Team-BHP - The Laptop Thread: Configs, deals & questions

The last time I bought a Laptop was in 2010 and I picked up a very basic Dell machine that time for around 22000 Rs from USA and its been working like a charm ever since.

6 years later a lot has changed in terms of configurations, designs and concepts. I am in the market for gifting a laptop to my cousin sister who has just entered College. Here are my needs:
Budget: Rs. 30k. It is flexible both ways and is just a tentative figure.
Usage: Basic. I expect her to use it for basic internet surfing, MS office, college projects etc.
Must features: An inbuilt camera and Microphone. I don't have these on my machine and have always missed them. Although these days it is much easier to use these in your smartphone.
Brands: I am more comfortable to go with traditional brands such as Dell ( preferred), HP and Lenovo.

Confusion: Now The internet is crazily filled with options and I am not sure of what processor I should go with? What RAM and what HDD storage ( although here I feel 500 GB should be more than sufficient.

Another confusion is that off late I have seen these advertisements for detachable machines where you can use the screen as a tablet. Is this technology developed enough to invest money into this?

Lastly one of my colleagues has a Microsoft surface ( 1st generation I think). The latest one looks really amazing too. Any suggestions on this?

Quote:

Originally Posted by drmohitg (Post 4039204)

Usage: Basic. I expect her to use it for basic internet surfing, MS office, college projects etc. Must features: An inbuilt camera and Microphone. I don't have these on my machine and have always missed them.

I got my wife an Asus 11.6" Win 10 laptop with 4gb RAM and 500gb hdd. It is an i3 4th gen processor. For her the form factor and weight were the important criteria. It has the camera and mic. She is using it to teach, via Skype, math to students in the US. It cost me approximately 22k after cash back on paytm, back in December 15. You can go with any i3 or i5 depending on your budget.

I had got a Asus book T100TA 10.1" detachable laptop for my friends dad back in 2014. It is going great and he is using it extensively. It had cost 404$ in June 2014 from Amazon. It had 32Gb flash plus a 500gb hdd when attached to the base keyboard.

@drmohitg; I am confused is she your cousin or your sister, cannot be both. More important I am helping a friend find a decent laptop. My basic is i5, 4GB RAM and 500GB or more of HDD with preferably a SSD cache (say 8GB), and Win10. I have found a Lenovo for under 50k. We have been using Lenovo for more than three years, and they have proved to be quite reliable. At the moment we have four in the family.

I have since migrated to a MacBook Pro so my own Lenovo is used as a backup and for Windoze applications.

Quote:

Originally Posted by diyguy (Post 4039213)

I have been using a 14inch machine. And I felt a laptop should be atleast 13-14 inches. Is 11 inch comfortable?

Quote:

Originally Posted by sgiitk (Post 4039218)

@drmohitg; I am confused is she your cousin or your sister, cannot be both.

My cousin sister. Sorry for the confusion.

Quote:

Originally Posted by sgiitk (Post 4039218)

The Hindi words for "cousin" and "sister" are much the same - "behen", with a qualification as to whether own (sagi), or your mama's daughter (mameri) or chacha's daughter (chacheri) as you're aware sir :)

Anyway - you could take a look at several Dell Inspirons that will meet your criterion, and are possibly much more bang for buck than Lenovo. My last Dell purchase was about five years back, but I remember that dell.co.in allowed you to customize the laptop by adding RAM, substituting an SSD for a regular hard drive etc even back then. And then added additional discounts for office and antivirus licenses, accessories like mouse, bluetooth keyboard, laptop bag etc.

Quote:

Originally Posted by drmohitg (Post 4039204)

6 years later a lot has changed in terms of configurations, designs and concepts. I am in the market for gifting a laptop to my cousin sister who has just entered College. Here are my needs:
Budget: Rs. 30k. It is flexible both ways and is just a tentative figure.
Usage: Basic. I expect her to use it for basic internet surfing, MS office, college projects etc.
Must features: An inbuilt camera and Microphone. I don't have these on my machine and have always missed them. Although these days it is much easier to use these in your smartphone.
Brands: I am more comfortable to go with traditional brands such as Dell ( preferred), HP and Lenovo.

Confusion: Now The internet is crazily filled with options and I am not sure of what processor I should go with? What RAM and what HDD storage ( although here I feel 500 GB should be more than sufficient.

Another confusion is that off late I have seen these advertisements for detachable machines where you can use the screen as a tablet. Is this technology developed enough to invest money into this?

Lastly one of my colleagues has a Microsoft surface ( 1st generation I think). The latest one looks really amazing too. Any suggestions on this?

Looking at the requirements, I would recommend the Dell Inspiron 3148 (i3 variant). It comes with i3 processor, 4GB RAM, 500 GB HDD, 11.6" touchscreen (360 degree flipable). The best part is, it is pretty lightweight (1.4 kg) and not too expensive (around 35-37k). It offers all the needed features in a cool looking and compact package. I was using one myself in college since its launch until May this year before upgrading to MacBook Air. The laptop now does duty at home and is working flawlessly. Try to find some student offer wherein she can get extended warranty and she will be good to go.

I somehow do not like 15" laptops. So most we have in the home are 14" with one 13" (Yoga) thrown in. The 13" Yoga is much sharper than the 14" Flexpad. I stick to Lenovo since my favourite dealer (for about two decades) is now a Lenovo distributor. He gets us superb service. In the past we have suffered problems with the HP/Compaq family. Dell I hear are good, but it is now a matter of convenience.

Slightly OT but couldn't find another thread for the same. Looking to replace a 6 year old desktop with a desktop or an AIO. While the desktop options are clear in my head I am exploring AIOs and hence writing to ask if anyone here owns one and what is upside/downside of shifting to an AIO?

Use: Will be for basic home use i.e browsing, watching videos, music and some very basic office use - excel/outlook etc.

Quote:

Originally Posted by HydroFuel (Post 4040214)

Can one tinker with AIO like regular desktop CPU after warranty. Asking because now assembling a CPU is not difficult. I replaced my motherboard myself and used the CPU for 7 years.

An aio is much more difficult to tinker with and upgrade than a regular pc especially one in a full sized rather than mini type cabinet. A lot of stuff will be onboard, ram etc soldered on rather than just clipped on.

For example there are very few iMacs where you can upgrade RAM. https://support.apple.com/en-in/HT201191

If you're a do it yourself type just buy a PC and especially one of the motherboards that let you push the limits on how much you can play around, overclock,upgrade etc

Quote:

Originally Posted by HydroFuel (Post 4040214)

Can one tinker with AIO like regular desktop CPU after warranty. Asking because now assembling a CPU is not difficult. I replaced my motherboard myself and used the CPU for 7 years.

My mid 2011 iMac is one of the rare iMacs with upgradable ram and has a free Sata 3 slot as well. I bumped the ram to 12Gb and added in a 256gb SSD to the free slot. Ram was easy, but adding SSD wasn't difficult but was time consuming. Took my cousin and I a good 3-4 hrs to get it done.

The main reason for getting an AIO is the lack of cables. My iMac has just one cable (for power), wifi, peripherals etc all are wireless. After using a compaq desktop for 5+ years, I was simply tired of the cable management, so upgraded to iMac in 2012. Going strong so far.

Why not get a laptop instead of AIO. Similar advantages with an added bonus of portability and battery power.

In our house we have an AIO, a dual XEON Desktop and three laptops. Unless you want multiple large displays (I have 3 on my desktop) or a large 27"/30" display on AIO, a laptop is a much better proposition, as unlike a normal desktop, both are equally difficult to upgrade or modify.