Budget 31-40k Need laptop to last for many years

Increasing your budget might work as i3 is a no go as a future proof even with 8gb ram. Lookout for i5 at least or ryzen.
 

Or

There are the only good ones that are currently being delivered to Goa. All the rest are either out of stock or not deliverable.
The 8gb ram models are all above 39k currently at least on flipkart.
A friend of mine bought the laptop in the link below just at the start of this month which has an i3 with 8gb ram and was for 33k. But its out of stock now

The first and the last are good though out of stock at the moment. Regarding the middle one, I am not sure how the processor squares up against the i3 for normal office type tasks. Thanks for the links. I have set up notifications when they are available.
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Increasing your budget might work as i3 is a no go as a future proof even with 8gb ram. Lookout for i5 at least or ryzen.
This is for basic office type usage. No gaming involved. He does play chess but I don't think you require great performance for that. I am open to Ryzen 3.
Someone had suggested a AMD A12 based machine. It was not available but I might consider that too.
 
The first and the last are good though out of stock at the moment. Regarding the middle one, I am not sure how the processor squares up against the i3 for normal office type tasks. Thanks for the links. I have set up notifications when they are available.
Ohh damn. There was only 1 Dell Inspiron 3000 remaining when I posted the link. Guess its gone.
The amd cpu in the middle one is slower than a 10th gen i3(1005g1) but is comparable to the 8th gen i3(8130u) which is common in laptops at this price range.
 
@Julian is right. I went through recent FS posts and there is nothing remotely like a good deal. @red dragon being a non-techie doctor is key here. You need a tool, you don't want to be bothered with something unreliable. You have to have confidence in the unknown tool and expect it works the way you think it is supposed to.
Unfortunately I'm also a non techie doctor and as a dependable tool, I'm afraid nothing is available in your budget. ThinkPad T (T440) with upgrades seemed logical to me.
 
So far my search has been fruitless because almost all suitable laptops seem to be out of stock or priced too high for some reason. I believe it started with the work-from-home demand and just as it stabilized, the school-from-home demand kept the market firmly in the sellers' zone. Since yesterday, I sense a hint that the market is starting to normalize. So it may be good to suspend the search for a week or so. Meanwhile, please let me know if you see any decent deal with delivery in Goa.
 
So far my search has been fruitless because almost all suitable laptops seem to be out of stock or priced too high for some reason. I believe it started with the work-from-home demand and just as it stabilized, the school-from-home demand kept the market firmly in the sellers' zone. Since yesterday, I sense a hint that the market is starting to normalize. So it may be good to suspend the search for a week or so. Meanwhile, please let me know if you see any decent deal with delivery in Goa.
A good idea to avoid netbook parts such as AMD's A series and Intel Celeron/Pentium etc. at your budget.

Re: WFH, online classes and general high demand/supply interruptions; you're right, things have gotten harder but you can still get a good deal if you know what to look for and where. I would suggest dropping any ideas about assured longevity beyond 2-3 years however as that's likely not going to happen.
 
I would recommend to just throw in an ssd into the core 2 duo laptop, it would suffice for a few years with the requirement in hand.
I have had personal experience with my core 2 quad for power use until 2016.
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I am just adding to what everyone have said.

NOTHING can enhance the performance of a device and its feel as replacing with a fast primary storage device. So, even an Core i9 or Ryzen 7 laptop with a mechanical hard disk will feel slower than a basic laptop with a good SSD.

I am referring to the random IOPS, which matter is every day performance and not the over-hyped sequential transfer rate, which is only needed for pros who transfer multiple GB's and TB's of content and time is money.

Talking about this since I was using Vostro 14 3446 with core i5 4210U perfectly fine until last year due to having a basic 240Gb SSD in it. Although I have now fully moved to my office laptop, hence that is lying idle. I am pretty sure Vostro will serve the needs of most entering into the WFH culture.

Just adding my 2 cents to every other valuable insight :)
Hope it helps.
 
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Thanks @Amien
@Karthik G - my desktop is a skylake pentium (G4560) with 8 GB RAM and OS and MSO on SSD and 3 other HDDs for data and rarely used programs. It works very well so I get what you're saying. In my work, I often have 4 browsers going and 2 of them have more than 30 tabs open between them. Works better than an older generation i3 which was powering my office computer before the lockdown.
But his laptop is 7 years old and he is not capable of reformatting/reinstalling his OS or anything of the sort. There are a few other hardware issue too. So he has to get a new laptop.
 
