[tbppjpr]

Originally Posted by W.A.G.7

The primary usage of the laptop would be photo editing using Gimp, general office usage such as Word, Excel, Powerpoint and the usual Zoom/Google meets. Very rarely casual gaming but most of the times none of the 3D shooter games.

The Aspire 7 has i5-10300H, 8GB RAM, and a 512GB SSD with Nvidia GTX 1650 card. The Nitro on the other hand has a 256GB SSD, 1TB 7200 RPM HDD, and an Nvidia RTX graphics card. The processor is again an i5 10th Gen (forgot the exact model) with 8GB RAM here. The Aspire 7 comes only with an SSD. Both laptops come with the option of upgrading the memory or the SSD later on.

I would choose the one with RTX card from the above two options for bit of future proofing. Seems like you are going to be using the Windows on the laptop so 8 GB RAM will be just on the edge and you will start feeling out of juice once you start editing some heavy image files. 16GB is recommended to begin with.

Though I will suggest to look at Asus Zenbook with dual displays for the editing and content creation.

[Sentinel17]

I am currently looking to buy a laptop which will majorly be used for programming and online sessions. Gaming is not a priority.
Budget :- ₹60000
Smooth performance and good battery life is required.

Minimum Requirements
Ram :- 8 GB
Storage :- 256 SSD
A decent camera.
Graphics card is welcome.
Intel Core i5 11th gen

[NetfreakBombay]

Originally Posted by Sentinel17

... used for programming ...
Ram :- 8 GB

What stack do you use for programming .. will 8 GB enough for that ?

E.g.: Do you need to run UI + Python/Java/Node REST services + small DB ?

[Aroy]

Originally Posted by Sentinel17

I am currently looking to buy a laptop which will majorly be used for programming and online sessions. Gaming is not a priority.
Budget :- ₹60000
Smooth performance and good battery life is required.

Minimum Requirements
Ram :- 8 GB
Storage :- 256 SSD
A decent camera.
Graphics card is welcome.
Intel Core i5 11th gen

I think that 8gb RAM is too little. With RAM being relatively cheap, get at least 16GB. 32 will be better in the long run.

[PetrolRider]

I discovered my father's erstwhile laptop while visiting them in rather pretty good physical condition. It was a 2012 Acer lap-stone (yes, slightly heavier than a brick) with Intel i3 2nd generation processor and 15.4 inch screen. The battery was as expected, completely gone. Suddenly took a plunge and swap a local battery and voila it booted smoothly.

It took a week almost to upgrade the original Windows 8.1 till Windows 10 20H2 version and related all drivers and system files. Wi-FI, Bluetooth, all the USB 2 ports are all working fine. Hence, decided to restore it further, so that my son can use it for his play projects. Hence, need some advice from you guys.

RAM:
The original Intel HM77 motherboard can accommodate max 8GB DDR3 PC3 12800 1600 MHz RAM on 2 slots. On slot is already occupied with a SkHynix 4gb stick that originally shipped with the laptop. I can go for one more 4GB stick, but has very limited options now. I can find Samsung 4GB DDR3 at INR 1600 and Crucial 4GB DDR3 at INR 3000. Pretty huge difference in price, which one should I go for? Or should I just dispose the existing but absolutely fine 4GB stick and go for an 8GB one?

HDD:
Considering the limitation of original chip set, would it help replacing the original snail disk (WD HDD that runs @5200 rpm) with a 2.5" SSD? A 250GB 2.5" SSD would cost at least another 3.5k. Would it help much?

Anything else I should be looking at? I want to keep this restoration at extremely low budget and replace the parts that are absolutely needed to be replaced.

[drsingh]

Originally Posted by PetrolRider

I discovered my father's erstwhile laptop while visiting them in rather pretty good physical condition. It was a 2012 Acer lap-stone (yes, slightly heavier than a brick) with Intel i3 2nd generation processor and 15.4 inch screen.

RAM:
The original Intel HM77 motherboard can accommodate max 8GB DDR3 PC3 12800 1600 MHz RAM on 2 slots.Or should I just dispose the existing but absolutely fine 4GB stick and go for an 8GB one?

