[CliffHanger]

Originally Posted by Gannu_1

The Lenovo U310 is a fantastic Ultrabook with a Aluminium unibody construction just like the Macbook and good specs. overall except for the 4GB RAM part. Ideally 8 GB is recommended for photo/video editing as you may be working with multiple large RAW files at a time that draws a lot of memory. But there is a wireless connectivity issue that plagues this particular model (U310) since its launch.

Here’s a thread from the Lenovo forums that has run into 80 odd pages - http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/IdeaPad-...fi/td-p/790527

Connectivity drops if you are away from the router/hotspot. It appears that the internal mPCIe WiFi module is faulty but Lenovo hasn’t addressed this issue as newer owners still seem to complain about the connectivity issues. It may be best to stay away from the U310 model thus. However, a workaround is to disable the internal WiFi module and use an external USB adapter. This will however consume one USB port at all times and the adapter will jut out from the laptop like a sore thumb on an otherwise sleek looking laptop.

Avoid that HP laptop please - the specs. are on the lower side.

Leaving the portability factor aside, this would be my pick:

Flipkart - Lenovo Essential G510 (59-398343) Laptop (4th Gen Ci5/ 4GB/ 500GB/ DOS)

Add an additional stick of 4 GB DDR3 RAM for 2.3k:

Flipkart - Corsair DDR3 4 GB Laptop RAM

And you have a power-packed portable machine in under 40k. If you cannot upgrade the RAM yourself, take it to Lenovo’s showroom/service centre or any laptop service centre and they would do that as a goodwill gesture without charging you for it.

The HD 4600 iGPU is ahead of several AMD and nVidia offerings so don’t be misguided by the fact that Intel GPUs are inferior to the rest. Here’s how they fare - http://www.notebookcheck.net/Intel-H...0.86106.0.html

PS: An mSATA SSD would be a killer addition to this laptop and the difference in performance is instantly noticeable esp. if you have Windows 8 as the OS - the system boots in under 10 seconds! A decent 64GB mSATA SSD from Crucial/ Plextor retails around the 6-7k price bracket. It is a plug-n-play affair just like the memory addition.

PPS: Please avoid Croma for purchases. Their pricing relatively is on the higher side compared to other e-tailers. Croma is good for checking out the stuff in person. It is best that you order the laptop online.

Thank you for the detailed information. You made my choices simpler.

Thanks again!

[driverace]

Hi,

I have a Dell N5110- purchased in 2011 (July or something) - that is functioning really erratic these days!
Considering it is an i7 2630QM 2GHz + 4GB RAM + Nvidia 1GB GT525, my intention of buying it has been to play decent games (of 2010~2012 period) for quite some time.

Overheating:

But it has inherent overheating shutdown issues + issue with Motherboard components conking (perhaps due to heating).
So, I am aware of all the -clean the laptop/fan, update BIOS, thermal paste solutions.
Nothing of the regular available solutions worked!
I had gotten the Motherboard replaced - in 2012 Feb. for the overheating/Graphic problem.
(but the problem still continued since then..)

So - after about 6 months or so - I had stopped playing games.

This problem is turning severe now!
Even the least demanding games/photo processing is pushing the temperatures to 85~90! Idle temperatures 50~60

Wifi problems:

The wifi is really very buggy.
It frequently needs "troubleshooting" - i.e. resetting the wifi adapter action
most of the times that solves the problem - but at times I need to restart the laptop to resume wifi!
download speeds drop (even to 0) without rhyme or reason - and then resume on their own! (while my other devices are still showing good speeds)

Latest problem - erratic freeze ups!

I very clearly remember this kind of problem on my earlier Dell. It ultimately resulted in HDD replacement from Dell. Diagnostics do not detect any errors! but, the problem was so bad (earlier) that even random freeze-ups were very easy to demonstrate to the SC guy!
I notice a more-than-usual sound of HDD on the current laptop.
I suspect similar thing here.

The better news!
I just happened to check the other day - I have my warranty still OK till 17th Jan 2014!

I see - people have mostly had multiple motherboard replacements, and then finally gotten laptops replaced.

What can be a good hassle-free ( and permanent) solution to these problems?
I haven't got enough warranty to keep following through / keep calling them for replacements of motherboard.

Any information/direction/contact?

Really appreciated!

Ace.

[n.devdath]

My office had given me a lappy.
It was big and bulky Toshiba Satellite which was slow, erratic, heavy and generally inconvenient to use. Its screen would not go dark beyond a point, its track pad was quirky...the list is long.

When I had enough of it, in just over a month, I began lappy shopping.

