[Kosfactor]

Try this one at a shop if possible.



I have worked as a tech support person for sometime - Dell & HP are \ were the obvious choice for many corporate companies. They have their advantages, cost , easy to service, on site support etc but far from being the best for the job at hand.

There are lot of 'workhorse of laptops' but not all are kind to the user, from the screen to keyboard to trackpad to the texture of the outershell etc, everything matters on the long run. You can work on this thing for hours on end, You can show your frustration on that keyboard if needed - the best keyboard ever, you can slam the lid down, use it as a tray to carry cups of coffee ,keep it on your lap and type away to glory and the screen wont flap around - as solid as a laptop can be built. you can swap batteries while its running because it has two of them and you can use the same charger for your phone as well if its usb C.

Therefore in my opinion and having used several ones for most of my work life - The best general use workhorse of a laptop is - Thinkpad T Series. It will be expensive for what you get in terms of configuration and you need to get an i5, SSD, make sure its anti-glare screen as well. Happy shopping.

PS : If you ever get used to the Trackpoint on the Thinkpad, chances are you`ll never use another laptop!

[nikhilarni]

Originally Posted by GTO

Guys,

No real budget as this is going to be a work tool.

Sir,

My recommendation would be the ThinkPad X1 ( you can customize / configure per your requirement )

All my working life I have had various ThinkPads, from the T-series to the X-series.

Never had any issue. Their keyboard was an award winning design as well. The new ones are not that great as compared to the older ones, but way better than the other brands.

I have never really been a macbook fan for anything official.

Hope that helps

[Manoj2268]

Originally Posted by T-Bone

A 10 year old HP Pavillion DV6 laptop (my kids now use for their online classes). Ie

I have a dv6 laptop(with the 6gb ram and i7 2630qm processor) whose keyboard has conked out. Is it worth fixing? Does HP have any compatible parts bin from where we can get a replacement part?

I plan to put in use the spare sticks and SSD squeeze some more usage out of it.

[Teqhead]

Well I have changed my old dell 14” Inspiron after it started giving issues with windows 7, which is discontinued by microsoft.
I had a macbook air but honestly, I felt quite out of place using editing tools and powerpoints as I am an old windows buff and I had to give it to my sister.

After a thorough research I went for the HP pavilion x360 i7 4.6Ghz 14” . As the name suggest it can be folded and turned into a tablet while working during travel. It has a dedicated sim card slot with data offers from jio. It is quite powerful for editing and has a storage of 500 gb and can be opted for 1 tb. It is very light weight at around 1.5kg. Battery backup is awesome, not 10.30 hrs as claimed but certainly 6-7 hrs.

[Akash.D]

I have an eight year old Acer laptop which is now used by my sister still in stock battery with decent battery life. I had this for 4 years in my hostel where you can say it ran 24x7. Never had any hardware problem and so no experience about service. So when I landed a job, I bought another Acer laptop, upgraded RAM and installed m.2 ssd and it is still going strong after 3 years. However, there was a problem during the warranty period and the service guy came to my home and fixed it. So service wise also Acer is quite good. I would recommend Acer to anyone without second thought.

[mmxylorider]

I believe you got one of those defect pieces. I have both Dell and HP at home. The Dell laptops have been very reliable. The one this note is being typed on has not been booted for over 20 days!
No commercial interest here but Dell and HP have some very interesting configurations available. For eg, 14''/FHD/I510G/250SSD/8GB config is under 600 USD.

[vsbabu]

I've had multiple MacBooks since 2011 (personal and company provided) and never liked those. Turned out to be less reliable as well.

Most reliable and abuse friendly I have ever had are Toshiba laptops, even the cheaper Satellite ones - one I bought in 2001 in US still boots up just as well; unfortunately they stopped that business recently.

My recommendation will be for Thinkpad T490 (robust, good support everywhere, eminently open+repairable); or if you prefer something sleeker or lighter, Dell XPS.

I bought an LG Gram 14 2 years ago because I started using bike for commute and wanted a light one to carry and it is phenomenally fast, 8+ hours charge, light and when I opened it up, looked quite repairable too. Extremely good for travel - though I've no idea whether it can withstand accidents like Thinkpad.

[twin_turbo]

Originally Posted by GTO

Guys,

This is indisputably the worst laptop I have owned. What's more, Dell India's support is pathetic.

I highly recommend an Apple. Superbly built, highly reliable and long lasting.

I bought a 13" Macbook Pro back in 2015, touch wood, its still like new. No crashes, no slowdowns, zero trouble. I extensively used the system through my masters degree which involved medium to high cpu/gpu loads. Now, my spouse is using it through her masters degree.

Pick a Mac that best suits your need. It will last you for the next 10 years. True, switching between Intel and In-house chips will cause some trouble, but that shouldn't be a concern to you if you do not use any specialized software out of the ordinary. It does not support a sim card, but i still think it's worth buying a mac in the long run. It is costlier than any other similarly spec'd laptop but the user experience and longevity will make up for it.

