Lists.newArrayList vs new ArrayList

What is the best construction for creating a List of Strings? Is it Lists.newArrayList() (from guava) or new ArrayList()?

is it just a personal preference?
or is it just Type generic type inference?
or is there any theoretical or practical value in using Lists.newArrayList()?

The guava builder saves typing the type arguments multiple times. Compare:

List<Foo<Bar, Baz>> list = Lists.newArrayList();
List<Foo<Bar, Baz>> list = new ArrayList<Foo<Bar, Baz>>();

In Java 7 it's a bit obsolete though, because you have the diamond operator:

List<Foo<Bar, Baz>> list = new ArrayList<>();

From Guava's source:

public static <E> ArrayList<E> newArrayList() {
    return new ArrayList<E>();
}

All that's doing is allowing for type inference - no difference at runtime.

Add one point, overloading version of Lists.newArrayList() is more useful:

• Lists.newArrayList(E... elements)
• Lists.newArrayList(Iterable<? extends E> elements)
• Lists.newArrayList(Iterator<? extends E> elements)

provide more useful functions than new ArrayList().

For example: new ArrayList() cannot do:

Lists.newArrayList("a","b");
Lists.newArrayList(anIterable);