[a4anurag]

Originally Posted by Joxster

Do let me know if you have further questions.

How do you rate the Asus Zephyrus G14 laptop for home usage plus gaming needs too?!

Currently using Dell Inspiron 15R 7520 SE for the past 7 years with the below specs: -
RAM: 8GB DDR3, 1600 MHz
CPU: Intel Core i7-3612QM
GPU: AMD Radeon HD 7730M (2GB DDR3)
HDD: Western Digital - 1TB (5400 rpm)
Display: 15.6”, Full HD (1920 x 1080)
Battery: 48 Wh, Lithium-Ion, 6-cell
OS (64bit): Windows 10.

[Miyata]

Originally Posted by JMaruru

some places online, where I can look for Ryzen 4000 series laptops.

One the places I used to keep an eye on - edealinfo:

https://www.edealinfo.com/deals/categories/laptoppc.php


There used to be another website deals2buy; It appears to not be functional when I just checked.

If there's no rush, one of the good times to buy is during those back-to-school sales (end July / early August). The three dell latitudes I've bought were during these sale and really sweet deal!

[jkrishnakj]

All - Need some help / inputs. The need to buy a home PC/Laptop is very high now. The missus doesnt want windows desktops/PC. I was then inclined for a MacBook. When i started doing very initial prelim research online, i find that the iMac looks beautiful and may be apt for home.

Our usage is for Home strictly, a little games on and off, some music / streaming and for online classes for my son.

What would the gurus recommend - the imac or the Macbook and also, please do recommend the models also. My budget is about 1L, and i plan to do this purchase towards the end of May 2020.

Thank you in advance

[joslicx]

Originally Posted by jkrishnakj

What would the gurus recommend - the imac or the Macbook and also, please do recommend the models also. My budget is about 1L, and i plan to do this purchase towards the end of May 2020.

Thank you in advance

1L budget you won't have too many options in the Apple world.
Maybe just the base Macbook air model.

Whatever you buy, macook/iMac, go with SSD only. Older cheaper iMacs might not have SSD so that is something to watch out for.

Another good option could be getting the new iPad Pro. It could all the purposes easily for years.

[anandhsub]

I also need to buy a laptop as soon as possible, latest by end May. I have never used a laptop hence have no idea of the tech specs required.

To give an example of my need, at work we currently run both an ancient Intel xeon w3550 cpu as well as a newer version ( i think it is an E-22XX). The old one is slightly lagging and is more of a backup system but the new one works fairly fine.

For a laptop i am ok with the type of performance the old one offers, but would prefer something better than that.

The min hardware requirement also asks for a dedicated graphics card.

What are the best laptops i can get in a 75K budget? Can stretch a bit a bit but not too much.

[revvharder]

Originally Posted by anandhsub

What are the best laptops i can get in a 75K budget? Can stretch a bit a bit but not too much.

HP Pavilion Core i5 9th Gen - (8 GB/1 TB HDD/Windows 10 Home/3 GB Graphics/NVIDIA Geforce GTX 1050) 15-bc515TX
http://dl.flipkart.com/dl/hp-pavilio...oduct.share.pp

See if this one fits your requirements. Have been using an HP i5 laptop past 7 years only thing that required a change was the battery.

[Joxster]

Originally Posted by a4anurag

How do you rate the Asus Zephyrus G14 laptop for home usage plus gaming needs too?!

Currently using Dell Inspiron 15R 7520 SE for the past 7 years.

It will be a massive upgrade for you! Performance-wise the CPU is on par with some desktop CPUs. What kind of games do you intend to play? If you're happy playing games on your current laptop, you're going to be out of your mind playing games on the Zephyrus G14.

Depending on what configuration you order, below would be the possible specifications (taken from here):

RAM: 16GB DDR4, 3200MHz
CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 4900HS
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 (6GB GDDR6)
HDD: 512GB / 1TB M.2 NVMe PCIe 3.0
Display: 14, FHD / QHD (1920 x 1080 / 2560 x 1440) available also in 60Hz / 120Hz
Battery: Lithium-Ion, 4-cell, 10 hours

Originally Posted by jkrishnakj

Our usage is for Home strictly, a little games on and off, some music / streaming and for online classes for my son.

What would the gurus recommend - the imac or the Macbook and also, please do recommend the models also. My budget is about 1L, and i plan to do this purchase towards the end of May 2020.

As mentioned by joslicx, 1L will not get you much in the Apple world. Also, if you talk about gaming (even occasionally), then forget about Apple. There are very few games compatible with Mac. Are you sure that you want to only go for an Apple device?

Originally Posted by anandhsub

I also need to buy a laptop as soon as possible, latest by end May.

The min hardware requirement also asks for a dedicated graphics card.

What are the best laptops i can get in a 75K budget? Can stretch a bit a bit but not too much.

Since you cannot wait, my recommendation about the best that you can buy right now in that price-range would be something like this: Lenovo Legion Y540. It's the top of the line 9th-gen Intel i7 processor, and the most powerful one that you can get in your price-range currently. Since your requirement is more workstation-oriented, I recommend that if your budget allows, you add another 8GB of RAM.

