Budget 31-40k Laptop for MBA student - 13"-14" Screen - 33/35K - not more than 1.7Kg

vyral_143

vyral_143

Jarvis
Staff member
Super Mod
  • What's your Budget -> 33-35K
  • What will be your primary usage for the notebook be? MS Office work, HD Videos, Web Surfing
  • What size and weight considerations do you have? Screen at-least 13", 14" preferred and no 14"+ - weight max 1.7kg
  • Any brand that you prefer, or any brand that you detest? No to Acer, Lenovo and others who have bad-worse A$$
  • Any other considerations? Main concern is of weight - the lighter the better (I already have HP DV6 3057TX but it weighs ~2.5Kg), HDMI port should be present, good battery backup ~3 Hrs, No Optical drive will do and no netbooks please

I m open to buy used ones from TE market but with warranty. This laptop will be used only for my MBA related work and some times watching HD videos. No gaming on this one. I m also thinking to replace stock HDD with a 90GB or 120GB SSD on this one. Budget is separate for it. Longer Battery life would be an added bonus. One without optical drive will also do. Also strict no to netbooks.

I can wait max for a month for this one if required.
 
Thanks for really quick reply JuGGa. Any idea if i can get it cheaper anywhere ? I will really wait for your reply. BTW for how much you got it ? How AMD E450 is compared to Core i3 1st gen ?

Sorry for too many questions but just got curious :D
 
vyral_143 said:
Thanks for really quick reply JuGGa. Any idea if i can get it cheaper anywhere ? I will really wait for your reply. BTW for how much you got it ? How AMD E450 is compared to Core i3 1st gen ?

Sorry for too many questions but just got curious :D
Click to expand...

You can try your luck locally as this laptop is only available with flipkart as far as I searched online prior to my purchase. I bought it for 26800 and flipkart raised it by 800 after my purchase. They've gone viral in increasing prices.

E450 is good for basic office and home tasks which are identical to your requirement. Compared to i3, it obviously is miles behind in processing power, but ahead in graphics department. I have added another 2GB kit totalling 4GB RAM. Except for a bit slow booting, evertything seems fine. I haven't tried 1080p playback though. Will update if required.
 
JuGGa said:
You can try your luck locally as this laptop is only available with flipkart as far as I searched online prior to my purchase. I bought it for 26800 and flipkart raised it by 800 after my purchase. They've gone viral in increasing prices.

E450 is good for basic office and home tasks which are identical to your requirement. Compared to i3, it obviously is miles behind in processing power, but ahead in graphics department. I have added another 2GB kit totalling 4GB RAM. Except for a bit slow booting, evertything seems fine. I haven't tried 1080p playback though. Will update if required.
Click to expand...

How it could perform paired with a SSD ?
Also any other option to choose from ?
 
You can also check the Toshiba portege R835. But it has poor viewing angles I feel. But it is really lightweight. I am using R700 which is my office laptop.
 
You won't even get an i3 in that budget. So you have to compromise with the CPU if weight has to be considered.
 
JuGGa said:
You won't even get an i3 in that budget. So you have to compromise with the CPU if weight has to be considered.
Click to expand...

How about that Macbook Air posted in earlier post ?

That guy if offering some goodies worth 4K. By selling them i could fetch 2.5k atleast i guess.
 
Memory is just 64GB and AFAIK extending it wil be a tough time due to apple's limitations (not sure though). Your call.
 
instead of going for Macbook Air that also used and old, buy the Asus one @JuGGa suggested. E450 is a netbook processor but unless you are doing multitasking, it'll not slow down. Just make total memory 4GB so ram doesn't start to act like a bottleneck.

---------- Post added at 02:00 AM ---------- Previous post was at 01:59 AM ----------

BTW @JuGGa you have received the lappy. How is the battery backup and display? Most budget Asus laptop have quite poor display (not that one can ask for IPS panel or so).
 
Last edited by a moderator:
^Not extracted the juice fully to comment, but somewhere near 5.30-7hrs. Display doesn't seems that bad as rumored. Will update later.
 
sam811 said:
instead of going for Macbook Air that also used and old, buy the Asus one JuGGa suggested. E450 is a netbook processor but unless you are doing multitasking, it'll not slow down. Just make total memory 4GB so ram doesn't start to act like a bottleneck.

---------- Post added at 02:00 AM ---------- Previous post was at 01:59 AM ----------

BTW JuGGa you have received the lappy. How is the battery backup and display? Most budget Asus laptop have quite poor display (not that one can ask for IPS panel or so).
Click to expand...

In a typical MBA Day there will be Chrome running with 7-8 tabs, couple of PPTs or PDFs, an excel sheet and may be an iTunes running behind. Will E450 handle this ?
Or I would sacrifice SSD for now and that money in Laptop budget and make it to 30/32K. Do suggest. I dunn want to end up feeling like 'kaash thoda or better le liya hota' :D
 
sam811 said:
credit to E450 for that sort of backup ;)
Click to expand...

True that ;)

vyral_143 said:
Or I would sacrifice SSD for now and that money in Laptop budget and make it to 30/32K. Do suggest. I dunn want to end up feeling like 'kaash thoda or better le liya hota' :D
Click to expand...

Exactly why I suggest (and do myself) to collect every penny you can and spend on things like such as you don't buy them daily. Sort of one time investment.

vyral_143 said:
In a typical MBA Day there will be Chrome running with 7-8 tabs, couple of PPTs or PDFs, an excel sheet and may be an iTunes running behind. Will E450 handle this ?
Click to expand...

Chrome is a memory hog, so I am running opera currently. Will update today evening after fulfilling your criteria.
 
bhupatib said:
^ U32U has some heating issues according to notebook check. Can you confirm?
Click to expand...

If you'd have went through the full review, I must say that the reviewers sounded more like a harsh critic rather than being unbiased. At a point he even says that since processors, wifi card etc are not upgradeable its a fail. I was getting approx 7 hrs battery back up still they find it less. They even find the brightness low :|.
Regarding over-heating I'd quote my usage. The laptop has been shut down only twice or so since I bought it. I just put it in sleep. Work duration was somewhere near was 3-10 hrs. May be it heated up during benchmarks, but brazos for benchmarks, seriously?
 
I have not bought any of laptop yet. Still not sure of my place of living in Mumbai during MBA. Depending on which i will think.
BTW how good HD5650 Graphics are ? Any comparison with current Gen IGP like HD4000 in IVB
 
5650 is a good mediocre GPU ahead of HD4000 by ~10%. But where are you getting it? It used to come with first gen laptops, and obsolete now.
 
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