[Evangelion]

Originally Posted by Shiftlock

Hi all,
A friend is looking to pick up a laptop, mainly for attending classes for her masters and light video editing. budget is 40-50k. Keeping in mind the current Amazon Prime day sale going on, what are some good suggestions for an allrounder laptop? (I'm thinking i5 or Ryzen5 would be sufficient for the use case)

Hello, if you haven't already purchased a laptop check out the new inspiron 5000 series from dell. They recently introduced it with both 11th gen intel processor and 5000 series ryzen processors. Ryzen variant with similar specifications will be slightly cheaper and usually have longer battery life. My friend recently bought this laptop. It is constructed well with metal lid and palm rest. The keyboard is also built well, the keys are tactile and have a good feedback. One advantage over the Lenovo counterparts, in this price range, is that ram modules in this laptop are user replaceable, so it can be upgraded down the line while the Lenovo laptops have soldered on ram.

link to the ryzen 5500u model of Dell inspiron 14:
https://www.dell.com/en-in/shop/lapt...cc-c782507win8

[mayankk]

I have stepped out to buy a laptop now after 7-8 years, and am completely flummoxed by what is on offer.
Need some recommendations for approximately INR 50k budget.
What I am looking for is something 13-14" in size, light.
Usage is mostly for WFH tasks only. Something that can run outlook, word, excel, PDF, teams, OneDrive and 7-8 chrome tabs simultaneously without aggravating delays. I have had an extremely experience with a Lenovo, so would like to avoid it as much as possible.
I am also looking for something that is as much future proof as possible.

Any leads?

[PetrolRider]

Originally Posted by mayankk

I have stepped out to buy a laptop now after 7-8 years, and am completely flummoxed by what is on offer.
Need some recommendations for approximately INR 50k budget.
What I am looking for is something 13-14" in size, light.
Usage is mostly for WFH tasks only. Something that can run outlook, word, excel, PDF, teams, OneDrive and 7-8 chrome tabs simultaneously without aggravating delays. I have had an extremely experience with a Lenovo, so would like to avoid it as much as possible.
I am also looking for something that is as much future proof as possible.

Any leads?

Few suggestions from my end as I just purchased one recently before the heavyweights punching in.

If you are not an avid gamer, you may skip the flamboyant AMD Ryzen series. You never mentioned what is the processing need of your "WFH" situation. Though for MS Office related task Pentium Gold or i3 suffices, as you prefer to keep your laptop for long, better to upgrade to i5. Again, if you don't game, intel built-in graphics is enough. Stick to current gen processor, i.e. intel 11th gen or Ryzen 5000 series.

8GB of DDR4 is minimum requirement, 16gb always better. Always stick to NVMe SSD as your hard drive. As you use Onedrive, a low storage fast NVMe SSD would do wonder.

Consider at-least one USB with Thunderbird 4 or atleast 3 version support. If you work outside, then you need 300 nits or more brightness in screen, else 250 nits suffice. Need not go for touch screen if you don't need them as Touch screen causes glares. Bluetooth 5 and WiFi 6 are common now. A USB type-C type fast charger will be future-proof, but not yet very common now at-least.

I considered following models, all of them cost between 55-70K.
Please note, apart from HP, rest are ultrabooks, hence nonupgradable.
1. Acer swift 3 and swift 5
2. HP Pavilion 14
3. Asus Zenbook 14

I went for the Zenbook 14.

[JMaruru]

Originally Posted by mayankk

What I am looking for is something 13-14" in size, light.
Usage is mostly for WFH tasks only. Something that can run outlook, word, excel, PDF, teams, OneDrive and 7-8 chrome tabs simultaneously without aggravating delays.
Any leads?

If you can up your budget, nothing like this laptop for WFH task.
I got this for my sister, as she does WFH and always will have multiple windows of MS Office tools/GC browser. It can be folded to work as tablet and is lightweight to be carried around the house. Battery lasts easily for 6+ hours as this has 5500U chip

https://www.dell.com/en-in/shop/2-in...p/d560470win9p

[na_agrawal]

Hello fellow mates,

I'm out in the market to buy a laptop for my dad. He's a working professional who needs one for his daily office tasks and whenever the pandemic is over, a travel companion for his 3-4 official trips across the country.

