[bluevolt]

Originally Posted by manolin

I have had the completely reverse experience. I have had a Vaio E series for the last 1 1/2 years. The battery life is around an hour and half (from day one, HD screen), the laptop is loaded with bloatware, Sony service is very expensive (1k minimum for touching your laptop, no home service), and for last 3 months, there have been fan noise. The laptop is also pretty slow considering I have a i3 4 GB RAM model (I think the 5400 rom hard drive is the culprit here). The touchpad can be slightly off sometimes.

It has been dissappointing, especially when I had paid 50k for the laptop (then a new model), just before I took a year long sabbatical.

The screen is gorgeous. But what will I do with the screen when the battery runs out in an hour now.

That's sad.

But in my case the battery life is over 3 hours (haven't checked exact time) and everything is fine. Mine is E series with i3, win 7, 320GB HDD, 2 GB memory costing nearly 30K including bag and I bought it on Diwali.

[manolin]

Originally Posted by bluevolt

That's sad.

But in my case the battery life is over 3 hours (haven't checked exact time) and everything is fine. Mine is E series with i3, win 7, 320GB HDD, 2 GB memory costing nearly 30K including bag and I bought it on Diwali.

Awesome! at least someone is having a good one. I was just feeling that sony came and cheated lots of people. You should see the huge line at their Nehru place service store, all with faulty laptops.

I have a i3, win 7 (HP), 500 GB, 4 GB RAM, HD screen. Bought it last in March 2010. 50k from Vijaya Sales, Bombay.

I think in India, Dell and Lenovo Thinkpads are the best bets.

Thinkpad for its durability and no frills approach. I have a college time IBM Thinkpad (R51, I think). Its still working fine after 6 years (except the battery). Thats called value for money. Curiously I had paid 50K for it then (Bangalore, some discount through college).

Dell for its service. The complete care warranty is a life saver. Office had provided me a Dell Latitude for 3 odd years. Used to work perfectly, except the Ctrl+C/V buttons, which used to keep falling off, as in a law firm you are copying/pasting all day long. Best part is that the parts are swappable. If the keys stop working, I just pull my hard drive out. Put it in a laptop left empty by someone quitting, and lo! I was back on track.

Looking at this post, if I had to judge myself, I think my preference is towards no-nonsense business workhorses.

[Chetan_Rao]

Thanks for the advice guys.

Do any of the other vendors sell factory-direct like Dell, or will I need to buy retail? And how reliable is warranty coverage? I've always bought all my LTs/PCs direct from Dell, and their on-site service/warranty coverage is superb.

ASUS has some really good gear and they've been in the components business for quite some time, but I've heard concerns about overall build quality.

And does anyone have experience with Toshiba? I used a Satellite Pro for a while, and it seemed decent enough. Someone with longer usage will have better insight.

VAIOs are gorgeous, but you're in for a nightmare if something goes wrong, as far as I've heard from 2 owners in my friend circle.

[ms001]

is there any ASUS store in bangalore ,most of the retailers like crome do not evena single piece of ASUS laptops.

[Aroy]

Originally Posted by manolin

I have had the completely reverse experience. I have had a Vaio E series for the last 1 1/2 years. The battery life is around an hour and half (from day one, HD screen), the laptop is loaded with bloatware, Sony service is very expensive (1k minimum for touching your laptop, no home service), and for last 3 months, there have been fan noise. The laptop is also pretty slow considering I have a i3 4 GB RAM model (I think the 5400 rom hard drive is the culprit here). The touchpad can be slightly off sometimes.

It has been dissappointing, especially when I had paid 50k for the laptop (then a new model), just before I took a year long sabbatical.

The screen is gorgeous. But what will I do with the screen when the battery runs out in an hour now.

With HD screen and powerful graphics card, battery life will always be a problem. If you want battery life then you need smaller screen.

Note that most of the "Mobile Workstations" have a pretty low battery life, while the top end business notebooks with low power CPU chips have best life (and relatively lower resolution screens!)

[devarshi84]

If you want a compromise, you will need to go into the details of the gpu and cpu such as

wattage
Nm designs
Max speeds etc.

or if there is a solution out there like the Ion I have in my Netbook. It comes with integrated gpu from intel and a more powerful gpu from Nvidia. The netbook switches the gpu used automatically based on the applications. I can run full HD videos via HDMI and also get 5 hours of battery life on other occassions.

[k_nitin_r]

Originally Posted by Chetan_Rao

Do any of the other vendors sell factory-direct like Dell, or will I need to buy retail? And how reliable is warranty coverage?
VAIOs are gorgeous, but you're in for a nightmare if something goes wrong, as far as I've heard from 2 owners in my friend circle.

You would probably want to buy retail because the prices are pretty much the same and you may be able to get a better deal from another brand. I went to Croma Retail and the Toshiba laptops were a steal for the price tag but they were all sold-out.

For warranty repairs, Lenovo's Thinkpad line is simply awesome. Don't settle for Lenovo's Ideapad because they have a separate customer service division. Thinkpad are also built moderately tough and can stand up to years of usage. If you are looking for something more sturdy that can survive falls without even a scratch, Panasonic has a ToughBook line but they are expensive.

