Budget 71-90K Laptop recommendation for Computer Science Student

devid

devid

Recruit
A relative of mine will start his studies soon and need a laptop recommendation.

  • What's your Budget?
    • Around 80k
  • What will be your primary usage for the notebook be?
    • Typical college use: Browsing, Coding, presentations, office apps, online classes etc.
  • What size and weight considerations do you have?
    • No strict preference but something light would be nice to make it easier to carry it around.
  • Any brand that you prefer, or any brand that you detest?
    • No brand preference
  • Any other considerations?
    • Long battery life would be nice to have
 
navinbhatia said:
Have you thought about getting a MacBook Air?
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Relative is not that familiar with computers (only exposure was via college and school labs), and I don't think he has ever used an apple device so I don't think going for MacBook would be a comfortable experience for him.
 
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This should suffice. It has an OLED display, so there will be risk of burn ins. It can be prevented by some methods like screen savers and auto hide taskbar.
Or this, with inferior display but lighter: https://www.amazon.in/HP-14-inches-...prefix=hp+pavilion+ryzen+,aps,244&sr=8-9&th=1
 
DestGod said:
www.flipkart.com

ASUS VivoBook K15 OLED AMD Ryzen 7 Octa Core AMD R7-5700U - (16 GB/512 GB SSD/Windows 11 Home) KM513UA-L712WS Thin and Light Laptop Rs.86990 Price in India - Buy ASUS VivoBook K15 OLED AMD Ryzen 7 Octa Core AMD R7-5700U - (16 GB/512 GB SSD/Windows 1

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This should suffice. It has an OLED display, so there will be risk of burn ins. It can be prevented by some methods like screen savers and auto hide taskbar.
Or this, with inferior display but lighter: https://www.amazon.in/HP-14-inches-Micro-Edge-14s-fy1005AU/dp/B0B58W9TH1/ref=sr_1_9?crid=4IXE1BLUF4NO&keywords=hp+pavilion+ryzen+7&qid=1679931152&sprefix=hp+pavilion+ryzen+,aps,244&sr=8-9&th=1
Click to expand...
Thanks for the recommendations, I am worried about the burn-ins though, I don't trust him enough to take the necessary precautions haha. There is a good chance the laptop will be handled roughly too. Do you have any other recommendations?
 
I have a soft spot for HP because they usually provide full size USB type A ports and dedicated line of navigation keys like Page up Page down on the right side.

Browse the hp website for available options and cashback deals.
 
devid said:
Thanks for the recommendations, I am worried about the burn-ins though, I don't trust him enough to take the necessary precautions haha. There is a good chance the laptop will be handled roughly too. Do you have any other recommendations?
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yeah, coding means there will be static stuff for long periods of time.

if gaming is a consideration (once in college, it may become) consider the Legion series (there are a number of these, check the one in your budget range), or Victus (hp but has good reviews).

if no gaming, look at the Lenovo Yoga series, or the older LG Gram series - both are lightweight and have great battery life.

ThinkPads at this budget compromise on the screen, else the E series is the one that has the best keyboard better than the more expensive series. If you like ThinkPads, buy on the Lenovo website directly where you can customize stuff like screen, RAM, etc.

One of the best all-rounders is the Lenovo IdeaPad 5 Pro. It is not available most of the time, else it is a blind buy, has almost everything, incl., a metal build, a great screen, and battery. Even the non-Pro version is good but you won't get a metal body.
 
OMEGA44-XT said:
Sadly budget ThinkPads & Thinkbooks have TN panel. TN panels are just bad, I will any day prefer a 67% sRGB IPS panel over it.
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Seems we can configure some laptops with an IPS display if purchasing from Lenovo website though. Here's one I did with an AMD ThinkPad.

lap.PNG


Product link
 
The IdeaPad is sounding good to me. Is this the right one?
Lenovo Ideapad 5 Pro AMD Ryzen 7 5800U 14"(35cm) QHD 300Nits Thin & Light Laptop (16GB/1TB SSD/Windows 11/Office 2021/Backlit Keyboard/60Hz/Storm Grey /1.38Kg),82L700D1IN https://amzn.eu/d/hDqzIc9
singenaadam said:
yeah, coding means there will be static stuff for long periods of time.

if gaming is a consideration (once in college, it may become) consider the Legion series (there are a number of these, check the one in your budget range), or Victus (hp but has good reviews).

if no gaming, look at the Lenovo Yoga series, or the older LG Gram series - both are lightweight and have great battery life.

ThinkPads at this budget compromise on the screen, else the E series is the one that has the best keyboard better than the more expensive series. If you like ThinkPads, buy on the Lenovo website directly where you can customize stuff like screen, RAM, etc.

One of the best all-rounders is the Lenovo IdeaPad 5 Pro. It is not available most of the time, else it is a blind buy, has almost everything, incl., a metal build, a great screen, and battery. Even the non-Pro version is good but you won't get a metal body.
Click to expand...
 
devid said:
The IdeaPad is sounding good to me. Is this the right one?
Lenovo Ideapad 5 Pro AMD Ryzen 7 5800U 14"(35cm) QHD 300Nits Thin & Light Laptop (16GB/1TB SSD/Windows 11/Office 2021/Backlit Keyboard/60Hz/Storm Grey /1.38Kg),82L700D1IN https://amzn.eu/d/hDqzIc9
Click to expand...
The build and display quality of this laptop are quite impressive. Battery life and charging times are also great. However, I would recommend avoiding the H-processor/GTX1650 variant, as my relative experienced heat issues with it (refer to my previous post for more details).

I recall seeing this laptop priced around ~70k last year, which might have been the 512GB SSD version. This device should be well-suited for college-related tasks for your relative unless they're into demanding gaming sessions.
 
OneTapHero said:
The build and display quality of this laptop are quite impressive. Battery life and charging times are also great. However, I would recommend avoiding the H-processor/GTX1650 variant, as my relative experienced heat issues with it (refer to my previous post for more details).

I recall seeing this laptop priced around ~70k last year, which might have been the 512GB SSD version. This device should be well-suited for college-related tasks for your relative unless they're into demanding gaming sessions.
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Thanks for bringing this to my attention, didn't know it suffers from heating issues, will consider a different variant.

Edit:
Thinking of recommending this one
 
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I recommend opting for the 16GB RAM version. Be aware that Ryzen processors reserve 2GB of the total RAM, leaving approximately 14GB for utilization. Additionally, Windows will also consume a portion of the available RAM.
 
Yes will go for a 16gb ram version, 8gb nowadays isn't enough, especially with laptops with pre-installed bloatware.
 
I have the Ideapad Flex 5. 16GB RAM, Ryzen 7, integrated Radeon GPU. It was 68k when I received it.

Pros:
+ Good battery life
+ Good performance for how thin it is
+ iGPU is quite powerful, and you don't need a charger to use it's full power
+ Pretty nice to take notes on, with the included-in-box Stylus

Cons:
- The display is just... okay. Not very bright for outdoor use, and the colors are fine.
- The one I have came with Mediatek Wifi/BT chipset. It sucks on Windows. However, I think it is user replaceable? It works fine on Linux, so no complaints there.
- The SSD is from Micron. The cache is pretty small, and you can feel it slow down during I/O extensive workloads. Though, I'm pretty sure you won't notice it during normal use or when playing games.
- Fingerprint reader doesn't work on Linux

Overall, I'm happy with it. On both Windows and Fedora, I got over 7h with battery saver on, and around 6h of movie watching without battery saver.

The inferior Mediatek chipset was probably due to chip shortage, but it's a thing that happened.

Good luck!
 
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