90K+ 80k-100k, 13.3"/14" laptop

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JK2

JK2

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  • What's your Budget? (e.g. >30K, not more than 50K etc.)
- 80k to 100k (including 3y warranty extension cost)
  • What will be your primary usage for the notebook be? (e.g. web surfing/office apps/Casual Gaming)
- NO gaming
- Office work + media consumption

  • What size and weight considerations do you have? (e.g. Do you want a 17" desktop replacement or you want an ultraportable 12" or something in between)
- 13.3" or 14" screen size
- Mobility and build quality is important, will be carrying it around a lot
  • Any brand that you prefer, or any brand that you detest? (e.g some would prefer to stay away from Acer or Dell)
- International Warranty (brands that provide)
- My previous Dell Inspiron 7460 died within 3.5 years of purchase. This is after motherboard replacement twice, hard drive replacement once, keyboard and daughter-board replacement once. Question - is their any significant difference in hardware durability for dell/hp/lenovo vs. asus/acer etc.
  • Any other considerations? (e.g Battery life; Widescreen/non-widescreen; Glossy/Matte screen etc.)
- Best possible screen quality that fits the budget
 
From my limited experience, newer Dells are getting worse reliability wise.
Since you insist on 3 years warranty, 2 laptops come to mind.
Lenovo ThinkPad Carbon ( may cross your budget slightly) very balanced laptop with all necessary ports. Very durable yet light. Comes with 3 years worldwide warranty.
LG gram 14 ( within your budget), only upto 1080p screen. No discrete graphics. Very light, extremely good battery life, easy to upgrade RAM and SSD. Comes with 3 years warranty ( worldwide) by default. I have the 2019 model, so far, working great, despite the non rigid lid ( flexes very easily) EXTREMELY durable. Plenty of ports and micro SD card reader.
Another obvious contender is XPS 13, I have not even seen the 2020 model, the previous one had a fantastic screen ( even the full hd one) however heard about heating issues. And only thunderbolt ports.
 
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Thank you Mallik, Red Dragon.

@red dragon
I can skip 3y /international warranty if it opens up good options. Would really like to hear those.

(Insisted because of current experience with Dell, which now requires 3rd motherboard replacement in 4 years. Unfortunately, no warranty post 3y).
 
Mate, I am not the right person to recommend an expensive Windows laptop.Had to replace an old MBA in 2019 and did some research and with help from members here bought a LG gram, which is working fine for me. Laptops which come with 3 years warranty by default usually are possibly more reliable to begin with.
Moreover, I am not sure of the prices in India.
Thinkpad T/X series laptops are considered very balanced and stable in general. Since you are not interested in gaming, can go for them. X1 carbons are very expensive. I would stay away from HP/ Acer. Not sure about the current Latitude and XPS (specially the 13 inch model, due to reported heating/other issues.
Thinkpads are not that great for media consumption (poor speakers, dim screens in entry level models)
If media consumption is your first priority, XPS is still possibly the best option, next would be Gram. Asus zenbooks offer some interesting features, but no idea about reliability and some older Zenbooks though look great, are not very durable.
I am probably confusing you even more.
My personal choice (with reliability as the most important and features/ raw power as least important) would be
Thinkpad X390> LG gram 14> XPS 13>> Zenbooks ( the dual screen , non pro one)
 
Dell India hasn't listed the price for the latest XPS. My girlfriend has a Dell XPS 9360, and it is a really good machine, apart from the bottom webcam positioning. She is able to do all her creative work on it without problems (Adobe Suite). I have no idea about the latest XPS. It will be overpriced in India because of the heavy import duty post GST, and has heating issues apparently. But XPS is one of the best rated laptops going around.

I have not looked at Thinkpad lineup, so can't comment on it. Thinkpad X390 looks good, but is also quite expensive, at least from what I saw on Amazon.

I recently bought an ASUS TUF for 54K, and I am happy with it. So, you could look at ASUS laptops as well.