Originally Posted by Dry Ice

no free RAM slot. they have fitted in 2x1GB RAMs. Currently, am using C2D - 3 GB RAM - Win Vista. It does lag a bit.

But considering linux would be less taxing

You can take off the two 1 GB RAM sticks and fit in two 2 GB RAM sticks in there for the update, but it isn't really necessary. If you need a hand with it, I can help out whenever you're in Hyderabad.

The Core i3 2nd generation will offer you much more performance than an early Core 2 Duo and it will amaze you - it will literally cut your video encoding time in half, if not less. If you are using Linux, memory is much less of an issue and 2 GB of memory should be just perfect. I've had Ubuntu 11.04 Linux run a web browser, a web server, and a database with 512MB RAM and it didn't complain.

[Dry Ice]

Originally Posted by k_nitin_r

You can take off the two 1 GB RAM sticks and fit in two 2 GB RAM sticks in there for the update, but it isn't really necessary. If you need a hand with it, I can help out whenever you're in Hyderabad.

The Core i3 2nd generation will offer you much more performance than an early Core 2 Duo and it will amaze you - it will literally cut your video encoding time in half, if not less. If you are using Linux, memory is much less of an issue and 2 GB of memory should be just perfect. I've had Ubuntu 11.04 Linux run a web browser, a web server, and a database with 512MB RAM and it didn't complain.

Thanks for the 1st hand info and the offer nitin.
I will stick with the 2GB RAM for now and will consider an upgrade if I feel any performance issues.

[anvancy]

I recently got this.



Its the Asus G53SW-A1. I chose the SW over the SX due to the bus bit. 192 vs 128bit.

For the budget it is a good desktop replacement.
The Alienware M14x offers GT555m was was slightly priced higher.So it was out.
The MSI 683R was for me way out of budget.

The laptop is built like a stealth bomber and the feel is like a rock.

If you have questions, ill be glad to help.

Anvancy

[chevelle]

i have a hp dv5 and its OS crashed. So i was doing recovery and when installing drivers and softwares, at 99% overall progress and half through secondary progress bar, its stuck. it won't go further. i have waited like an hour and more hoping it will move forward. its second time i tried and same thing. what are my options?

would appreciate any help. thank you

[k_nitin_r]

Originally Posted by chevelle

i was doing recovery and when installing drivers and softwares, at 99% overall progress and half through secondary progress bar, its stuck. what are my options?

You can do one of the following:

• Try an external DVD/CD drive (if it's a desktop, you can install another DVD/CD drive)
• Order another recovery DVD/CD from HP
• Buy a copy of Windows and download the drivers from the HP website
• Install Linux, Google to figure out how to get everything working (though it usually works without having to do anything for older hardware)
• Contact the HP support center or store you bought it from
• Buy a new laptop (when things get frustrating with an existing laptop, this is the option I resort to)

BTW, for anyone buying a laptop right now, I would suggest putting off your purchase till later this year if you have a computer to work with. First of all, because Windows 8 would be launched at the end of the year, and secondly because there are lots of Ultrabooks being launched this year, such as the Ideapad Yoga. Then, there's Intel's third generation of Core i processors being introduced in the second quarter this year.

[chevelle]

Originally Posted by k_nitin_r

You can do one of the following:

• Try an external DVD/CD drive (if it's a desktop, you can install another DVD/CD drive)
• Order another recovery DVD/CD from HP
• Buy a copy of Windows and download the drivers from the HP website
• Install Linux, Google to figure out how to get everything working (though it usually works without having to do anything for older hardware)
• Contact the HP support center or store you bought it from
• Buy a new laptop (when things get frustrating with an existing laptop, this is the option I resort to)

Thanks for suggestion. Guess what? I kept it running for 4-5 hours showing same status. Then at nite i switched it off and in morning when i started, it boot normally and was able to continue using it. Funny laptop

[k_nitin_r]

Originally Posted by chevelle

Thanks for suggestion. Guess what? I kept it running for 4-5 hours showing same status. Then at nite i switched it off and in morning when i started, it boot normally and was able to continue using it. Funny laptop

Sometimes, vendors package the setup programs of other vendors, so what often happens is that the single file that you execute (perhaps through a recovery CD) to install a whole bunch of drivers fails to detect that the other setup program has completed so it 'hangs'. Either that or some non-essential setup really did fail.

[chevelle]

Originally Posted by k_nitin_r

Sometimes, vendors package the setup programs of other vendors, so what often happens is that the single file that you execute (perhaps through a recovery CD) to install a whole bunch of drivers fails to detect that the other setup program has completed so it 'hangs'. Either that or some non-essential setup really did fail.

The recovery was done through inbuilt recovery partition. I choose minimum drivers and software option. OS and drivers were installed successfully. It stop responding when installed software. Possibly the last software which even though installed didn't go any further. Chances are it was not installed properly. But haven't faced any issues yet with it. So i guess its all good.

[devarshi84]

It might be one of the HP forced bloatwares which are included even in the minimal installs. If the OS is working, rest can be taken care of with some level of tweaking.