...His usage will mostly be documents creation and Powerpoint presentations...

...Note that the laptop is absolutely not required for gaming...

People recommending against low end components did you even look at his use case?

I repeat, get the cheapest decent model available and throw it away after a couple years and buy a new one. No point in looking at longevity with a laptop. What if you get an expensive one and some components fail after the warranty? For this use case even a 10 year old config will work fine.
 
Thanks @Amien
@Karthik G - my desktop is a skylake pentium (G4560) with 8 GB RAM and OS and MSO on SSD and 3 other HDDs for data and rarely used programs. It works very well so I get what you're saying. In my work, I often have 4 browsers going and 2 of them have more than 30 tabs open between them. Works better than an older generation i3 which was powering my office computer before the lockdown.
But his laptop is 7 years old and he is not capable of reformatting/reinstalling his OS or anything of the sort. There are a few other hardware issue too. So he has to get a new laptop.

Got it. Then get any decent model with pre installed ssd in it. You should be good.
If an upgrade is needed in the future, post lockdown you may assist ;)
 
I will stick to my previous suggestion. Source a T440 from eBay, slap in an ssd, upgrade the memory to 8GB, it will last easily for 5-6 years.
Older HP elitebooks are even easier to upgrade, the bottom panel can be taken out without any screwdriver ( just a latch like the battery) and those 3rd/4th gen i5 elitebooks are really well built and can take abuse pretty well.
Many of my colleagues ( all doctors) are using these 2 laptops for 6/7 years.
Is it possible for him to ditch Windows completely and shift his work to an iPad?
I'm preparing slides and presenting / taking classes from a very old iPad air 2 for last 2 weeks.
 
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It's kind of a gift on a special occasion so i don't think he really wants to do used.

Not too mention buying from eBay isn't really an option in India these days, especially considering if there's something wrong with it and has to be returned. For that matter i don't really know if eBay.com even works in India now. Since they stopped eBay.in.

Your suggestion of a ThinkPad is right on otherwise, probably the only half decent hardware still available even after being chinese'd...
 
Oh!! A gift..and I completely forgot about eBay situation in India?
Does eBay.com work? So it's basically Amazon/ Flipkart and smaller online stores only.
I miss Amazon a lot here. But at least eBay works.
 
I'm not really sure if ebay.com works in india now. I used to buy small stuff like mobile parts etc. directly from china using ebay.com. Kinda like how people were doing aliexpress these days. Ebay.in had decent offers on storage etc. as well as weird stuff you didn't get on amazon/fk. It was also a better way for people to buy/sell stuff than olx. But since ebay.in got bought out by flipkart, it's not the same anymore.
Can someone clarify if ebay.com even works for buying stuff in india?
@chetansha ?
 
I'm not really sure if ebay.com works in india now. I used to buy small stuff like mobile parts etc. directly from china using ebay.com. Kinda like how people were doing aliexpress these days. Ebay.in had decent offers on storage etc. as well as weird stuff you didn't get on amazon/fk. It was also a better way for people to buy/sell stuff than olx. But since ebay.in got bought out by flipkart, it's not the same anymore.
Can someone clarify if ebay.com even works for buying stuff in india?
@chetansha ?
Yes it works, indirectly. The firm that was handling geb in india . Also there are other options like shopnship, shopabroad, ibhejo etc.
 
Ebay in India is just a hollowed out shell of its former self (thanks FK :mad:). Would be a pretty bad idea to buy anything from there as the shipping/duties will negate any sort of deal.
 
Yes it works, indirectly. The firm that was handling geb in india . Also there are other options like shopnship, shopabroad, ibhejo etc.

If you aren't busy with other things, you should do a short write up on buying shit from abroad, 2020 edition, man. List out all the options with their pros and cons.
 
Bought HP Notebook - 15-da0414tu last night. I had been on the lookout for HP Laptop - 15s-eq1042au as first choice and tried to buy it first since both suddenly became available on the HP website. During my purchase attempt, it failed 3 times for various reasons. In the third attempt it went out of stock so I went ahead with my second choice. Rs 34702/-
Thanks to all of you guys who gave me advice and suggestions.
 
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