21-30k Basic 15" laptop with non soldered ram and a good screen, stereo speakers

greenhorn

greenhorn

Enclave Plus
Level H
Friend of mine looking to buy a couple of laptops for his daughters in college
His needs
Num pad (kids studying accounting)
Good screen ( lots of movie viewing) - assume TN panels are out
Stereo speakers - same as above

I3/ryzen 3 minimum
No soldered ram

What's the cheapest new laptop that meets this spec?
 
Most laptops come pretty low Ram amounts out of the box and would prefer to have this upgradeable for future purposes. If one slot is stuck with a small soldered Ram then it still limits upgradability. To be honest the amount of cost cutting in modern entry level laptops makes me really annoyed (slots with no sockets, non replaceable keyboards, soldered ram, single antenna wifi adapters) but that's another topic. But at least this is something I want to avoid. My daily is a toshiba c640 from 2012 which would have been e waste if it had been stuck with it's factory 2gb. I'm running 2*8gb on it and it runs like a champ
 
Recently got an Acer Aspire Lite with Ryzen 3 5300U for 22k in Dussehra sale for my brother.

-the display is bright enough; never had to use it on full brightness.
-loud enough stereo speakers.
-has a numpad.
-RAM isn't soldered and there's an extra slot free as well.

Only thing I find lacking in it is a backlit keyboard, and there's no MS Office in it either.

PS: If I were to buy now, I would've gone with the recently introduced model with Ryzen 7330U CPU; it's better and also cheaper by about 1K.

Direct Links for both-

Acer Aspire Lite with Ryzen 5300U: https://www.amazon.in/dp/B0CWTSF1TK

Acer Aspire 3 with Ryzen 7330U: https://www.flipkart.com/acer-aspir...-a325-42-thin-light-laptop/p/itmdaf15e01a1d1a
 
greenhorn said:
This is perfect. Have passed on the recommendation
Click to expand...
better to go for same model with atleast ryzen 5 7430u 16gb ram or ryzen 7 7730u 16gb ram of same model ( acer aspire 3) for long term use. it is available on flipkart.

also these laptop which i mentioned above have 1 extra slot for ssd and both slot of ram are upgradable too
 
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Most laptops (except high end laptops or gaming laptops) come with soldered RAM these days. It's not much of a problem as long as it has another SODIMM slot. My Lenovo Thinkpad came with 8 GB soldered, I added a 16 GB module for a total of 24. For regular day to day use, I doubt I'm going to need more than that in the next 5 years.
 
retrophiliac said:
Recently got an Acer Aspire Lite with Ryzen 3 5300U for 22k in Dussehra sale for my brother.

-the display is bright enough; never had to use it on full brightness.
-loud enough stereo speakers.
-has a numpad.
-RAM isn't soldered and there's an extra slot free as well.

Only thing I find lacking in it is a backlit keyboard, and there's no MS Office in it either.

PS: If I were to buy now, I would've gone with the recently introduced model with Ryzen 7330U CPU; it's better and also cheaper by about 1K.

Direct Links for both-

Acer Aspire Lite with Ryzen 5300U: https://www.amazon.in/dp/B0CWTSF1TK

Acer Aspire 3 with Ryzen 7330U: https://www.flipkart.com/acer-aspir...-a325-42-thin-light-laptop/p/itmdaf15e01a1d1a
Click to expand...
check if display is IPS or TN
 
Emperor said:
check if display is IPS or TN
Click to expand...
Picture quality/colors looks off when viewed from extreme sides and bottom, so it's probably TN.

The one above with 7330U has an IPS display; it's specifically mentioned in the product description and product images on Flipkart and on Acer's website as well, but not in case of the one with 5300U.
 
greenhorn said:
Most laptops come pretty low Ram amounts out of the box and would prefer to have this upgradeable for future purposes. If one slot is stuck with a small soldered Ram then it still limits upgradability. To be honest the amount of cost cutting in modern entry level laptops makes me really annoyed (slots with no sockets, non replaceable keyboards, soldered ram, single antenna wifi adapters) but that's another topic. But at least this is something I want to avoid. My daily is a toshiba c640 from 2012 which would have been e waste if it had been stuck with it's factory 2gb. I'm running 2*8gb on it and it runs like a champ
Click to expand...
Even expensive laptops don't have any repair-ability or upgrade-ability. Moreover, Rs. 22,000 would be around Rs. 11,000 in 2012. I am pretty sure that you didn't buy your Toshiba for 11K. I sometimes wonder how can they possibly sell these laptops and phones for so cheap when they have so much tech built into them? We have made almost everything use and throw by making them so cheap.
 
Most workhorse corporate models are easily upgradeable and serviceable - ThinkPad T series, elitebook 8 series, latitude 7/9 series

Heck the aspire retrophiliac posted ticks all the boxes.

P. S. Wife says she got the toshiba for 19k in 2011 as part of a group buy her friends did. Pretty sweet deal. I paid 40k for my Inspiron n5010 with graphics in 2010. RIP that one though (died from overheating after it fell out of warranty after 3 motherboard and 4 HSF replacements)
 
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