[Pavitpal]

Hey GTO,
Just like there are no perfect cars, there are no perfect laptops!!

Based on your usage and requirement(and that you don't need/use any specfic MS/MAC based softwares), i feel that you should consider two prime categories.

1. Ipad Pro with keyboard
2. Samsung Tab S7 or any decent chrome book

Both will give you great speed/agility to do all the works you mentioned, since both are very light Operating systems and will age beautifully compared to a MS/MAC. not that MAC's done age well, just that they are changing to ARM processors and the an intel Mac will not be on their priority list for too long. In addition, getting a SIM card option with them is a great option. You can enjoy them not only as your business machine but also as a great media consumption device. I really believe in minimialism and don't like to carry too many or bulky devices, this one can be your go to machine for work or play.
I think with extended warranty options on both devices and the durable nature of the hardware and light OS both should last you a while before it needs an upgrade..

My 2 cents..!

Best
Pavitpal

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.).

- Lenovo - Which model? If X1 Carbon, which generation? Am seeing 6, 7 & 8 on their website. If ThinkPad, which model or series in particular?

- Macbook - Okay to run Windows?

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

[beemer5499]

Does anyone know when Apple is going to bring their student discounts in India? Other countries are getting $100 off and free airpods as part of the Back to School offer.

Also, I have been trying to get my hands on a Macbook Air 2020 (Gold) or a MacBook Pro Base 2020 (Space Gray) but none of the offline stores and online websites have it in stock. Anyone has any leads?

[thehighwayman]

Dell's quality off late has gone down the drain sadly. Almost every single laptop that I have owned , both personal and business, has had issues. As a consequence,I don't even consider Dell these days when buying a laptop. The laptop brands that have worked well for me are Lenovo and HP. Both these brands have a pretty extensive service coverage in India . Asus might be another brand worth looking at.

[T-Bone]

Originally Posted by Manoj2268

I have a dv6 laptop(with the 6gb ram and i7 2630qm processor) whose keyboard has conked out. Is it worth fixing? Does HP have any compatible parts bin from where we can get a replacement part?

I plan to put in use the spare sticks and SSD squeeze some more usage out of it.

If it is a fairly new laptop then getting parts will be easy. Go to HP website and go to support, you should be able to find the part once you enter the serial/model number.

As mentioned, mine is 10 year old laptop and my youngest son pulled out few keys. Since replacement part is not available, I am using USB keyboard.

[SamarthMehrotra]

Lenovo, Acer and Asus are the brands that have my vote for now.

Lenovo has the best service support. Although the other two aren't far behind.

Might I recommend the new AMD Ryzen processors over the Intel 'i' series of processors. AMD Ryzen are more bang for the buck and are currently crushing Intel by their performances. I also noticed that my Video and Photo editing softwares fare far better on the Ryzen. Look for Ryzen 5 or above (Ryzen 5/7/9).

Although, I am tempted to recommend Apple but the endless accessories one ends up purchasing makes one truly trapped in the Apple ecosystem. No doubt, Apple has the best hardware and software integration. Also, better to wait for the next launch as current MacBooks are at end of their life cycle.

[guywhoclicks]

I am a Software Engineer and can chime in.
The problem with the laptops in India is that they are not really built to handle the extreme heat/ dust/ moisture that we subject them to. As laptops are getting thinner and sleeker, they are losing the ability to run compute intensive tasks. A lot of them experience thermal throttling (Macbook Air is notorious for it). Having said that, my recommendation would be a Macbook Pro (latest gen) with an i7 processor and 16 gigs worth of RAM (minimum). If possible, get a keyboard silicon cover since the scissor mechanism of the keys is very prone to blockage from dust. The latest macbook pro line has solved the issue (according to apple) but the long term results are yet to be seen.

[thehacker]

My experience with Dell has been pretty bad too. My 1.5 years old Dell Inspiron 13 5370 got a swollen battery a month ago. I am having really a hard time finding the original OEM replacement battery for it. Dell Service Center wants me to handover my laptop to them for atleast 15 days! Since that was my main work laptop, giving it away for 15 days was not an option. So, I removed the battery and now using it without battery, on a UPS backup.

I have used and owned many different brand of laptops - 3 HP, 1 Apple, 2 Dell, 2 Lenevo ThinkPad, 1 Sony. Based on that, I would recommend you to consider either a MacBook or a Thinkpad X or T series. MacBooks are supremely reliable and the experience is awesome. But for certain workloads, the operating system isn't the best. Thinkpad on the other hand is extremely rugged, has the BEST keyboard, 180 degree hinge and enough ports to get the job done without external adapters.

If you don't need too much portability, you can consider gaming laptops as well - Lenevo gaming laptops have great keyboards too. Please do NOT ignore the importance of a good keyboard and touchpad.