[Torq]

Hey guys, my decade old HDD (Dell portable) is failing with unreadable sectors. Now I am looking for a portable SSD. Any suggestions? Also, would it be better to buy NVMe M.2 SSD and an enclosure for it? Does NVMe really heat up a lot?

Confused about which way to go.

[Candy$Cars]

Originally Posted by Torq

Hey guys, my decade old HDD (Dell portable) is failing with unreadable sectors. Now i am looking for a portable ssd. Any suggestions? Also, would it be better to buy nvme m.2 ssd and an enclosure for it? Does nvme really heat up a lot?
Confused about which way to go

Are you looking to for an external ssd?

The Samsung T7 Shield is very widely known and we have 4 of them at home. It is very very small.

You can also go for a NVME ssd and get an enclosure. You can save some money by going that route. Some SSDs are notorious for heat and the newer pcie gen 4 & 5 ones heat more. You can select an affordable gen 3 ssd, it is more than enough. Some enclosures (like from Orico) come with a thermal pad inside and will help in heat management.

If you can afford it, the T7 shield is a no-brainer. Simple plug & play. If you wish to save money and are feeling a bit adventurous, then the enclosure route is also fine.

[stashing_GT]

Here's what I use for my student needs -

ThinkPad E14 Gen 5
Ryzen 5 7530U
8GB RAM
512GB SSD

Portable, lightweight and durable to handle my rough college needs.

[TurboKat]

The laptop I'm currently using is a 2019 Asus TUF Gaming FX505DT.
The specs are as follows:
1. Processor - AMD Ryzen 5 3550H
2. GPU - NVIDIA GTX 1650 4GB
3. 8GB DDR4 RAM from factory(upgraded to 16 GB, 2x8 GB dual channel)
4. 512 GB NVME SSD
5. 1 TB HDD
6. Display with 120 Hz refresh rate
Price: 60k INR, in late 2019.

[5hank3r]

Originally Posted by Rahulk302

My workhorse is an Acer Nitro 5.

Here are the specs:

i7-12650H Processor
RTX 3070TI 140W 8GBVRAM
16GB RAM
1TB SSD
QHD 165Hz Screen
Price: 73k bought in Aug 2023.

3070Ti at 73k ?
Could you share where you bought it from?

[Torq]

Originally Posted by Candy$Cars

Are you looking to for an external ssd?

If you can afford it, the T7 shield is a no-brainer. Simple plug & play. If you wish to save money and are feeling a bit adventurous, then the enclosure route is also fine.

External. Yes. I bought nvme (WD Blue 1Tb) with enclosure. Can use it as an internal if and when I upgrade my laptop.
Thanks.

[Rahulk302]

Originally Posted by 5hank3r

3070Ti at 73k ?
Could you share where you bought it from?

I bought it from Flipkart. I got a great deal. I exchanged my old laptop and got discount of 11k on using HDFC credit card.

[dhruvwali]

My workhorse detailed as below -

1. MacBook M2 Pro 14 - 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD (2 years old)

2. Acer VX272U 27inch 1440p 144hz monitor with an Ergosphere freemount monitor arm. (Monitor arm in picture is the old Amazon basics one) (4 years old)

3. iPad Pro 11 m2 128GB (runs as wireless extended display to my main Mac) (5 months old)

4. Apple Magic Keyboard full-size & Magic Trackpad 2 (3.5 years old)

5. Edifier C2XD 2.1 speaker set (10 years old!)

6. Ergosphere electric Balanced pro 390 standing desk (2 months old)

7. Some logitech b250 camera (4 years old)

[VtechSupreme]

Replacing my Intel MacBook pro with a new one. Trying to decide between m1 and m2. My usage is mostly browsing 10-15 tabs at once, excel, data dashboards etc. I don't code or use any heavy editing software but need to view prototypes at times. Which one do you guys recommend? and should I upgrade to 16gb Ram?

[drGicher]

I am using a MacBook Air M1, 8 GB RAM, 256 GB SSD purchased in 2021. I'm very satisfied with its performance, integration with my iPhone (Apple Ecosystem) and easily take care of my browsing needs.

I am planning to build a gaming PC for my gaming needs next year post GTA-6 release.

[amit1agrawal]

My personal laptop is a Macbook Pro Mid 2012 model with a 13-inch screen 4GB of 1600MHz DDR3 memory & 500GB 5400-rpm hard drive. I bought it in 2016 for about 65K after some discounts on Amazon.
I later upgraded to 256 SSD and 16GB 1600MHz DDR memory which drastically improved the performance. I could even run developers' specs SAP HANA server (In-memory database) along with its associated IDE ( SAP techies would know). It cost me an additional 25k so the total cost with modifications is ~90k.

Now, I only use it occasionally for my personal work. This was the last Macbook that one could open and change the internals without affecting the warranty on other parts (Nowadays they are factory-sealed).
It's been 8 years and it still works as good as it was on day one. The only glitch is that there are colorful lines on the right part of the screen. I either connect it to an external monitor or resize the windows such that it doesn't cover the affected part. Its keyboard is the best ever; I have an Apple wireless keyboard and used many others but this is the best.


