41-50k Need advice for a good laptop for personal use

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CapriAnupam

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Hi guys,

Need advice for buying a laptop.

Actually, the advice is needed for my brother, who is looking to buy a laptop from USA. He has a budget of under 1000 dollars. So, as per Indian Rupee, I think it will roughly be 50-60K.
  • What's your Budget? (e.g. >30K, not more than 50K etc.)
Upto 50-60K.
  • What will be your primary usage for the notebook be? (e.g. web surfing/office apps/Casual Gaming)
Mostly for general usage... surfing, office, movies, music, etc. He also needs to edit photos a lot, as he likes taking photos. So, a laptop which can handle Photostop etc, without slowness or lag would be great.
  • 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)
He is wanting to have a sleek laptop, but that is secondary though. The main thing is the configuration should be good and the laptop should be durable. If it's sleek, it would be great.
  • Any brand that you prefer, or any brand that you detest? (e.g some would prefer to stay away from Acer or Dell)
None as such. Although, he had a Dell before, and he was not satisfied with it. I have seen it too. The casing, keys and all are not as good, and wore out quite quickly. The screen has started to wobble, etc. Similar with the same model my cousin has. So, he is not looking to get Dell. Other than that, no idea as such. Please tell which brands are good, and which are not. He is giving preference to Sony because of quality, but I feel that Sony charges more for the same configuration, that other companies offer. Sometimes, it charges more for even a lower configuration than others.

How are laptops from Samsung?
  • Any other considerations? (e.g Battery life; Widescreen/non-widescreen; Glossy/Matte screen etc.)
None as such. Laptop should have a good configuration though, which can handle the required tasks. Should also be durable, and long lasting.

Atleast Intel i5. If a good laptop with i7 can come in the budget, great!

Nowadays, laptops with touch screens are getting quite popular there, and available in the same budget too. Is it good to buy them?

Also, I saw that for Sony, it's offering Windows 8 64-bit on all laptops. Is 64-bit the way to go now?

If someone knows of a good forum/site in the US for having advice on buying laptops.. or a good review site for laptops, please share :).

Thanks in advance for the help :).
 
U can look at Samsung Series 5 or Dell Xps 15 or Dell Inspiron 15r & 17r. Dell Inspiron is the best bet right now only if ur buying from US. Dell XPS 15 is also great.
 
Thanks for the reply :). Will look at the recommendations.

My brother had a Dell earlier, but looking at its condition, I don't think my brother has any faith left on Dell anymore. Are these Dell recommendations durable, and long lasting? From what I have heard, material of Dell is of lower standard, and do not last long.

Which brands are good? Samsung laptops are good?

People have suggested Sony, Asus, Toshiba, Dell to be good. After that Samsung, Acer, HP, Lenovo and all.

More feedbacks will be welcome :).
 
CapriAnupam said:
Thanks for the reply :). Will look at the recommendations.

My brother had a Dell earlier, but looking at its condition, I don't think my brother has any faith left on Dell anymore. Are these Dell recommendations durable, and long lasting? From what I have heard, material of Dell is of lower standard, and do not last long.

Which brands are good? Samsung laptops are good?

People have suggested Sony, Asus, Toshiba, Dell to be good. After that Samsung, Acer, HP, Lenovo and all.

More feedbacks will be welcome :).
Click to expand...


Sammys are good compared to dell because they got little expireance(this is completely my own taste:D).

I had dell inspiron earlier and it was quite good dealing with it as it was durable but it was very bulky. I dont know what are others opinions but i like dell(this is also a personal taste:D)
 
Thanks for the links and suggestions. Lenovo laptops look interesting, and offering high configuration in low budget, will take a look.

What about Asus laptops... are they better than Lenovo and other brands?

What about Sony laptops?
 
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+1 to ASUS. I use a k55VJ and trust me with its i5 and 8GB of RAM, it blows past a lot of other laptops! plus i got it for 44k inclusive of all taxes :)
There are two k55VJ models. One with 4GB of RAM and original windows 7 home basic. The other comes with 8GB of RAM and no windows but it has support only for windows 8 so you can't put windows 7 without unlocking it. I took the latter and am using it with windows 8. Honest opinion, the 8GB of RAM is mega helpful!! Also this variant comes with the GT635M which is a capable card and i run all games at native resolution and on high settings( ofcourse antialiasng is turned down).
Go with ASUS Laptops. They offer excellent hardware for great prices!!
 
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Thanks for the helpful replies guys :).

@senthil, that was quite a good suggestion, and the configuration is great... but sadly, my brother thinks it's costly. He has now lowered his budget to 600-700$ , because of budget problems :(

Reading different views, will probably go for Asus laptops, or maybe Sony. My preference will be Asus, so will be researching a bit for Asus laptops.

There are no prices on Asus site for the laptops, so it will be difficult looking through all the choices. Will have to keep checking the prices on Amazon.

Thanks for the suggestions :) ... will check out Asus and Sony laptops.
 
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Thanks a lot @senthil .. that's a good suggestion. I too looked at Asus laptops on Amazon, and I too narrowed down my choice to the laptop you suggested. Within the given price range, I agree that's the best.

There is the A55A-AH51 series too, which has i5, and is around the 500-600$ range depending on the colors, but I was not impressed much. The reviews say there is a problem with the touchpad and spacebar, among other issues, like shutting down randomly.

http://www.amazon.com/ASUS-A55A-AH5...PDKIKX0DER&s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1370517829&sr=1-4

What do you think about it? There are other choices of colors, like Blue, White, Red. I don't understand why is the laptop with the black color in this series having such a low cost.. 100$ less than the other colors. Any reason for that?

I will be taking a look at Sony series now.

My brother wants a laptop in 13-15 inch screen size category. 13-14 is preferable, but I didn't find any good laptop in that category in Asus on Amazon. Choices were less, and mostly they were costly, and out of budget.

Thanks for the suggestions :).

Any good laptop suggestion in Sony with the desired criteria would be appreciated too. I will be taking a look myself too.
 
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Thanks @senthil for pointing out about the dedicated graphics.

The Asus VivoBook which you suggested has i5 1.7 GHz processor.. is it worth it? I overlooked the laptops having processors less than 2.0 GHz, because I think it's not worth going for lower processors. What do you think? Does it matter much?

Although, the specs for Sony laptop which you suggested are good, but it's coming with Windows 7, and not Windows 8.

Sony is really overpriced. I looked, and found that on Amazon, no Sony laptop with i7 even falls in the budget. Also, whereas Asus latops are offering 2 USB 3.0 ports, and 1 USB 2.0 port, it's other way around with Sony. Atleast USB 3.0 ports should be more now, since they are the latest technology... and it's really faster.

Anyways, I took a look at suggested these two Sony laptops to my brother to look at:

http://www.amazon.com/Sony-SVE14135...PDKIKX0DER&s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1370519235&sr=1-2

http://www.amazon.com/Sony-SVE1413A...PDKIKX0DER&s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1370519235&sr=1-6

But, considering that an i7 laptop in the same price range is available from Asus, I would personally want to go with the Asus one. It's a bit costly, and nearing the budget limit, but it's looking like the best choice to me. Although my brother didn't like its color much, and also felt it was bigger.

He suggested this one:

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Asus+-+....p?id=1218857084845&skuId=7658047#tab=reviews

It's good too, but it does not have dedicated graphics, and also has i5 only... whereas with 100$ more, you can get an i7 laptop. The dimensions too are not very different from the i7 one, including the weight.

Let's see.

How are Lenovo laptops? A guy in another forum posted links of two sites, which show results from studies, and they have put Lenovo as number two laptops, after Apple. Have they become that good?
 
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