[Big Smoke]

Originally Posted by AYP

As far as customer care is concerned, you will find negative reviews for almost every brand, especially MSI. It is then followed by ASUS and then Acer and Dell. Customer care for laptops in general is poor in India. HP seems like the only exception. Hence, I would personally only avoid MSI. Other than HP, every other brand can be put in the same bracket in terms of service.

Will advise you to search for customer service reviews in this subreddit- https://www.reddit.com/r/IndianGaming/

You may go through these links-

https://www.unboxparadigm.com/gaming

https://www.unboxparadigm.com/gaming-laptops

Having gone through the links provided by you, I would agree with you. Even if I overlook the customer service part, the base CPU speed of 2.25 GHz is a downer. But still, it's a very powerful laptop overall.

Isn't there any other laptop sub 1.2 lakhs that is worth considering? I don't exactly want to be spoilt for choice, but I definitely expected more than one option which would meet my criteria.

Thanks in advance!

[tbppjpr]

Originally Posted by Big Smoke

Requirements-[list][*]Should be a decent upgrade to my current laptop. It shouldn't fall behind in any aspect, albeit some small bits can be overlooked.

Every-bit will be an upgrade in a new gen laptop compared to your existing one, except the upgradability and repairability.

[*]Should have good build quality.

Look at the Dell Latitude Rugged series and see if they fit the bill.

[*]Should have at least DDR4 RAM (preferably DDR6 or DDR5).

Next gen AM5 socket of AMD will support DDR5 RAM which is supposed to debut in 2022 so effectively you will have to wait till 2023 for laptops with DDR5 RAM and probably till 2028 for the DDR6 RAM. DDR4 is the only option right now.

[*]Base CPU speed should be at least 2.5 GHz.

Measuring CPU performance using the clock speed is now a thing of ancient past. My existing workhorse desktop with 8 core AMD FX 8350 (overclocked liquid cooling) clocks at 4.2GHz but a new gen Ryzen 5600x having 6 core clocking at barely 3.7 Ghz beats it hands down in every aspect. There are lot of other factors which affect the CPU performance.

[*]Should have at least 2GB dedicated Graphics (Intel is not preferred unless exceptional cases arise).

These days dual GPU is the mainstream concept in laptops where efficient Intel GPUs are coupled with high performance nVidia or AMD GPUs. When you need performance, the dedicated GPU can bear the load and when you need efficiency during mobile usage then the Intel GPU (or other equivalent integrated GPU) serves the purpose. So you can't and you shouldn't overlook the importance of efficient integrated GPUs, laptops are meant for mobile usage afterall where you expect batteries to keep working for longer hours.

[*]SSD or HDD, doesn't matter.

It matters by huge margin. A SSD can bring new life to decade old laptop and a HDD can ruin the user experience in new gen laptop having high end specs. Atleast primary boot drive has to be SSD.

[*]Speakers are not a big deal, can be of any brand.

Off-course, small speakers packed in plastic housing always sound bad, no matter how much they are hyped.

[*]Webcam is a must.

Wait, are there options available without webcams in laptops? Well not in mainstream atleast.

[*]Screen size should be min. 14''

I have had hard time finding anything less than 14" for my BIL when he was searching for something lightweight and compact fitting in his budget. Finally had to settle with a 14" only.

[*]4K display is desirable. Its absence is not a dealbreaker though.

4K means you will have to get a GPU with much higher specs than the one you need for FHD. You mentioned the budget of 1.2 lakh, and 4K laptops in that kind budget usually come with cheap 4K panels which are not suitable for the apps like Adobe Illustrator you mentioned in your usage pattern. Even if you mange to get a decent 4K panel in that kind of budget then you will have to compromise on some other spec which will spoil the user experience in longer run.

[*]Good cooling. No abnormal overheating issues.

Despite all the marketing gimmicks and hypes, laptops can't compete desktops in cooling department, especially during long session with stressful tasks. Though there are some gaming grade laptops available with MSI, Asus and many other brands, but they are bulky and ugly looking.

[*]Should have reasonably good after-sales support.

In my experience Lenovo has one of the best after sales service but their laptops are least recommended by me (personal experience).

[*]Should be good looking (premium looks are preferred).

Asus Zenbooks are gorgeous looking, Dell also has similarly beautiful options and same are available in the stable of HP. But wait, you talked about high end GPU, cooling and build quality, are you willing to compromise with any of them?

Usage Pattern:-

The laptop will majorly be used for online classes, coding & studies. I have recently started my journey in AI & ML and currently use Octave. I'm learning Python as well, and doing research on how to learn Tensorflow.
I currently do very basic coding. But in the near future, the level would increase exponentially and I want the laptop to be able to hold up smoothly.

