[bsdbsd]

Originally Posted by civic-sense

This is actually a question rather than an answer. Is it safe to buy a Surface Laptop here in India? This is with respect to warranty and after sales. Because it is built by Microsoft, I am guessing they would have tested Windows extensively on it, hence a guess that it would be much reliable.

I am rocking a Surface Pro 1 since 2014! Its a productivity device in the morning, Flight simulator by afternoon, HTPC by evening and a tablet by night, with few note taking in between using the pen. Couldnt be more versatile. Its running Windows 10 flawlessly. Since its a first gen product, it has lots of rough edges in terms of battery life etc, but I can recommend a latest Surface Pro line to anyone who wants to indulge in productivity and consumption both. I am not sure of India support though but a collegue of mine had a pleasant experience.

As always, YMMV. You must be open for some adventure!

[Bh.P]

Damn. This thread should have come 3-4 months ago, when I was on the lookout for a laptop for my daughter's online classes. Decided on a Dell Inspiron 5490.
However, it has been good so far (touch-wood), except for a weak wifi sometimes.

It boots up really fast (under 10 seconds) and all applications are extremely responsive, in comparison to my wife's office laptop (thinkpad). The main difference I think is the SSD on the Dell which makes it very responsive.

[sandeepmohan]

I'll speak for a few laptops I have used.

My current one is a 13" Macbook Pro on loan from my office with the fancy touch bar or whatever they call it. Hands down the best experience I've had with a laptop. I use Windows and Mac every day and I can feel the difference on the Mac being more efficient and well thought out from operating system and design perspective. Its not for nothing Apple charge a lot for them. I use MS Excel suite on a Mac too so know for sure it works well.

For windows, I would recommend the Lenovo P Series of mobile workstations. Yes; it is over kill for what you are going to do with it but it is one the best built laptops I have ever used. It is not bulky either and can take a lot of abuse. Has excellent battery back up too.

Alternatively; you should look at an iPad Pro. The eco system is a little different as it is all app based so will take some getting used it. The experience is top notch and once you get the hang of it, will feel almost like a laptop. The Pro's are beasts when it comes to performance. Battery back up and portability is hands down the best of any device out there.

I can't speak to service support for Lenovo in India. Apple India are pretty good. In my part of the world, if a laptop fails under warranty, like your Dell, it will be a full replacement or even a refund if you push a little hard.

[4nd3r50n]

So almost all companies sell lemons at times. I have had horrible experiences previously with both Dell and HP, yet my current workhorses are a Dell Inspiron (office laptop) and an HP Elitebook (home all-rounder)! I also have an Dell Alienware R15 (gaming) as well as a Surface Pro 3.(productivity device for the times that I am traveling) Also, still have an ancient Asus G63 from 2011 which I used for gaming but then age caught up with the system. Still works fine but no more gaming on that system.
I believe with the current life-cycle of devices, 3-4 years is the max you can hold on to it before the kinks start appearing and an otherwise flawless device starts behaving erratically. Also, there is no saying that one brand is better over the other. I have had horrendous experiences with HP and their service and support yet my Elitebook has been serving me well for the past two years now.
If I have to make a purchase right now, I'd go for a 10th Gen Intel processor, adequate RAM (16 GB) and a 1 TB hard drive with perhaps a 256 GB SSD for the OS and fast boot. This will offer me a near future proof device while also allowing me to dabble with quick multimedia tasks such as video editing and Photoshop, if required. No brand preference, per se, because of the reasons stated above. My only criteria would be to get the most bang for the buck in terms of performance as well as the warranty offered (1/2 years, global or local etc.). Coming to think of it, it's something that we all do when buying a new car! Hope this helps.

[bharatbits]

I have a Dell Vostro that i bought in 2008 and it still works like a charm. Did replace certain wear and tear parts like keyboard, battery and fan with OEM parts over time. Also, upgraded RAM, hard disk, OS and it works great. Though i bought a Lenovo i3 for family in 2016 it got handed over back to me which i use as primary but the Dell Vostro is still going strong and can well serve as my primary laptop.

