Laptops Lenovo or Dell ?

Go in for the Dell Inspiron 1525. It comes with a T5750 (1.83Ghz, 2MB L2, 667 FSB) processor which I recommend you upgarade to a T8300 (2.4Ghz, 3MB L2, 800 FSB) processor.

It has Vista Home Premium and a 1280x800 screen with a 2MP webcam. Again I would recommend that you upgrade to the 1440x900 resolution. It also has 3GB DDR2 RAM in dualchannel mode and 250GB HDD which ought to be sufficient. (Remember: 32bit Vista cant use 4GB of RAM) It also has the Intel GMA X3100 integrated graphics which is sufficient for Vista and waching movies and basic gaming (eg. HL2, CS, AoE etc.)

With Dell you should always excercise the option for partitioning your HDD else the entire 250GB will be used by C: and cant be changed later. I also recommend that you upgrade the WiFi to Draft-N and audio to Creative Sound Blaster Audigy. Also opt for the A/V cable kit under 'Accesories'. This will equip you with the necessary cables for hooking your laptop to your TV etc.

Remember: this laptop comes with only 1 year of warranty and NO carry case. You need to invest seperately for a USB mouse and a laptop bag that should cost about 1000/-. Extended warranty will cost you more and you can compromise on some other component if you think you need it and cant spend more than 50k. I would personally recommend going in for the 3year warranty.

The configuration that I have suggested will cost you around 52k after taxes. I chose the highend Inspiron1525 model and then customised it. You can go to the Dell website and experiment with the customisation options yourself.
I forgot about the sound system part. The inbuilt speakers are really quite inadeqaute. You will definitely need to invest in separate speakers or headphones. Dell has a Bluetooth Stereo Headset fo around 2.5k I dont know how the sound quality is though I like the idea of a wireless headset. A pair of decent stereo speakers will cost you around 1.5k.
 
Vasu, what model in Lenovo are you considering against the Dell XPS M1530. I've used Dell and I'm typing this from my Lenovo T60 right now.

If you ask me, for a home user, the Dell XPS series only makes a good buy. Lenovo is mostly for business.

My T60 is rugged and has a good keyboard with proper insert home etc 6 keypad and full shift keys (only major problem is the silly placement of a Fn key where the Ctrl key should be). But it's display is bad and the sound is barely audible at full volume i.e. you can't even watch a movie on the laptop without connecting to external speakers. It's thin but it's quite heavy.

In my opinion, you would be happy with a Dell XPS or a Compaq. They're more consumer friendly laptops. But please type for a while on the laptop, try watching a movie and play some music to get a feel of the laptop you're buying.
 
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