I m not a geek and gadgets do not interest me and hence I wanted to avoid long, detailed discussions about the nitty gritties of proccessor speed, motherboard quality, thread processing rates, display colors etc and wanted a few basics out of my next lappy. The budget too, was undecided because I simply did not know the market then.

1. The best possible battery back up.
2. The best possible portability.
3. No erratic and quirky parts and pieces.
4. Reliable OS.

And thus began my search.

After a day or two, I came to know that the kind of lappies I was looking for are called Ultrabooks and they are made by most Cos' today. Since I m not very comfortable looking at things online only, I began to scout malls in trying to look at and feel some of them.

Frankly, they all looked pretty much the same to me, probably because I m not a "gadget" person, but yes, I liked the Vaio and the Lenovo better than the Samsung and the HP ones. I could not find anything light at Dell.

After this point, I went deeper and realised that an i5 with, say, 4 GB of RAM should meet my needs.

Most of these Ultrabooks cost between 55k-100k INR and hence I now put a budget cap of 70k INR for the purchase.

By the time I reached this stage in around 7 days, (budget, specs, manufacturers), I was tired and bored and was getting late.

I had to go to Delhi the next evening and did not have a lappy yet.

Finally, I decided to give Apple a chance to impress me. Walked into various malls, looked at the MBA (MacBook Air) and toyed with it. I was told that there is something called MS Office for Mac which would make my work as easy as it has been, a lot of free apps on the AppStore, a free training by Apple was thrown in...lots of stuff.

I was still undecided but yes, I liked the way the MBA looked and felt. I liked the way the windows (are they even called that by Mac??) cascaded down to the bottom, they way multiple desktops could be arranged, the funny stuff like iPhoto...the works.

Then came the $$$ part. The MBA was offered for INR 75000.00 (74,900.00 for those of you who need the exact price.). There was a 6% student discount which could not apply to me since I am not a student and wanted the invoice in my name.

This was very comparable to what most Windows based ultrabooks were being sold for.

To sweeten the deal further, I managed to get MS Office for Mac thrown in by someone I knew, and was able to get a discount of 6% as well.

The decision had been taken. It had to be the MBA 13.3 incher with the 128MB flash memory.

So, on the 8th of December 2013, I ended up being an owner of a Apple Macbook Air 13.3 purchased from the Croma Store at Koramangla, Bangalore.


Today, on the 19th of December, 2013, I am a PROUD OWNER of the Macbook Air.

So, what made me, a non gadget friendly person, transform from an owner to a PROUD OWNER?

1. Superb battery life. I get 10-11hrs with WiFi ON all the time.
2. Super quick charging time. This guy is full of juice in about 30 minutes.
3. Super quick shutdowns and start ups. While people say that one need not shut down a Mac for long durations, I still have the old practice of shutting down every evening. Is this good/bad/harmful to a Mac?
4. Superb integration of MS Office and the easy availability of all shortcuts (Chrome, VLC player, Adobe etc).
5. Superb keyboard with all the keys placed with appropriate spacing.
6. Superb portability. Very thin, very light, and very savvy to show off as well.
7. Superb reliability.Zero work/app/OS related issues faced till date.

What have I named him? "Ekalavya".

Thank you for reading such a long post.

[Aroy]

Congratulation on you Apple. My sons migrated to Apple quite some time back. With Intel processors; if you need it; you can have both Mac OS as well as windows in a dual boot configuration. The only problem with Macs is that the battery is not user replaceable, so I stick to Thinkpads.

I generally do not shutdown my laptop. I let it go into the "sleep" mode, so that is always available by just opening the lid.

[carboy]

Originally Posted by Aroy

I generally do not shutdown my laptop. I let it go into the "sleep" mode, so that is always available by just opening the lid.

Sleep consumes small amounts of power. Hibernate doesn't consume any power & reasonably quick in starting up when you open the lid (slower than sleep but much faster than booting).

[n.devdath]

Originally Posted by Aroy

The only problem with Macs is that the battery is not user replaceable, so I stick to Thinkpads.

I generally do not shutdown my laptop. I let it go into the "sleep" mode, so that is always available by just opening the lid.

Thank you.

I did consider Thinkpads too but the configuration (i5) and the form factor that appealed to me was quoted at 100K INR and hence, it was out of my budget.

Originally Posted by carboy

Sleep consumes small amounts of power. Hibernate doesn't consume any power & reasonably quick in starting up when you open the lid (slower than sleep but much faster than booting).

Ekalayva boots up in less than 2 minutes and hence I prefer to shut him down when I do not need his services for more than a couple of hours.
Had he been running Windows, I would have thought twice before shutting him down.

