$900 Laptop Suggestion

Deepon Mitra

Estimable
Apr 23, 2015
5
0
4,510
Hi Guys,

I am looking for a laptop but I can't go beyond $900-$950. Please see below details:

1. What is your budget? $900-$950 or INR 60000+

2. What is the size of the notebook that you are considering? 15"

3. What screen resolution do you want? FHD

4. Do you need a portable or desktop replacement laptop? No

5. How much battery life do you need? 5-6 hrs

6. Do you want to play games with your laptop? If so then please list the games that you want to with the settings that you want for these games. (Low, Medium or High)? Yes. But not high-end/AAA titles.

7. What other tasks do you want to do with your laptop? (Photo/Video editing, Etc.) Photoshop, Captivate, Storyline, Camtasia

8. How much storage (Hard Drive capacity) do you need? 500GB or 1TB (any)

9. If you are considering specific sites to buy from, please post their links. www.amazon.in

10. How long do you want to keep your laptop? 2-3 yrs

11. What kind of Optical drive do you need? DVD ROM/Writer,Bluray ROM/Writer,Etc ? Not required

12. Please tell us about the brands that you prefer to buy from them and the brands that you don't like and explain the reasons. ASUS (build quality), Lenovo (Build quality), HP, Acer, Dell (last preference)

13. What country do you live in? India

14. Please tell us any additional information if needed. I will be mostly be using the laptop for extensive web browsing, streaming, photo editing.
 
Solution
This is the closest I could get to your requirements:
https://www.amazon.in/Lenovo-80TU00D2IH-i5-7200U-Integrated-Pre-Loaded/dp/B071JXSYSH/ref=sr_1_2?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1504110868&sr=1-2

Weak points are RAM and storage; when you get the chance, you might want to upgrade to 8 GBs of RAM and replace the HDD with an SSD. This model comes with Windows 10, unlike just about all the other listings (DOS or FreeDOS).

I don't know what the refurbished marketplace is like in India, but there are a couple of decent refurbished Lenovos in this price range on Amazon IN.
 
Well, going from ₹45,000 to ₹60,600 ought to widen the field - but only marginally so. Still going by Amazon IN, I found this 15.6" Dell:
https://www.amazon.in/Dell-Vostro-5568-15-6-inch-Laptop/dp/B01MY7MG4Z/ref=sr_1_1?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1504288553&sr=1-1

At ₹60,000, it comes with a 1080p screen, 8GBs of RAM and 1TB of storage, backed by a dual-core Kaby Lake i5 that should handle Adobe PhotoShop and similar software without problems. It doesn't specify which GPU is used, but judging by user reviews it's the ol' faithful 2GB GTX 940MX - not amazing, but nice to have for 'a rainy day'. Windows 10 pre-installed, and battery life around the 5 to 6 hours requested.

I don't know how you feel about AMD APUs, but there are a lot of AMD-based laptops in this price range with anything from 6GBs to 12GBs of RAM. The only trade-off is that they are all 768p screens. This is also the case with flipkart.com: A lot of attractive laptops with great specs - except they're all 768p.

The Dell Vostro above remains my best shot.
 

Deepon Mitra

Estimable
Apr 23, 2015
5
0
4,510


I could go for an APU, but I have heard they are not great as CPUs...what do you think? Otherwise Vostro looks like a solid choice IMHO.
 


I haven't used an APU myself - the closest I've gotten is the Phenom II in one of my older rigs (and that CPU is rock-solid!) - but the reason I mentioned AMD was,
a) There are quite a lot to choose from, and
b) It could be that you actually preferred AMD over Intel (some people do).

But the big trade-off is still the 768p screen resolution. The AMD laptops aren't necessarily less expensive, but some of them do have more RAM. If you're OK with 8 GBs of RAM, I would consider the Dell with the 1080p screen the better option.

Best of luck,
GreyCatz.
 
Solution