Originally Posted by revvharder

HP Pavilion Core i5 9th Gen - (8 GB/1 TB HDD/Windows 10 Home/3 GB Graphics/NVIDIA Geforce GTX 1050) 15-bc515TX

No offense meant at all mate, but he has a budget of 75k. Why would you suggest a mid-range laptop that costs 50k and be outdated even sooner?

Cheers

[Aroy]

Originally Posted by jkrishnakj

All - Need some help / inputs. The need to buy a home PC/Laptop is very high now. The missus doesnt want windows desktops/PC. I was then inclined for a MacBook. When i started doing very initial prelim research online, i find that the iMac looks beautiful and may be apt for home.

Our usage is for Home strictly, a little games on and off, some music / streaming and for online classes for my son.

What would the gurus recommend - the imac or the Macbook and also, please do recommend the models also. My budget is about 1L, and i plan to do this purchase towards the end of May 2020.

Thank you in advance

Apple products are expensive and have a built in obsolescence (around 3 years).

You can always get a Windows machine at half the price. The problem with Apple is that
. The memory is soldered so you cannot change/upgrade it.
. The battery is soldered, again you cannot change it.

The saving grace is that it works flawlessly, other wise a windows laptop from HP, Lenovo or Dell will be more value for money.

By the way my elder son bought the top of the line Apple laptop for nearly USD 4,000/ three months ago (32GB RAM, SSD and Apple care for India), but I prefer Windows Desktop.

[anandhsub]

Originally Posted by Joxster

Since you cannot wait, my recommendation about the best that you can buy right now in that price-range would be something like this: Lenovo Legion Y540. It's the top of the line 9th-gen Intel i7 processor, and the most powerful one that you can get in your price-range currently. Since your requirement is more workstation-oriented, I recommend that if your budget allows, you add another 8GB of RAM.

Thank you. This looks perfect for my budget although will have to see if it is available (at the same price) at a brick and mortar shop since ecommerce is still banned here. Will get the 16gb version if available.

Had never thought about gaming laptops and was looking for more in the Ideapad/Inspiron range with the the 10th Gen processors but was getting very confused with what kind of performance I need.. But on researching more I see that this 9th gen i7 is far more powerful.

Only issue I see is I need to check with my IT if Windows 10 Professional is a must for whatever work that needs to be done. Given my office is NOT paying for this it shouldn't be

[girishv]

I bought my second Mac book pro around five years back, mid 2012 unibody for 52k. Since then I have updated the hard disk to ssd, moved the OEM hard disk to DVD drive, maximized RAM to 16 GB all by myself.
It's running Catalina now and can give a run for latest mid range laptops. I'm saying this because I'm running Windows 10 along side Catalina through virtual box.
Can you call this planned obsolescence?
I believe that applies to iPhone and not laptops.

Expensive?
Currently the only laptops which can match the build quality and specifications are X, X1s spectres from Dell, Lenovo or HP which costs almost same as Macs.

My next laptop will be a new Mac book with scissor keyboard after two years

Originally Posted by Aroy

Apple products are expensive and have a built in obsolescence (around 3 years).

You can always get a Windows machine at half the price. The problem with Apple is that
. The memory is soldered so you cannot change/upgrade it.
. The battery is soldered, again you cannot change it.

The saving grace is that it works flawlessly, other wise a windows laptop from HP, Lenovo or Dell will be more value for money.

By the way my elder son bought the top of the line Apple laptop for nearly USD 4,000/ three months ago (32GB RAM, SSD and Apple care for India), but I prefer Windows Desktop.

[GrammarNazi]

My laptops Kingston 240GB SSD crashed in the very beginning of the Lockdown. Didn't know it could die SO very suddenly without ANY indication whatsoever. Just got this message one fine morning :


This came 3 times, then even the display stopped coming on. Tried everything, no software is able to find even the partitions on the drive.

The SSD is 2.5 years old & came with a 3yr warranty. Worked brilliantly while it did - sped up my then 6y.o. Acer i3 unit running Win 7.

While not all data is lost (as most of it was saved on the secondary HDD caddy), some of it was.

I even have a 1TB online storage subscription for lifetime, which I was going to transfer the important files to. Should put that to full use ASAP.

Originally Posted by girishv

I bought my second Mac book pro around five years back, mid 2012 unibody for 52k. Since then I have updated the hard disk to ssd, moved the OEM hard disk to DVD drive, maximized RAM to 16 GB all by myself.
It's running Catalina now and can give a run for latest mid range laptops. I'm saying this because I'm running Windows 10 along side Catalina through virtual box.
Can you call this planned obsolescence?
I believe that applies to iPhone and not laptops...

IIRC The 2012 MacBook Pro was the LAST Apple laptop that allowed users to upgrade hardware - i.e. addnl SSD & RAM.

Since you bought pre-owned, you'd have probably known that. AFAIK none of the Post 2012 Apple laptops allowed that.

So, YES. That does seem like built-in obsolescence designed by Apple.

