Budget 41-50k General laptop with high performance to price ratio

icysmoke

Disciple
Need to buy a laptop during these festive sales but have no clue with so many options for processors these days. It would be great if anyone who is familiar with the various options available these days can help me out.

Budget - Preferably less than 50k. But not super fixed. Can move up a bit if the use case isn't met in 50k.

Primary use - Zoom/ Hangout calls, MS excel, word, ppt,pdf editing, lots of tabs open in the browser, YouTube videos, coding on small datasets in R and Python. I don't do any gaming on the laptop. Also, I use earphones so I am fine with a subpar in built speaker.

Size and weight - Its mostly going to sit on a table so battery life, weight, size are not very important. Would prefer a 14 inch but anything else is fine too.

Brand preference - Windows only. Don't know how to use a mac or a Linux. Any manufacturer is fine.

Any other considerations - Just want a laptop that doesn't hang or lag for the next 3-4 years. For reference I have a macbook air 2018 with i5 that works just fine. Its slightly slow while using vlookups on big excel files but other than that it's fine. Anything with a similar level of performance for the next 3-4 years should be fine.

Average build quality is fine as long as hinges don't rattle. Average display quality is fine too. I don't mind if it's HD or FHD.

The only must have is that it should not lag while doing regular tasks. So a 512 GB ssd is preferred. If I need to increase the budget for that, it's fine.

With too many options with Ryzen vs Intel and also various generation like 3500 or 4500 for Ryzen and 8th or 10th gen for Intel, I am a bit confused.


Thanks :)
 
Your requirements can be readily met within the budget. I think a Thinkpad would be best suited for the sort of use you have in mind. Other options in this price range will trade the durability of the Thinkpad for extra portability or higher performance.
Adding more storage or RAM should be pretty straightforward if needed.
 
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This will do what you want and more, is 14", just 1.3Kg's and gives you a quad core Ryzen 3500u with a 512GB SSD for just 27K. Absolute steal, you won't find a config with these specs for less than 40K ordinarily. It's hard to do better than the 3500u unless one goes beyond 50K.

4500u is a decent step above the 3500u but not worth it imo given your use case scenario - the latter will do just fine. Intel is best left ignored for now, the 3500u is more than a match for anything less than i5/i7 10th gen and even that is very much in the ballpark. Avita however may lack resilience given its dimensions and weight - manageable i would say but might not meet your requirements. So you could look into this https://www.flipkart.com/marq-flipk...wplctc0000001602872184174&qH=655d60ffa976db83

Has a more durable chassis and similarly performing specs for 30k.
 

This will do what you want and more, is 14", just 1.3Kg's and gives you a quad core Ryzen 3500u with a 512GB SSD for just 27K. Absolute steal, you won't find a config with these specs for less than 40K ordinarily. It's hard to do better than the 3500u unless one goes beyond 50K.

4500u is a decent step above the 3500u but not worth it imo given your use case scenario - the latter will do just fine. Intel is best left ignored for now, the 3500u is more than a match for anything less than i5/i7 10th gen and even that is very much in the ballpark. Avita however may lack resilience given its dimensions and weight - manageable i would say but might not meet your requirements. So you could look into this https://www.flipkart.com/marq-flipk...wplctc0000001602872184174&qH=655d60ffa976db83

Has a more durable chassis and similarly performing specs for 30k.
Thanks for your advice. Have already gone for a xiaomi i5 based laptop after having a look at the mid range recommendation on the website that Amien linked to. Cost me 41k after 3k sbi card discount on Flipkart. i5 10gen, 512 ssd. Really liked the Avita pura too but Avita's closest service center is almost 90 mins drive one way from my place. Value wise Avita liber i5 was also better value than the one I bought. But the Xiaomi service center is only around 15 mins away and the laptop was within my budget. Hence went for it.

Only reason to avoid the ever reliable think pad was that in the evenings it would have made me feel I am still working for my office having used Thinkpads for office work for over 7-8 years now :)
 
Thanks for your advice. Have already gone for a xiaomi i5 based laptop after having a look at the mid range recommendation on the website that Amien linked to. Cost me 41k after 3k sbi card discount on Flipkart. i5 10gen, 512 ssd. Really liked the Avita pura too but Avita's closest service center is almost 90 mins drive one way from my place. Value wise Avita liber i5 was also better value than the one I bought. But the Xiaomi service center is only around 15 mins away and the laptop was within my budget. Hence went for it.

Only reason to avoid the ever reliable think pad was that in the evenings it would have made me feel I am still working for my office having used Thinkpads for office work for over 7-8 years now :)

That was probably the best thing to do. I am just seduced easily by low price + specs because i care little for after sales service etc. which isn't necessarily a great idea. Apart from resilience according to buyer experience in the comment section, customer care is it's other big downside and so considering your requirements it was probably best not to gamble. If it turns out DOA it could be a confusing few weeks of follow up action.
 
That was probably the best thing to do. I am just seduced easily by low price + specs because i care little for after sales service etc. which isn't necessarily a great idea. Apart from resilience according to buyer experience in the comment section, customer care is it's other big downside and so considering your requirements it was probably best not to gamble. If it turns out DOA it could be a confusing few weeks of follow up action.
Haha..same here..i find incredibly drawn towards a good performance to price ratio. The only thing is my wife hates all the math I do before buying anything worth even 2k. Couple of years ago my smartphone got damaged by water in Aug first week. Waited for two months without a smartphone because BBD was only two months away. Drove her mad when I used to mail her from office instead of whatsapp as I only had a feature phone.

This time since my wife was also going to use the laptop, I had to play it safe.

Btw the laptop has arrived today. The display is very nice. Not fair to praise the performance of a new laptop but it seems great as of now. It seems a tad faster than my mac air 2018. The build is decent but certainly not as solid as the mac. The bundled USB Web cam is decent too. Speakers are bad. Can't hear them very clearly when the room's ceiling fan is at full speed. Battery seems as good as the mac based on limited usage. Comparing those two isn't fair but that's the only other laptop I have.

Writing things down here for someone who might read this thread later down.
 
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