I am also proficient in Adobe Illustrator, which is a particularly heavy application for my laptop. My current laptop is at its peak when I run the app. I want the new laptop to handle the app without breaking a sweat.

You can easily get a decent laptop in your budget which will keep serving you for years in the above usage case scenario. But...

I play games occasionally, only when the daily grinding becomes unbearable. But I enjoy gaming and do like to play latest games. With the ever-growing insane requirements the latest games demand, I want my laptop to live up to the requirements for at least some years in the future.

Casual gaming of 15-30 minutes is okay on laptops but I don't recommend serious gaming even on dedicated gaming laptops. Desktops are best suited for such tasks. Not only the performance but the focus and ergonomics required for gaming or other stressful long sessions demand a dedicated desktop. Freedom of future expendability and upgradability are added advantage with the desktop. And the feel of using those fast responding mechanical keyboards and precise mice is just a boon.

So if mobility is not your priority then consider a desktop, you will get far for the money you will spend on a laptop. Keep your existing laptop, do some upgrades like installing SSD and increasing RAM and use it when you need mobility.

[Big Smoke]

Thanks for the detailed response! Got to know many new things from your post.
I'll answer/clarify some parts from your post-

Originally Posted by tbppjpr

Asus Zenbooks are gorgeous looking, Dell also has similarly beautiful options and same are available in the stable of HP. But wait, you talked about high end GPU, cooling and build quality, are you willing to compromise with any of them?

For better looks, yes I'm willing to compromise a bit on the above mentioned factors.

You can easily get a decent laptop in that budget which serve you for years for the above usage case.

This has to be the principle consideration for my new laptop. The gaming part can be overlooked upon.

So if mobility is not your priority then consider a desktop, you will get far for the money you will spend on a laptop. Keep your existing laptop, do some upgrades like installing SSD and increasing RAM and use it when you need mobility.

Sadly, desktop is not an option. It has to be a laptop.

Thanks once again!

[AYP]

Originally Posted by Big Smoke

Having gone through the links provided by you, I would agree with you. Even if I overlook the customer service part, the base CPU speed of 2.25 GHz is a downer. But still, it's a very powerful laptop overall.

Isn't there any other laptop sub 1.2 lakhs that is worth considering? I don't exactly want to be spoilt for choice, but I definitely expected more than one option which would meet my criteria.

Thanks in advance!

These are some other suggestions-

1. https://www.flipkart.com/asus-rog-st...01622792698290

2. https://www.flipkart.com/asus-tuf-da...01622792698290

3. https://www.flipkart.com/hp-core-i7-...01622792698290

4. https://www.amazon.in/HP-Processor-1...mputers&sr=1-8

5. https://www.amazon.in/ASUS-Graphics-...mputers&sr=1-1

6. https://www.amazon.in/Lenovo-15-6-in...mputers&sr=1-2

My personal suggestion would be to stick to the Acer or stretch all the way for the HP(3rd link-Flipkart).

Originally Posted by Big Smoke

Thanks for the detailed response! Got to know many new things from your post.
I'll answer/clarify some parts from your post-



For better looks, yes I'm willing to compromise a bit on the above mentioned factors.



This has to be the principle consideration for my new laptop. The gaming part can be overlooked upon.

The Vivobook in general have weak GPUs. So Asus ROG might be a better middle ground.

[tbppjpr]

Originally Posted by Big Smoke

For better looks, yes I'm willing to compromise a bit on the above mentioned factors.

I suggested few laptop series options from various brands in my previous post, seems you overlooked while reading it in hurry. Anyways, here is one specific option with the below specs:

1. US MIL-STD 810G military-grade standard
2. 1.17 kg
3. 100% sRGB display in 14" size.
4. 512 GB M.2 nvme drive.
5. 16GB RAM clocked at 4267 Mhz (RAM in your existing laptop is clocked at 1200-1300Mhz)
6. OEM Windows and Office.
7. 11th gen i7 CPU.
8. Touchpad doubles as numpad - nifty Asus feature.

All this is currently available at 96K on Amazon. (precise model name - UX425EA-BM701TS)

[akhil994]

Originally Posted by no_boundaries

I'm looking to replace my 2012 MacBook Pro. Its become painfully slow and heats up a lot, even the charger.

I'm seriously considering the Asus Zen Book 425EA with 11th Generation i5 to replace my machine that will be primarily used for work and online classes for my 5 year old.

I briefly considered the Thinkpad E15 but it wasn't too different compared to my wife's Lenovo S540 (except the 11th Gen i5 and all metal body on S540).

How is the ZenBook in your experience ?

Try upgrading the RAM and HDD to SSD and see how it works wonders. I am using a 2012 Macbook Pro as well and just went ahead with the upgrades. It is good to go for at least a couple of years if not more now. Can stay as a backup laptop for future use.

