You're not really comparing Apples to Apples here. On newegg, the i5-3230M laptops start at over $500 while the AMD A6-4400M laptops start at over $100 less. If you REALLY want to compare Apples to Apples, then compare these two:
Acer Aspire E1-571-6402 Intel Core i5 3230M(2.60GHz) 6GB Memory 500GB HDD 15.6" Notebook - $540
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834314026
Lenovo G505s AMD A-Series A10-5750M(2.50GHz) 6GB Memory 1TB HDD 15.6" Notebook - $549
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834312829
Now you see what you SHOULD be comparing. The first thing that will jump out at you is that both are 15.6" quad-core laptops but the Lenovo/AMD laptop has a 1TB Hard Drive instead of the Acer/Intel's 500GB. I can guarantee you that the AMD A10-based laptop DEMOLISHES the i5-3230M laptop when it comes to gaming. Here's a little proof of that:
Now, I know it's a long list but I had to show you it before you become another poor schmuck with Intel graphics dragging you down like an albatross around your neck. Look at this beast! It's obliterating i7's with superior graphics setups than that sad-sack i5-3230M. Look at all the games that the Intel HD 4000 series CANNOT EVEN PLAY like Skyrim, Grid 2 and Starcraft 2. AnandTech didn't list the Intels in those graphs because because their graphics engine is NOT COMPATIBLE with them. Think about that for a second, some of the most popular games on the market and Intel's graphics engine architecture is so broken and its drivers so bad, that they are literally incompatible with modern games (and let's face it, Starcraft 2 uses an updated version of the original Starcraft engine from the 90s). Now, I'll admit, the i5-3230M is the faster CPU by quite a margin but you want to play Battlefield 4 and it should be obvious by now that no Intel-based laptop in the price range of the parts you listed will be able to do it. I look at the AMD APU vs Intel APU situation like this; The AMD APU CAN do everything that the Intel APU can do, albeit it is often slower except for gaming. However, the Intel APU CANNOT do everything that the AMD APU can do because the performance gap between ATi and Intel in GPUs is much greater than the performance gap between AMD and Intel in CPUs. Keep in mind, the AMD CPU side of the APU is bottlenecking the ATi GPU side and it still crushes Intel in every situation despite the powerful Intel CPU trying to help its handicapped GPU along. In fact, the little Kabini that the Intels beat (when they're able to play) is a direct result of the Kabini's weak low-wattage AMD side bottlenecking its ATi side into the abyss. But notice that it has no compatibility issues with any game and still runs them all except Grid 2. If that doesn't show the overwhelming power of the ATi Radeon graphics engine compared to the Intel HD 4xxx graphics engine, I don't know what does.
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