So my list of wants from a laptop are as follows -

1. Should be light weight (<2kgs), sleek and consume least amount of space in a backpack.
2. Touchscreen, this is a huge plus.
3. Atleast 512GB of storage.
4. He is a windows user. I tried to convince him for a M1 chip Mac, but he doesn't want to face the challenges of learning a Mac OS.
5. Budget is approx 1L, give or take 10k.

Features/ Specs which are irrelevant to us -

1. NVIDIA Gpu. Every salesman is like, Saar this has 4GB GARAPHIC CAARD! (Upon asking him the GPU variant, they're dumbfounded).
2. Looks, he is even ready for a dumb looking ThinkPad, should it meet the requirements at that price point.
3. Freebies, accessories included in the box, special offers, bags blah blah blah.

I have shortlisted the below models and are my views around them -

Asus Zenbook Duo 14 UX482

This laptop is a BEAUTY! Absolute head turner and more of a Maserati in a sea of laptops.
Specs are the same as others in this price range(1L) and will be enough for the usage given for the next 3 years or so. What really makes me wonder are it's ergonomics. With that second screen, and offset touchpad, I'm a bit skeptical about the hand/wrist positioning while working. What's your take on this? Anyone here who can share some insight? I did take a look in the Asus Store, but couldn't actually use it as it was not a display piece.

Dell Inspiron 14 2 in 1- 5410

No nonsense, a simple silver coloured workhorse who won't grab anyone's attention. Consider it as a LandCruiser in a sea of Full blown SUVs. People might consider it as a modified Fortuner!
Great Specs at this price point. (89k) 11th gen i7 bundled with 16GB ram is a sweet deal. Stylus is a good to have feature. Secondly, Dell's Premium support plus and on-site warranty are probably best in-class in India. But, what I'm a bit worried about this laptop is it's convertible form. I have heard people (in my extended family) that such laptops are pretty fragile in nature and tend to either break or loosen up its hinges very easily. They are expensive to replace.

Asus Zenbook UX435

Another Asus on the table but not a Maserati this time. Probably something like a Lexus ES300h. Does everything like a Camry, but then some more, but comes at a price.
At 1L for the i5, 8GB, 512GB variant, this is expensive. No two ways about that. But the form factor, size, specs, price, appearance for a 55yo dad, everything fits my bill. The additional screenpad in a good to have feature, and I know my dad will drool over it for a couple of weeks, and then, will forget that it even exists! But that definitely adds to the functionality, such as, it can turn into a touch-numpad while still being useful as a regular touchpad. BUT I feel it cannot justify it's 1L price tag.

i'm in a dilemma, and don't know which laptop should I put the trigger on. Apple is not anymore a contender here. I had many bad experiences with HP, 3 different laptops to be exact, so bye-bye HP. Dell XPS is way too expensive and MSI is primarily focused on gaming laptops. Although a friend of mine has a 70k Acer Swift, but I don't feel like putting this much money on Acer.

Cheers-NA

[JMaruru]

Originally Posted by na_agrawal

Dell Inspiron 14 2 in 1- 5410

No nonsense, a simple silver coloured workhorse who won't grab anyone's attention. Consider it as a LandCruiser in a sea of Full blown SUVs. People might consider it as a modified Fortuner!
Great Specs at this price point. (89k) 11th gen i7 bundled with 16GB ram is a sweet deal. Stylus is a good to have feature. Secondly, Dell's Premium support plus and on-site warranty are probably best in-class in India. But, what I'm a bit worried about this laptop is it's convertible form. I have heard people (in my extended family) that such laptops are pretty fragile in nature and tend to either break or loosen up its hinges very easily. They are expensive to replace.

The Dell hinges are tested 20K+ times and would easily last longer.

I recommend this below laptop for your use case and I feel AMD 5000 series is superior in almost every aspect compared to Intel CPU.

Originally Posted by JMaruru

I got this for my sister, as she does WFH and always will have multiple windows of MS Office tools/GC browser. It can be folded to work as tablet and is lightweight to be carried around the house. Battery lasts easily for 6+ hours as this has 5500U chip

https://www.dell.com/en-in/shop/2-in...p/d560470win9p

[StepUP!]