[carboy]

Originally Posted by n.devdath

Ekalayva boots up in less than 2 minutes and hence I prefer to shut him down when I do not need his services for more than a couple of hours.
Had he been running Windows, I would have thought twice before shutting him down.

My Thinkpad running Windows 7 also boots up in less than 2 minutes. It comes out of hibernation in about 30-40 seconds. Hibernation consumes zero power. It comes out of sleep mode in about 10 seconds. I don't I have ever shut it down. I have never restarted except when some Windows Updates require it. It's hibernate all the way - it's set to hibernate when I shut the lid & wake up when I open the lid.

[n.devdath]

Originally Posted by carboy

My Thinkpad running Windows 7 also boots up in less than 2 minutes. It comes out of hibernation in about 30-40 seconds.

That is nice to know. What is the battery back up that you have?

[deepakchiniwal]

Originally Posted by mroptimist

Does it come with India warranty? How will you manage if something goes wrong? Send it back to US?

Can you extend the warranty (2nd & 3rd year) and make it India specific?

Hello Mate, we can transfer the warranty and i am looking to transfer to India soon I have the laptop this weekend on hand.

Thanks

[mroptimist]

Originally Posted by deepakchiniwal

Hello Mate, we can transfer the warranty and i am looking to transfer to India soon I have the laptop this weekend on hand.

Thanks

I had bought an ASUS K53SM SX016D laptop from flipkart (ASUS India website did not show this model on their site then) which came with International warranty (1 yr), I then got it extended to 2 additional years through an authorized re-seller by paying 2500 INR. The additional 2 years were only India specific warranty (I didn't need International warranty since I don't travel much).

I guess you should also be able to extend the warranty by contacting the customer care of the laptop manufacturer.

Cheers.

[RonXRi94]

Hello there,

Im in the market too for a new laptop. I intend to use it for a fair bit of gaming, aoart from other college work like presentations and stuff. After a lot of research, I found a particular Dell model to be the most ideal and vfm one. Its the inspiron 14R N5437, with an i5 4200U processor, nvidia gt 740m graphics, 500gb hdd, 4gb ram.
Does anyone have this particular model? Reviews would be greatly appreciated

[manas27587]

Just have a look at the dell 7420 se on ebay... Made a lot of sense to me.
8gig ram and 2 gb graphix with an i5

[sgiitk]

@n.devadath; I have a Lenovo Flex2 which is i5 (4th gen), 4GB, 500GB (+some flash drive), 2GB NVidia, touch, Win 8 (frr upgrade to 8.1) etc. Price is about 52k (incl bag). I am pretty happy with it. The Flex2 is probably still on the Lenovo site as it was released only on 15/11.

[RonXRi94]

Originally Posted by manas27587

Just have a look at the dell 7420 se on ebay... Made a lot of sense to me.
8gig ram and 2 gb graphix with an i5

Yes I did check out this laptop, though the 3rd generation cpu and the gt640m graphics sort of didnt appeal to me. Priced at 40k, I wouldn't mind paying another 8k for the power efficient 4th gen i5 and the more capable gt740m gpu of the dell 5437. Though this one does lack a backlit keyboard, I plan to manage with a usb light.
Thanks for your suggestion though

Originally Posted by sgiitk

@n.devadath; I have a Lenovo Flex2 which is i5 (4th gen), 4GB, 500GB (+some flash drive), 2GB NVidia, touch, Win 8 (frr upgrade to 8.1) etc. Price is about 52k (incl bag). I am pretty happy with it. The Flex2 is probably still on the Lenovo site as it was released only on 15/11.

Hi there sgiitk,
Thats a great config at the price, plus the touchscreen thrown in.

I'm definitely going for this one. May I know where you bought this laptop from? I called up the Lenovo sales people, and the lady didnt have any clue of the Flex 2. Even the website does not list it, and googling it only throws up results of news sites announcing the laptop being launched.

I do not expect much info from Croma too, their sales people are the most clueless guys I've come across

[sgiitk]

Originally Posted by RonXRi94

Thats a great config at the price, plus the touchscreen thrown in.

I'm definitely going for this one. May I know where you bought this laptop from? I called up the Lenovo sales people, and the lady didnt have any clue of the Flex 2. Even the website does not list it, and googling it only throws up results of news sites announcing the laptop being launched.

Yes, I got it from the Lenovo distributor / dealer. In fact now there are three in the family, my son, myself and my son-in-law (bought in Kolkata). remember it weighs 2kg (I have a 14") with no DVD! Also, for Win 8.1 free upgrade you must first fully update Win 8.0 before the option will show up. On the 15" I think both with or without graphics card are available, and the DVD may be there.