My current laptop has 16GB Crucial RAM and 500 GB SSD. Smooth performance, just as new.

[Coyote]

Hi,

I currently own a Lenovo U Series with the following configuration: i7 (5th Gen) 5500U @ 2.4 Ghz, 8 GB RAM, 1 TB HDD. In a couple of months, it will be 6 years old.

I have been experiencing issues for a while (read 1-2 years) - LOUD fan sound, slowing system and couple of instances of BSOD. These issues have been getting worse with every system update - Windows 10.

When I last checked with Lenovo service centre (of which there is only one in Bangalore), they said they would need to hold on to the laptop for 7 days just to diagnose the issue, with additional days to fix whatever the issue is. I cannot afford to have that kind of downtime, so the repair plan was shelved.

Now, I have been looking at the M1 chip Macbook Air 512 GB SSD, which is available on Amazon right now for about 1 Lakh after exchanging my current laptop.

However, before I drop a cool lakh, I figured I would seek some advice from people that are tech savvy, as I am more of a tech novice myself.

My use case: I use MS Word, and Adobe Acrobat extensively. I also usually have about 3 - 4 separate windows open on Google Chrome, each with about 3 and sometimes up to 10 tabs. These are used to load mails, documents, videos, google drive products, trading activities, SaaS portals, zoom/conference calls, and general browsing. In addition, I use other software such as paint, excel, and PPT, often when these tabs are open.

As you may guess, most of my usage is with standard software and I rarely use anything not mentioned here.

My summary of my requirements is as below:

1. Light.
2. Fast.
3. Good battery backup.
4. Reliable.
5. Easy to use arrow keys - I scroll and edit documents extensively.
6. Future proof as much as possible. (I thought the i7 would last me longer, but I guess 6 years is okay-ish)

I am in a quandary, and the following are the questions I would request help with:

1. What are the options available to me around 1 to 1.2 lakh range?

2. If there is a product that is price point, please feel free to recommend that as well.

3. What should I be concerned about with the Macbook Air?

4. If I try to repair/upgrade my current setup to make it usable for the next 2 years with the above requirement in mind, how much would it cost? How long would it take?

[tbppjpr]

Originally Posted by Coyote

I have been experiencing issues for a while (read 1-2 years) - LOUD fan sound, slowing system and couple of instances of BSOD. These issues have been getting worse with every system update - Windows 10.

Loud fan noise means some dirt may have piled up in the vents and fan. Clean that using vacuum cleaner or air blower. Maybe you need to open the bottom panel which is not any big task.

Windows OS is always an overkill on any system for routine tasks. it is coupled with lot of useless things which occupy lot of resources. Its just a re skinned version of Windows 7 instead of a completely new OS and MS kept adding new feature on it which made this OS super heavy. All this makes its a mess which worsens with OEM versions where manufacturers put their own layer of bloatware with millions of unnecessary partitions on the hard disk drive.

I always suggest everyone to use Linux as long as you don't need any Windows specific software. Windows 10 needs atleast 3-4 GB of RAM on the first time boot whereas a decent Linux distro occupies barely 600MB to 1.2GB of RAM on the same system. All the resources are left free for the user to use in other tasks.

Anyways, if you want to keep using Windows then your best bet would be to take backup of your data and completely format the hard disk, erase all the partitions and install the clean version of Windows downloaded from Microsoft website. It will automatically be activated using the key which is embedded in your laptop. This is what I do or suggest others whenever I buy any system with OEM Windows - completely format the hard disk on the very first day and install clean Windows.

Most of the drivers will be automatically installed with when you first time update the Windows and rest can be downloaded from Lenovo website.

I am in a quandary, and the following are the questions I would request help with:

1. What are the options available to me around 1 to 1.2 lakh range?
..
..

Check my previous posts on this page.

4. If I try to repair/upgrade my current setup to make it usable for the next 2 years with the above requirement in mind, how much would it cost? How long would it take?

It may not even cost anything if the above suggestions work out for you. Rather I would advise to keep using your existing laptop for atleast 2 years if you don't find any serious hardware issue with it becasue the next generations of computers with DDR5 RAM and PCIE 5.0 are just going to be introduced in the 2022, so that would be better time for an upgrade.

Still here are few worthy upgrades you can consider right now in case you don't find any serious hardware issue in your existing laptop. First of them would be to replace your existing HDD with SSD which will make a huge difference, especially in case of having Windows as your OS. Second would be to upgrade the RAM to minimum of 8GB in case it has less than that. If already got 8GB then you are good to go for few more years.