Dell service was so great around the time i bought it that they had a no questions asked replace policy at your doorstep if the error showed on their diagnostic test which they did remotely. You'd receive an approval immediately and they would dispatch a service engineer from Wipro i think to replace it even at remote locations.

My wife uses iPad and MacBook and i find the Apple ecosystem very confusing and irritating. It's lying in my office room but i dont remember when i even last touched it although people tell very good things about the iOS. I have been a Windows and Android guy and i feel the switch to iOS entails a huge learning curve which i am not comfortable undergoing.

Considering the lot of unlearning and relearning you have to undergo shifting to iOS I'd suggest sticking to Windows with a top of the line processor (likes of i7 and above) from any of the reputed manufacturers. Your laptop or the replaced parts could have been a lemon but Dell isn't bad persay. A BMW also comes with manufacturing defects, just have to followup with BMW India and push for a in warranty replacement. An escalation within Dell India could resolve your issue permanently without the need for a new laptop too.

My 2 cents.

[charanreddy]

We used the Dell Latitude for our office from the last few years and they been super unreliable and slow even with the best specs. We have moved to HP Elitebook ( i7-7600U, 16GB) about a year back and this has also not been a good experience. I also have a personal Macbook Pro but its not very intuitive for a heavy windows user.

By process of elimination you are left with the Thinkpad and I have heard good things about it. Also do see if you can get some info about gaming laptops like the Alienware as they are overspecced and hopefully not cause performance issues.

[highlander]

Originally Posted by blackwasp

Got an iMac 21.5 inch in 2011 and its still going strong

Originally Posted by Vid6639

I used a 2011 Macbook Pro from 2011 to 2020. The macbook was working fine and had no issues but I figured 9 years was a good time to upgrade.

Same boat... Have a Macbook Pro which has been going strong since 2011. This year passed it on to my kid for her online classes.
For her usage it will easily last a few more years. Have replaced the battery once in these 9 years and no other expense.

It truly is worth the investment.

[Ram_BMWTravel]

I have used almost all the brands mentioned here.Dell, Lenovo and HP for official and Asus, Acer and Dell for personal use. Currently using a combination of Dell and Microsoft for both work and personal. I would strongly recommend the latest version Microsoft Surface Book. A good model will cost around 1.5 Lakhs INR but is a really good machine for the money being spent.

[CarJunki]

Thinkpad T series.
I have used a fair few thinkpad laptops (both company owned and personal asset). In general the ones targeted to enterprises will have better longevity and less of fickleness.
Service wise, I have had pleasant experience with Lenovo services in Bangalore (but this is my single sample).


Even HP EliteBook 840x series does well on reliability and longevity parameter.
There are HP EliteBook with 4-digit numbers, those are not that well constructed.

One pointer: Look for what large enterprises (of size 50,000 people or more are buying for foot soldiers). Those will be the boring, ultra reliable ones. No one wants to keep large workforce managing and maintaining laptops. Large enterprises actively look for event free ownership.

[reignofchaos]

I've been using office thinkpads for the last few years (a loaded T480s) but I'd not recommend it. This one is around 1.4KG. Carbon is around 1.2 with the large battery pack. It has a great keyboard but it overheats and even when doing basic stuff like e-mail and browsing with multiple tabs. Also the 4 core intel chips are a bit long in the tooth.

I recently got an 8 core AMD 4th gen Ryzen 4900HS based Asus Zephyrus G14 for my wife and boy this is an incredible laptop. Its crazy fast due to the Ryzen chip, has great build quality, is incredibly light (1.6 KG) and has a dedicated RTX 2060 graphics chip for games and applications and can be upgraded to 48GB of memory if needed. She uses it for molecular visualization and is amazed at how fast it is inspite of being thin and light.

Had a previous Asus laptop of mine which was bought in 2013. Still works perfectly with the only issue being the battery has degraded to just 15 minutes runtime. They are extremely well built.

Macbooks - they are not my type - they are not for power users.

Highly recommended!

[mpthy]

I have three MacBooks in my household:

1. 13 inch 2008 MacBook Pro: Running well with upgraded SSD and RAM. Also patched the latest version of Mac OS.