HDD:
Considering the limitation of original chip set, would it help replacing the original snail disk (WD HDD that runs @5200 rpm) with a 2.5" SSD.

You're on the right track. Get an SSD first. Install Arcolinux XFCE and that hardware will fly even with 4 gb ram.

If you insist on keeping windows, would encourage you to slim it down.

If you go the linux route, all you need to do is upgrade to SSD.

[deep_bang]

Originally Posted by PetrolRider

HDD:
Considering the limitation of original chip set, would it help replacing the original snail disk (WD HDD that runs @5200 rpm) with a 2.5" SSD? A 250GB 2.5" SSD would cost at least another 3.5k. Would it help much?

Anything else I should be looking at? I want to keep this restoration at extremely low budget and replace the parts that are absolutely needed to be replaced.

SSD will make a huge difference in the speed of boot up. I have a amd a8 based laptop made in 2015 and it was magically transformed with an SSD upgrade. In my view SSD will make it faster than ram, although they are 2 different things. So upgrade SSD first. Based on the speed you can take a call on ram. 4GB ram is not bad for basic usage.

[PetrolRider]

Originally Posted by drsingh

You're on the right track. Get an SSD first. Install Arcolinux XFCE and that hardware will fly even with 4 gb ram.

If you insist on keeping windows, would encourage you to slim it down.

If you go the linux route, all you need to do is upgrade to SSD.

Haha, I don't think my 8 year old would be too happy to get a Linux box, I would rather keep the original windows with the MS Office that it came with.

Windows is already trimmed and slimmed, need to find a way to offload some bulk that came with Acer.

Originally Posted by deep_bang

SSD will make a huge difference in the speed of boot up. I have a amd a8 based laptop made in 2015 and it was magically transformed with an SSD upgrade. In my view SSD will make it faster than ram, although they are 2 different things. So upgrade SSD first. Based on the speed you can take a call on ram. 4GB ram is not bad for basic usage.

Right now, idle RAM consumption remains at 70% and using MS Word is taking it till 85%. My kid would definitely use some basic Windows based games, so RAM upgrade is a must I guess.

Any suggestion on 2.5" SSD? Also, what all I need to clone existing HDD including the bundled OS and MS Office to the new SSD.

Thank you both of you for all you valuable comments.

[sagarpadaki]

Originally Posted by PetrolRider

Haha, I don't think my 8 year old would be too happy to get a Linux box, I would rather keep the original windows with the MS Office that it came with.

Windows is already trimmed and slimmed, need to find a way to offload some bulk that came with Acer.



Right now, idle RAM consumption remains at 70% and using MS Word is taking it till 85%. My kid would definitely use some basic Windows based games, so RAM upgrade is a must I guess.

Any suggestion on 2.5" SSD? Also, what all I need to clone existing HDD including the bundled OS and MS Office to the new SSD.

Thank you both of you for all you valuable comments.

The Samsung RAM should be good enough.

Regarding SATA SSD, go with whatever fits in your budget. Stick to reputed brands like WD, Samsung, Crucial, ADATA

[deep_bang]

Originally Posted by PetrolRider

Any suggestion on 2.5" SSD? Also, what all I need to clone existing HDD including the bundled OS and MS Office to the new SSD.

Thank you both of you for all you valuable comments.

I have got 2 Crucial 256GB drives recently. But you cant go wrong as long as you stick to some of the big names. Crucial was one of the cheaper ones and so I got that.

The first thing is to check that the drive interface is SATA. Usually it will be SATA - but its better to check as its quite old. Do this BEFORE buying the disk - obviously

I recall using this link to migrate the data:
https://in.pcmag.com/ssds/143412/how...tion-to-an-ssd

You can use any utility, but remember that when you clone, you will need both the disks to be connected to the same machine. So, assuming you will use the same laptop to clone, and you boot from the current disk/OS, you will need a SATA enclosure to house the new SATA drive. Then you can use any of the utilities to clone the disk. Also, do make sure to resize partitions etc during this time as its likely that the source drive and new drives may have different partition sizes. I ended up having the exact same partition cloned and now have some diskspace left on the new drive. I need to figureout how to resize the partitions so i get one big partition instead of 2 of them. Try not to get into this problem.