[mvadg]

Originally Posted by GrammarNazi

My laptops Kingston 240GB SSD crashed in the very beginning of the Lockdown.

Try resetting the BIOS to default settings first and then try booting. Does it show up in the BIOS? If it does not show, remove the SSD and reseat it tightly. If it shows up in the BIOS, it is some sort of corruption that you may be able to fix by using some diagnostic and repair software.
Oops, didn't notice that you'd already tried all kinds of software, anyway I will leave the below suggestions as is.
Can you download a bootable diagnostic disk and boot from USB?
Try one from here https://www.majorgeeks.com/content/p..._for_free.html

If you dont have a Windows machine, download it to your Android phone and use ISO 2 USB app from the Play Store (you will need a USB OTG adapter)
https://play.google.com/store/apps/d....iso2usb&hl=en

You should be able to see your hard drive at the very least. You could back up your important files and then proceed further.

[Joxster]

Originally Posted by anandhsub

Thank you. This looks perfect for my budget. Will get the 16gb version if available.

You're welcome! You can always add another 8GB stick of RAM later as well, that won't be an issue.

Originally Posted by anandhsub

Had never thought about gaming laptops and was looking for more in the Ideapad/Inspiron range with the the 10th Gen processors but was getting very confused with what kind of performance I need.. But on researching more I see that this 9th gen i7 is far more powerful.

That's the weird thing about the laptop world. Only "gaming" laptops get the most powerful processors usually, because the rest of the corporate world cares more about efficiency than raw computing power.
If you could have waited a little longer, I would have suggested you to go for a Ryzen 4000 series laptop, as it would be even more powerful than this processor.

Originally Posted by anandhsub

Only issue I see is I need to check with my IT if Windows 10 Professional is a must for whatever work that needs to be done. Given my office is NOT paying for this it shouldn't be

Why would this be an issue? You can get a legitimate Windows 10 Pro key for Rs.750 here. I can vouch that this key is perfectly original, because I bought one from them last year for my brother.

Originally Posted by GrammarNazi

My laptops Kingston 240GB SSD crashed in the very beginning of the Lockdown. Didn't know it could die SO very suddenly without ANY indication whatsoever.
The SSD is 2.5 years old & came with a 3yr warranty.

Sad! Good to know that you didn't lose all of your data though.

Originally Posted by GrammarNazi

IIRC The 2012 MacBook Pro was the LAST Apple laptop that allowed users to upgrade hardware - i.e. addnl SSD & RAM.

So, YES. That does seem like built-in obsolescence designed by Apple.

+1

Originally Posted by girishv

I bought my second Mac book pro around five years back, mid 2012 unibody for 52k. Since then I have updated the hard disk to ssd, moved the OEM hard disk to DVD drive, maximized RAM to 16 GB all by myself.

You cannot upgrade anything in the newer Macbooks. You're locked with what you have for life.

Originally Posted by girishv

Can you call this planned obsolescence? I believe that applies to iPhone and not laptops.

It very much applies to their Macbooks as well. Please do your research.

Originally Posted by girishv

Expensive? Currently the only laptops which can match the build quality and specifications are X, X1s spectres from Dell, Lenovo or HP which costs almost same as Macs.

You pay a hefty Apple tax for that build quality. Also, we're talking about specifications and abilities of the machine, not the finish of the machine per se. Fact is that Apple provides you with crappy hardware specifications for the price that you pay. For me, it's akin to buying a supercar with a 4-cylinder engine, it might be very efficient and fancy, but what's under the hood is neither exciting, nor anything to boast about.
This should of course change once they start using their ARM processors in their laptops, which they're rumored to do from the next generation onwards.

Originally Posted by girishv

My next laptop will be a new Mac book with scissor keyboard after two years

Good for you!

Cheers

[GrammarNazi]

Originally Posted by mvadg

Try resetting the BIOS to default settings first and then try booting. Does it show up in the BIOS? If it does not show, remove the SSD and reseat it tightly. If it shows up in the BIOS, it is some sort of corruption that you may be able to fix by using some diagnostic and repair software.

It did detect for the first 3 times in the BIOS when I tried to reset defaults. But then the display stopped showing anything for some reason.

...You should be able to see your hard drive at the very least. You could back up your important files and then proceed further...

Thanks!

I bought a SATA - USB 3.0 cable & connected the SSD to another laptop. Disk Manager detected the SSD, but not the partitions. Just stated "Unallocated Data". Tried scrubbing it with "Stellar Data Recovery" & "GetDataBack Pro - Trial", but neither could find a partition! Now on will absolutely start backing up data offline & online.

Originally Posted by Joxster

Sad! Good to know that you didn't lose all of your data though.

Having experienced that even SSDs aren't always safe even if PC Diagnostic tools keep showing "97% healthy" when regularly tested. This "Always backup!" aspect just needs to be repeatedly emphasised on a regular basis.

[mvadg]

Originally Posted by GrammarNazi

It did detect for the first 3 times in the BIOS when I tried to reset defaults...

Just found this post
https://superuser.com/questions/5442...cated-disk-spa

Hope you can get back your data at least. Good luck!