This is a Zenbook with the latest Intel processors https://www.amazon.in/dp/B07678MYHH...2421_iceleadscom0d-21&linkCode=osi&th=1&psc=1
 
Thanks @mallik .

Views from forum folks on this machine from Dell (not posted on Dell website though).

Any drawbacks/negatives, also machines with similar build quality + config:

Dell Inspiron 7490 14-inch FHD Display Laptop (10th Gen Core i7-10510U/16GB/512GB SSD/Window 10 + MS Office/Integrated Graphics), Silver : Amazon.in: Computers & Accessories

Dell Inspiron 7490 14-inch FHD Display Laptop (10th Gen Core i7-10510U/16GB/512GB SSD/Window 10 + MS Office/Integrated Graphics), Silver : Amazon.in: Computers & Accessories
www.amazon.in
 
Spec wise it's pretty solid, but are you going to pay more than 100k on an Inspiron?
Plus they are charging for an AV and MS office, which you probably have already.
How much does hp spectre ( not pavillion 360) cost in India with Ryzen 5?
 
I can see hp spectre with this config (intel, not ryzen), but heard that RAM etc is not upgradable on hp spectre


Also, this one from hp


Again, not sure about how robust and upgradable these would be.
 
Don't know about the upgradability, but the Spectre and Envy series are usually better than pavillion.
 
With that kind of money, you need to figure out if you want to go with performance or with looks.

Someone I know just picked up a Surface Laptop 3, the i5, 256gb for a cool 1.4 lacs (with 3 years extended carepack). Had it been my call, it would have been the Acer Swift or the Mi Horizon or the ASUS Zenbooks - at first glance. The LG Gram is a an excellent device, but its slightly thermally throttled IMO. We have 2 of these.

Durability wise on Dells - in general the Latitudes seem to be much better than the Inspirons, but my sample size is quite biased towards the former vs the latter.
 
And reliability, portability at times. For me reliability and easier repair-ability with minimal equipment. Looks come last.
Nothing beats a T/X thinkpad. P/U series are really powerful but heavy and bulky.
With your budget look hard for a thinkpad, they are grossly overpriced in India. Like the Gram because of it`s non flashy exteriors. But it is not a powerhouse. XPS 13 has a great screen, very good performance in the segment, but the ports and the weird whining sound in some models and the dreaded screen brightness jumps and thermal issues with the latest model.
I wouldn`t buy Horizon, because of the non backlit keyboard and 8GB maxed out memory and poor trackpad ( have not seen any yet though, possibly never will)
 
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vivek.krishnan said:
With that kind of money, you need to figure out if you want to go with performance or with looks.
Click to expand...

Agree, can't have both at this budget.

red dragon said:
And reliability, portability at times. For me reliability and easier repair-ability with minimal equipment. Looks come last.
Click to expand...

Good perspective. Would've preferred X390/ T490 any day, however, they're overshooting my budget.

I guess I'll end up with either a Dell or ASUS machine.
 
If possible, visit physical stores for Thinkpads. They are ridiculously expensive online in India. I was checking Amazon India, almost every laptop has become expensive or OOS. Is it the Corona effect? How are things offline? Googly ( our TE member) is selling an Asus Zenbook Duo at a good price, have a look.

FS: Laptop - SLASHED:: Asus ZenBook Duo in Mint Condition with 30 months Warranty

Want to sell my sparingly used Asus ZenBook Duo with international warranty till 7/11/2022. Flipkart extended warranty and buy back for 2 years. 3 years International Warranty bought separately. Charge cycles max 5 times. 10th Generation core i5 processor with 8GB RAM and 512GB SSD. NVIDIA...
techenclave.com techenclave.com
 
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Would look to visit, since a ThinkPad would be straightforward choice if it fits my budget. Here in Delhi NCR, Covid-19 situation has become somewhat tricky to say the least.

Regarding Googly, looking for a fresh purchase itself, but will keep in mind in case someone in my circle is interested.
 
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