[drsingh]

Originally Posted by PetrolRider

Haha, I don't think my 8 year old would be too happy to get a Linux box, I would rather keep the original windows with the MS Office that it came with.

Windows is already trimmed and slimmed, need to find a way to offload some bulk that came with Acer.



Right now, idle RAM consumption remains at 70% and using MS Word is taking it till 85%. My kid would definitely use some basic Windows based games, so RAM upgrade is a must I guess.

Any suggestion on 2.5" SSD? Also, what all I need to clone existing HDD including the bundled OS and MS Office to the new SSD.

Thank you both of you for all you valuable comments.

My slimmed down windows 10 install idles at 1.4 gigs of ram. A Stable XFCE linux distro will idle at less than 700 MB ram.

Your 8 year old will be happy with Libreoffice. Can save to windows formats.

The graphics playback of YouTube high def content and other media will be better too with mpv.

A good way to introduce a young one to computing and debugging.

The next step would be gert him a Raspberry Pi board and let him play with hardware and software.

Instead of learning to play with Microsoft Office fonts, let him learn about how low level software works.

The next step would be to take away the mouse

But that might just come off as cruel to some people. Specially in the era of ipads with fart apps.

PM me if you want details on further slimming down a windows install.

[IshWish]

I bought a new Acer Aspire A515 laptop in April 2021 (before Delhi's lockdown) with the configuration of Intel Core i3 (11th Gen), 4 GB RAM, 1 TB HDD, Ultra Thin, and Light Body setup.
Unfortunately, I am not using this laptop at all due to my busy schedule, and having a secondary laptop at home got me thinking to sell this new laptop. If anybody is interested in buying this laptop at a relatively less rate, kindly connect with me.

[mayukh42]

Originally Posted by PetrolRider

Haha, I don't think my 8 year old would be too happy to get a Linux box, I would rather keep the original windows with the MS Office that it came with.

Windows is already trimmed and slimmed, need to find a way to offload some bulk that came with Acer.

The newer Linux distributions have pretty good UX; gone are the days when things had to be done only from command line. Though for an 8 yr old, mainstream Linux distributions might still be little overwhelming.

An SSD is the only upgrade required (apart from RAM upgrade if you want). I put a Samsung SSD on my Dad's laptop, and installed Zorin OS (which is pretty much a Windows clone on Linux), and the 2012 Lenovo z570 is very snappy. You can go for Crucial or WD too.

In Linux, you can also check Elementary OS. It comes with some kids' goodies.

Both the above are based on Ubuntu, so no issue with compatibility and package availability. You can pick the lite versions, which mostly use XFCE desktop environment.

If Windows, stick to latest Windows 10. A fresh installation (of the genuine ISO image from Microsoft website or using the Windows Media Creation Tool) on the SSD will not have any vendor bloat. As for Microsoft bloat, use some well-tested 3rd party tools like here.

Get dual channel DDR3 RAM - 2 x 4GB will give better performance than 1 x 8 GB. Since you already have a 4GB stick, go for another 4GB stick of same frequency and CAS latencies (4 numbers that look like 16-16-16-38). If you cannot get same numbers as your original, the system will pick worse of the two. Or if you have budget, you can ditch the SKHynix stick and go for 2x 4GB of same make.

But note that even then, only few games from around 10 years old will run in a playable state, with the stock Intel UHD graphics. On Linux, Steam Play using Proton is pretty good for such old games.

[JithinR]

Do members here see any decent deals in the Amazon/Flipkart sale for gaming laptops around Rs. 1L with an emphasis on performance and/or build quality?

My current laptop (that I had managed to keep using by doing a factory reset) is now typing '666666666.....' of it's own accord most of the time.

[NetfreakBombay]

Originally Posted by JithinR

gaming laptops around Rs. 1L with an emphasis on performance and/or build quality?

https://www.amazon.in/ASUS-Dash-F15-...dp/B09CCXCF7S/

This one seems pretty good and price is 1 L. You might get some money for old laptop in exchange.