I use a Logitech MX Master 2S mouse, Apple wireless keyboard, HP E27m G4 27-inch QHD USB-C Conferencing Monitor, Jabra Elite 45 wireless headphones and Plantronics headphones, and HP Inktank wireless 410 printer (Changing to HP SmartTank 650 duplex printer) and various other smaller gadgets. I had a proper WFH setup even before COVID hit as I used to WFH many times (my family calls me gadget freak ).





WFH setup in 2021. Upgrade monitor, mouse, and printer since then.



My company has provided the HP Elitebook 830 G7 with Intel i7, 16GB RAM, 512 SSD drive, and a 13.3-inch screen. It's high on specs but due to loads of background running processes for security purposes (virus scanners, network traffic scanners, IO peripheral scanners and whatnot) it doesn't run as fast as it should. Gets the work done.

[GeeTee TSI]

HP Envy x360 2-in-1 (13-bf0063TU spec to be exact) bought in March 2023. Got it from HP physical store for around 1.18L with some freebies thrown in. A few specs which I found relevant

• 1TB SSD
• 12th Gen Evo Core i7
• 16GB DDR4
• 13.3" 2.8K OLED display
• 65W Type C charger
• Two Thunderbolt 4 ports
• 5MP HP Tru vision camera

[aravindb_0711]

Got the HP Victus 16-r0076TX in December 2023 for Rs. 76k on Amazon.

Specifications:
i5-13500HX
RTX 4050 GPU
16GB DDR5 4800MHz RAM
144Hz 16-inch screen

The performance of the laptop has been amazing, and the battery life is decent as well, considering that this is a gaming laptop. I consistently get around 5 hours of battery life when I'm using it for viewing PDFs and web browsing.

Although the laptop performs amazingly, it does come with its own niggles. I've faced some issues connecting other devices to my laptop such as:

1. My Sony headphone switching to the call mode (lower audio quality) often when connected to the laptop. Usually is resolved by toggling the microphone access on the laptop.

2. My Dell mouse worked way smoother with my old laptop. Sometimes, I'm not able to use the auxiliary programmable buttons, which requires me re-installing the driver for it.

I upgraded to this device after my 10-year-old hand-me-down HP Pavillion with a 4th gen i5 died. I destroyed it by spilling a beverage over it
Lesson learnt; I don't bring any food near my new laptop.

[dhruvwali]

Originally Posted by VtechSupreme

Replacing my Intel MacBook pro with a new one. Trying to decide between m1 and m2. My usage is mostly browsing 10-15 tabs at once, excel, data dashboards etc. I don't code or use any heavy editing software but need to view prototypes at times. Which one do you guys recommend? and should I upgrade to 16gb Ram?

I was in a similar dilemma .

I've used the intel i5 2020 MBP, intel i5 MBA 2020, intel i9 16inch MBP, m1 air , m2 air, m1 MBP, M1 Pro 14 MBP

So with the above out of the way -

M1 MBP has the touch fn bar and a better battery life.

Rest m2 is better for performance by ~20-30% and more importantly has the physical function buttons , plus newer screen dimensions (notch camera)

No butterfly keyboard issues and speakers are much better too. Plus plus has better ports connectivity!

Note - the 14 inch MBP is much heavier and bulkier than the 13inch M1 MBP.

So each has its pros and cons. I am happy with the m1pro MBP 14inch since past ~2 years.. but will probably switch to a 13 air if possible.

Oh and absolutely get the 16GB RAM , if possible 32GB - chrome is a RAM hog and my 16gb is almost consumed all the time.

[Light]

I use a low end Lenovo laptop (V15 G2 ALC) that punches far above its weight. It's connected to the power all the time but the BYD battery doesn't seem to care at all! No bulging or loss of battery life so far after almost 2 years of this abuse.

Specs:
- 6c/12t AMD Ryzen 5 5500U with Radeon Graphics @ 4.056GHz
- 16 GB RAM (8 GB stick added after purchase in a free slot). 2GB is reserved by the internal graphics and I was getting kernel panics adding 16 GB to the free slot.
- 512 GB NVMe (boot drive)
- 1 TB SATA SSD (internal drive added after purchase)
- Excellent BYD battery
- Decent trackpad and full size keyboard
- Average 1080p display but I have it hooked up to an external 4K monitor.
- Price: 34k + 6k for mods = 40k INR total

I've always found Lenovos to be well built for the price, i.e., the low end Ideapads and the high end Thinkpads. But their mid end Yogas are hot �� though.

Whereas the older Asus ROG Strix gaming laptop that cost 4x was a mess. Bad thermals meant I couldn't fully utilize the 1660 desktop graphics inside it without throttling, the trackpad was just bad from day 1 and the keyboard keys started failing after 5 years. Battery lasted an hour at most and bulged in our heat within a few months.

I don't game now, until at least I can figure out a more permanent living situation and build a desktop/workstation PC. Have quite a few games (Witcher 3 with all its DLCs, GTA V) in my Steam library that I would like to play again. ��