[naveenvenkatesh]

My 2016 HP Specter is showing its age now. Nothing inherently wrong with the laptop. It is an i7,8GB RAM with 256 GB SSD. Seems to work well for regular to heavy web browsing, document editing etc. But seems to struggle with Lightroom. I have recently moved to a full frame camera and each RAW file is about 50MB. And i usually have about upwards of 500 in a single memory card. Editing these files is painful. Unfortunately. the RAM is soldered onto the MB so cannot upgrade.
Thinking of upgrading the SSD to atleast 1 TB.
Daughter needs a laptop eventually. She is in 4th STD now and has an iPad air 2. But very soon, her assignment would have to be typed. I think she can use this laptop for anther 5 years, if not more.

Been reading and watching about the M1 chips and Adobe Optimized Lightroom for M1 chips and the outrageous speeds on those machine. Checked apple india and Macbook Air 16GB, 1TB SSD is a cool 38K more than the US price Where is this world coming to?
I bought the 12.9 inch Ipad Pro last year on Amazon India and it was very close to US price (infact, if you consider the cashback etc, it might have been about 1-2K cheaper than the US version).
I wonder why there is such a big price gap between apple USA and apple India.
Need to check for any friends/relatives who might be traveling back to India

[JMaruru]

Originally Posted by Joxster

If going for a laptop with an AMD Ryzen processor, then it should be the new 4000 series AMD processors.

Now, when I see the dell site for 'Inspiron' models, can see some with AMD 5000 series processors. How much of a difference is this with 4000 series and is it worth going for 5000 series?

I am looking for a laptop model with below config to be bought in US:

-AMD Ryzen 4000U/5000U processors
-15" Full HD Display
-Windows Pro
-16GB DDR4 RAM(Upgradeable)
-=>512GB SSD
-Backlit Keyboard
-Good Speakers
-Replaceable Battery

[Joxster]

Originally Posted by JMaruru

Now, when I see the dell site for 'Inspiron' models, can see some with AMD 5000 series processors. How much of a difference is this with 4000 series and is it worth going for 5000 series?

Both the 4000 & 5000 series of AMD Ryzen CPUs are good, with the 5000 series having a 19% IPC (Instructions Per Cycle) uplift over the 4000 series which translates to more speed and efficiency.

Whether it's worth it depends on the price difference and what you want to be honest. Can you share two models with the configurations you're looking at along with the price?

Cheers

[ramki067]

Guys, Looking to buy a laptop with max 45k budget. Earlier had age old Dell Inspiron i3 which struggled to load and use Microsoft Teams and frequent hanging issues. Going to purchase should be user friendly with Teams and a little bit of games to my little one. SDD - preferably 1TB, 4 to 8 GB RAM. Intel i7 is enough? Plz suggest.
Thanks.

[JMaruru]

Originally Posted by Joxster

Whether it's worth it depends on the price difference and what you want to be honest. Can you share two models with the configurations you're looking at along with the price?

The 4000 series is of 14" display and so ruled that out.

Please find below the one am closely looking at. It ticks almost everything except the OS where I wanted 'Pro' and it comes with 'Home' edition. Had a chat with customer service and they say, this line comes default with 'Home' edition. Also, one with 1TB SSD has delivery date of 07/22 and so ruled out.

BTW, this would be my work laptop, where in I would be running standalone ERP apps. NO games.

Please advise!

[Joxster]

Originally Posted by JMaruru

Please find below the one am closely looking at. .

Looks good for the intended purpose!

It's a pity that the 1TB version wasn't available right now.

Originally Posted by JMaruru

It ticks almost everything except the OS where I wanted 'Pro' and it comes with 'Home' edition. Had a chat with customer service and they say, this line comes default with 'Home' edition

Strange because they have this laptop available with Windows 10 Pro here. However, you can purchase a Windows 10 Pro license key online. Once you change the license key on the laptop, Windows will add the missing features to make it a Pro installation.

Not sure about trustworthy online stores where you are, but here is an example of one where I am, and it's quite cheap honestly.

Cheers

[amitk26]

Little digression from question you asked but I had same issues with Teams on age old core i5 laptop for junior , swapped HDD with 500GB SSD and with same 4GB RAM now Teams and everything is else is quite responsive. Next in line is RAM upgrade to 8 or 16GB.

PS: did a clean windows 10 OS install on SSD with same product key instead of cloning the disk this improves performance a lot as windows registry accumulates lot of junk over time and slows down

Originally Posted by ramki067

Guys, Looking to buy a laptop with max 45k budget. Earlier had age old Dell Inspiron i3 which struggled to load and use Microsoft Teams and frequent hanging issues. Going to purchase should be user friendly with Teams and a little bit of games to my little one. SDD - preferably 1TB, 4 to 8 GB RAM. Intel i7 is enough? Plz suggest.
Thanks.