaming media using the Intel HD lets you stream directly to your WiDi compatible TV without any cables, chromecast, or whatever.. Just straight up. It's great.
And yes, so long as the Nvidia 750m is not running, the system is pretty cool. Just keep it in a low-power state, and you'll be fine. Also, if you're worried about heat and battery, there's a few optimizations you can make to allow the system to run like ice. First, swap out the HDD for an SSD. Second, run with at least 16GB RAM, third, keep the CPU clocked at or below 2.4GHz (High clocks create 60-70% of the heat in the case). Don't use the Nvidia Gfx card. And if noise isn't an issue, install the optional Ultrabay fan. System will be cool to the touch, and the left-side exhaust fan will basically be silent.
Anyways my friends never use that much hardware and Intel graphics chips are actually getting pretty solid. At my suggestion, my friend just bought a new Lenovo g500 from microcenter for 399. It had the i5-3230m, 4 GB of ram, and a quality keyboard. That's one very underrated aspect of laptops... the on board keyboard. It has absolutely zero bells and whistles. No media keys, only [power, HDD, caps locks, charging] lights, and the display is a plain 1360*768 that looks washed out at any viewing angle other than perpendicular. But it is very sturdy and the thickness of the chasis actually works for it by providing good airflow.
Some people may hate its simple utilitarian look... but I'm glad Lenovo makes options like these. All the money goes into the meat and potatoes hardware... and that's what some people want at this price point
The look of the laptop is extremely utilitarian, but the HARDWARE that you are getting is unmatched. Top-of-the-line processor (that is upgradable), GOOD memory (Crucial), SSD-caching built in (both upgradable), and fucking SLI?! Let's not forget the fantastic FullHD screen that's gotten top marks from almost every review site online for it's color reproduction, and decent black levels. Only the MBP w/Retina and the new XPS's have a better screen, but neither has this level of features (And I own an MBP w/Retina).
It's just an all-around dope laptop. But I may consider wiping this Windows 8 shit off, and going back to Windows 7..