2. 13 inch 2011 Macbook Pro: Same as above.

3. 16 inch 2019 MacBook Pro: Was a tad worried about the portability, but did not feel the weight when I carried it in my bad in the pre-COVID times. It's a superb machine.

As you can see, the older machines are still running well. Can't say that about some of the Windows machine that i've used.

I'd strongly recommend the Mac. Think of it as having the reliability of Toyota with the finesse of a Merc.

[dhanushs]

Well, if you want absolute reliability I think the Macbook is the way to go. IMO, the service too is much better than other brands.

Also, don't change the OS to Windows. It takes some time getting used to, but once done the its really good. I have forgotten the last time I've shut down my Macbook. The experience is seamless. For the purpose you've mentioned, I think a Macbook is just perfect.

[saur95]

Originally Posted by GTO

Thanks a ton, guys ! Guess its between Lenovo & Macbook going by the posts.

- Usage is basically business & Team-BHP content creation. Nothing too heavy like picture or video processing, but I have a lot of programs running simultaneously (right now, it's Chrome with 25 tabs + iTunes + Excel + Word + Firefox + GDrive + Dropbox + etc.).

- Macbook - Okay to run Windows?

I'll be honest GTO, for that kind of usage, you'll be able to manage with the MacBook Air or MacBook Pro 13". Just pick from the hard drive sizes as per your requirement. They're generally quite reliable (I had one for 7 years before jumping to the next one because I got a good deal) but repairs & spares are expensive. Is it both Japanese & German?

Since you don't use any Windows specific software, try MacOS X and see how you like it before installing Windows on the side. It will involve retraining your muscle memory slightly (because of the Command & Option key placement) and picking up a few keyboard and trackpad shortcuts (Intuitive stuff which makes usage super zippy).

If you're going the MacBook way, you'll need to pick up at least one dongle since it has only USB C ports. You should be able to get one with all the ports you need and an SD card slot. You'll need to make a mental note to carry it around or pick up a second smaller, cheaper one to leave in your bag.

On a lighter note, you'll finally be free of Windows updates! MacOS X updates while you're sleeping (If you want it to).

Originally Posted by GTO

- Macbook - 13" or 16"? Is 13 too small & 16 too big?

Try both at a store if you can (I know, not the best time). I've owned a 13" and now own a 15" but I didn't feel the 13" was too small. Maybe I just got quite familiar with the size.

You don't really need the firepower of the 16" but it's not heavy at all IMO. I walk around with my 15" open in one hand and I barely even lift bro .

By the way, Maple has an exchange offer running. I've gotten great deals on both my Macs from them.

[YD14]

We have had two dell laptops at our home in the last 10 yrs and both had lots issues. Hard disc failure (with data gone!), unable to boot, hanging in middle of important of work, keyboard backlight not working, screen not connecting properly and not to forget the usual overheating issue. Even the dell pc in my father's office had been sent for repairs. Now my current laptop is a lenovo ideapad 3i but cannot comment about it as has only been 15 days since I recieved it.
If you do decide to buy a lenovo with a intel processor, select a laptop with i7 10750H or 10875H. The i7 10510U available in most i7 branded laptops, is not that great and can be out-performed by higher end i5s.

[sharktale]

Originally Posted by GTO

(right now, it's Chrome with 25 tabs + iTunes + Excel + Word + Firefox + GDrive + Dropbox + etc.).

Switch Workstation Chrome Extension for Tab management on Chrome.

I'd advise you to contact your friendly tech supplier for any deals on Thinkpads / Macbooks and then make the decision. The difference between Thinkpad X1 Carbon Gen 8 vs 7 is mainly:
1. Better Speakers 2. Better Power Management 3. Wifi 6. Link


If it is possible for you to wait till Q1 2021, Macbook is coming out with their ARM Processor laptops (same processor family as in iOS devices and will have better battery optimisations). Intel is coming out with Tiger Lake Gen 11 Processors, which will be a good upgrade from Gen 10. Intel has been facing massive heat from AMD and Apple, so I feel Gen 11 will have some good features and more reasonable than before.