Hello guys, please suggest me which laptop to go for.
Home usage - occasional running of IDE Anaconda, surfing, video calls on Teams, document, presentation editing. No games.
I want a premium looking, light weight, well built laptop. Minimum or no bazels. Not looking for touch.
Preferably Dell or HP.
Specs I am considering are 11th gen i5 / Ryzen 5, 16 GB RAM, SSD, pre installed Windows 10 and office.

I quite liked HP Pavillion and Envy series, Dell Inspiron but not happy with screen bazels. I want a complete glass, seamless borders.

Kindly suggest, if I am considering right specs and any other model I should consider.

Maximum budget is 80-90k. Thank you!

[drivingmelody]

Originally Posted by StepUP!

I quite liked HP Pavillion and Envy series, Dell Inspiron but not happy with screen bazels. I want a complete glass, seamless borders.

Kindly suggest, if I am considering right specs and any other model I should consider.

Maximum budget is 80-90k. Thank you!

You can try out the lenovo model
https://www.lenovo.com/in/en/laptops.../p/88IPS501391

The model can be customised.

We had purchased an earlier version of this model. It's working like a charm from last one year.

[1lokesh]

Hi experts,

I recently bought an HP gaming laptop (HP 15 EC0043 R5) basis cajoling of my dear son. Frankly, even I used to be an avid gamer in my youth so I don't regret the decision, its a really good laptop with great configuration. Just falling maybe a wee bit short on RAM (it has 8GB).

Now I am thinking of upgrading the RAM to 16GB and wondering how do I go for it without the risk of damaging the warranty. Does anyone know if HP guys do it on-site? Their Customer Care (endless wait) or website were not clear on this part. Seek help from you all here who have experience in this kind of an upgrade with HP or know anything about it.

Thanks,
LK

[whencut86]

Originally Posted by StepUP!

Hello guys, please suggest me which laptop to go for.
Home usage - occasional running of IDE Anaconda, surfing, video calls on Teams, document, presentation editing. No games.
I want a premium looking, light weight, well built laptop. Minimum or no bazels. Not looking for touch.
Preferably Dell or HP.
Specs I am considering are 11th gen i5 / Ryzen 5, 16 GB RAM, SSD, pre installed Windows 10 and office.

Originally Posted by na_agrawal

Hello fellow mates,
I'm out in the market to buy a laptop for my dad. He's a working professional who needs one for his daily office tasks and whenever the pandemic is over, a travel companion for his 3-4 official trips across the country.

https://www.amazon.in/dp/B09BBG59JR/...v_ov_lig_dp_it

https://www.amazon.in/dp/B09BBG391G/...v_ov_lig_dp_it

There are couple of options from Dell in both Inspiron and Vostro with Ryzen R5 5500 hexa core processor which is better than the i5 11th gen series.

The Lenovo Yoga 7 Slim also has some good reviews on youtube.
https://www.lenovo.com/in/en/laptops...SAAEgKRLfD_BwE

Originally Posted by 1lokesh

Hi experts,

I recently bought an HP gaming laptop (HP 15 EC0043 R5) basis cajoling of my dear son. Frankly, even I used to be an avid gamer in my youth so I don't regret the decision, its a really good laptop with great configuration. Just falling maybe a wee bit short on RAM (it has 8GB).

Now I am thinking of upgrading the RAM to 16GB and wondering how do I go for it without the risk of damaging the warranty. Does anyone know if HP guys do it on-site? Their Customer Care (endless wait) or website were not clear on this part. Seek help from you all here who have experience in this kind of an upgrade with HP or know anything about it.

Thanks,
LK

You can add a ram of HDD/SSD by yourself and it would not void warranty. But best way is to take it to nearest HP Authorized service center and get it done by them. If they have anything in stock best to get it done there or you can buy the HDD/SSD from outside and get it installed by them. I had asked this on Amazon and I got this response from a HP support representative on Amazon.

[the_joker]

I had an old (mid 2012 Macbook Pro) that I had upgraded (RAM and SSD). That macbook gave me great service. Recently, it started giving me some issues such as intermittent hanging and frequent wireless connection drops. I needed to replace it. My criteria:

1. Full HD screen
2. Decent processor (at least Intel core i5)
3. SSD and option to upgrade it.
4. 16 GB RAM (Or at least the option to upgrade to 16 GB)
5. No need for external graphics. I'm not a gamer, the most demanding thing I would do with this would be photo editing and programming.
6. I usually run Linux on my personal machines, so ideally the components must be supported well (meaning no broadcom/Realtek wireless card - ideally Intel, No Nvidia graphics)
7. No need for touchscreen/stylus support/2-in-1's/thin and light.

I recently bought an Acer travelmate P215-53. It cost me 58k(before exchange). Why did I go for this instead of other brands/models?

1. Business class laptops are usually better than consumer class with ease of access in case I need to upgrade RAM/HDD etc. This is certainly not a full blown business laptop like Lenovo thinkpad/HP Elitebook/Dell Latitude. Acer travelmate is a semi business class like Dell Vostro and HP Probook.
2. I found many HP's, Dell Inspirons and Lenovo Ideapad slims in the same price range, and one Dell Vostro in the same price range.
3. The HP's all had Realtek wifi cards. There were some issues reported online with Realtek cards in linux.
4. For the Dell Inspiron and Ideapad slim, it wasn't clear if they had 2 DIMM slots or 1. Many had just 1. This is limiting in terms of RAM upgrade. Acer has 2.
5. Many of them had soldered storage - no upgrade option. Acer has an M.2 slot.
6. In the price range, others had 8 GB RAM/256 GB SSD. Acer has 16 GB RAM /512 GB SSD.
7. I found another Dell Vostro, but it had a Nvidia Graphics card. So, I didn't opt for it.
8. I have had good experience with Acer laptops in the past. My first was an basic Celeron laptop that lasted 6 years (It would have lasted longer, but it was very weak in performance), then I had an Acer netbook which I handed to my Dad. He used it for ~6 years. So, I wasn't concerned with the brand image. All the recommendations I got were for a Lenovo. People were generally negative towards Acer.
9. It has a privacy shutter for the webcam- wasn't important to me but an important feature

Now the not so good parts:

1. No fingerprint reader.
2. Not flashy. It is black/grey and look like a business laptop. Actually this was a plus point for me.
3. The numpad is compressed.
4. Keyboard/display are decent for the price, but you can certainly get better displays if you forego the specs at this price point.

Amazon offered 16.65k for the Macbook Pro (for the exchange), so I exchanged it I had paid about 57k for it in March 2015 (It was marked down because the model was old), so I think I got a great deal. If anybody is interested, here is the Amazon Link

It came with Windows 10 Home. I've installed Fedora on it, and everything is working great - even the function keys.

[steadfast]

Need help for my Dell laptop screen!

I have Dell Inspiron 7359 purchased in Dec 2015. Its screen has become half green. I connected the laptop to my TV and the display is good so definitely there is a hardware problem. I reached out to Dell support and they refused support for products more than 5 years old.

Need suggestions on possible reasons, DIY solutions and next steps. Laptop is in perfect condition otherwise.

Attaching image for reference.

Thanks!

[crashnburn_in]

Originally Posted by steadfast

Need help for my Dell laptop screen!
====
Attaching image for reference.

Thanks!

That's definitely a GPU issue.

Whats typically suggested is to check and do a Reflow and/ or Reballing of the GPU chip on the board.

Google it.. read up.. pose any questions once you've got yourself acquainted with what these processes are.

[the_joker]

Originally Posted by steadfast

Need help for my Dell laptop screen!


...

Thanks!

You can try a few fixes. I will list them in order of ease of fix:

1. Easiest is a driver issue. Reinstall the driver, or try with a different OS. You can boot into a Linux live USB to check if this issue persists.
2. Use a monitor as the main display.
3. Display cable has come loose. You can try to reseat it.
4. Display cable is spoilt. It would be difficult to source this cable, as it is usually custom made. But if you can source, you can replace easily.
5. Graphics chip is spoilt. Usually this can be fixed only by replacing. Pretty much impossible to do.

[sandeepmohan]

Technical Question.

I have an Asus FX505D. Had an accidental spill of Coca Cola on to the keyboard. A few keys and the number keys directly above them, T to I, no longer have a proper key stroke. Its as if they have gummed up inside which is to be expected with anything that has sugar. The key and background led lamps still work. If you type fast, hitting these keys break your momentum as you feel a key stroke has not registered.

What is the risk to spraying a little WD40 on these keys, in hope that they would free up? Is this an action that I'd rather avoid as the keys still work?

I thought of prying open the laptop, the initial part of which is easy. I soon realized that getting down to the keyboard is an absolute nightmare and requires pulling out the motherboard.