Need help in choosing the best laptop for me by December 2011!

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Hi folks,

This is my first post on Digit Forum.
I'm on the lookout for the best possible laptop(in terms of config, build quality and service) for myself to be purchased by this December.

Here, I've filled up the questionnaire(with inline answers) :

1) What is your budget? (INR or USD)
INR 30-40k...hopefully shouldn't exceed this!
2) What size notebook would you prefer?
Mainstream; 15" - 16" screen
3) Which country will you buying this notebook? Also state that if Amazon.com or Newgg.com ships to your country (Only if you know this info).
India

4) Are there any brands that you prefer or any you really don't like?
a. Like:Toshiba,Asus,Dell
b. Dislike:Acer

5) What are the primary tasks will you be performing with this notebook?
Multimedia,programming and moderate gaming(COD,Battlefield,MOH,etc.,@medium settings )
6) Will you be taking the notebook with you to different places, leaving it on your desk or both?
Both, but mostly on desk

7) Will you be playing games on your notebook? If so, please state which games or types of games?
COD,Battlefield,MOH,FIFA,etc.,@medium settings
8) How many hours of battery life do you need?
3 hrs on an average should do fine
9) Would you prefer to see the notebooks you're considering before purchasing it or buying a notebook on-line without seeing it is OK?
preferably, but not compulsorily

10) What OS do you prefer?
Free DOS would do fine...I wud install my own copy of OS
11) What screen resolution(s) would you prefer?

Best possible resolution for a 15-16" screen

Flipkart.com: Asus K Series K53SV-SX520V: Computer

If OK with 14"
Flipkart.com: HP Pavilion DV6 Series Dv4 - 3016tx: Computer

40% better gaming.

Would be better to ask in December.

check this out Flipkart.com: HP Pavilion DV6 Series DV6-6115TX: Computer

or this:
Flipkart.com: Asus K Series K53SV-SX520V: Computer
nyc for gaming, no usb 3.0...

for gaming go for the 14" model refered by ishu......

B

Hi folks,

Thanks for the replies.

I'm not really a HP person(though I have nothing against it!)

And I wud appreciate if the model comes with just Free DOS...that wud help in cutting down the cost. And also I think an average Graphic card of 1 GB should do for my needs(moderate gaming at moderate settings). For me, 15-16" screen, excellent build quality,reliability and fairly good service is a must.
I can do without things like huge storage,longer battery life, weight factor, etc.

I had a few models in mind :

1. ASUS - A53SJ
Asus A53 A53SJ Laptop: Flipkart.com: Compare, Review Asus Notebook

What do you say abt this??

2. TOSHIBA - L750-X5315
:: Toshiba India ::

Would love to have this without the Windows 7 option...that wud've brought the price down from 40k to a manageable 37k!

3. DELL INSPIRION 15R -- Configured with 4GB DDR3 RAM, 1 GB NVIDIA,etc.
This costs a bomb...44k. Without the Windows 7 I wud've dug this too.

Please reply guys and give ur insightful views.
Not sure abt Lenovo, and definitely no ACER!

@Ishu : If i start scouting from now, only then I can expect to land myself a good lappy by December. right???!! :mrgreen:

Guys...awaiting your opinions! :neutral:

Born@1989 said:
1. ASUS - A53SJ
Asus A53 A53SJ Laptop: Flipkart.com: Compare, Review Asus Notebook

What do you say abt this??
GT520M IS POOR. HARDLY BETTER THAN THE ONBOARD GRAPHICS. NOT WORTH THE MONEY.
FORGET ABOUT GAMES IF YOU GET THIS

2. TOSHIBA - L750-X5315
:: Toshiba India ::

Would love to have this without the Windows 7 option...that wud've brought the price down from 40k to a manageable 37k!
SAME AS ABOVE

3. DELL INSPIRION 15R -- Configured with 4GB DDR3 RAM, 1 GB NVIDIA,etc.
This costs a bomb...44k. Without the Windows 7 I wud've dug this too.

@Ishu : If i start scouting from now, only then I can expect to land myself a good lappy by December. right???!!

Not really. The market will change between now and December. New models, new techs, price cuts etc.

B

Hmmm...so the graphic options are that bad eh??! :eeek:

See...i just want to strike a balance between cost and config+quality :evil:

And I found that one way of doing that was to avoid the bundled Windows OS and another way was to choose a medium-level graphic option.
I wouldn't be playing any top-end latest games(i anyways wouldn't be able to buy them! :sealed:

). The games I would be wanting to play wud be along the lines of Prince Of Persia WW, COD2, MOH, FIFA 2010, MAFIA and a host of other older games.

Anyways, would appreciate if u can suggest some more options :razz:

And do you think that by December the prices might come down to my budget range of around 35k?

TIA.

Price cut depends, maybe the price remains same but better tech at cheaper prices is available....and according to ur needs i guess 520m would be fine..

I am not sure what you are trying to do. The ASUS I linked is Rs40917. The toshiba you linked is 40k but with poorer GFX and smaller HDD.

@Rohan
GT520M is almost same as HD3000. So no point going for it.

As an entry level card, the GT 520M has to compete against the Intel HD Graphics 3000 in the current Sandy Bridge processors. In our tests, the card was only slightly faster, but the better driver support did make a difference. However, demanding games like Battlefield Bad Company 2 may not be playable fluently. Other modern games only run in low details, and therefore gamers wont be pleased with the performance.

yeah but he doesn't likes HP we cant help that , what he needs can done by integrated thing but he believes in dedicated GFX..

smartyrohan12 said:
yeah but he doesn't likes HP we cant help that , what he needs can done by integrated thing but he believes in dedicated GFX..

I'm talking about ASUS we both linked to.

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Guys...thanx for ur earnest efforts.
I have nothing against HP man...a couple of my friends have Hp and they had some problems with it. So i was looking for alternatives. If HP is the best bang for the buck, then I would have no qualms going for it!!

The Toshiba had many other smart features for that price and couple of my friends had talked abt its reliability.So.
I'd liked it to have come without the W7 OS and at a lower cost.

I'm open towards that Asus u guys pointed out. And hope that the prices come down in times to come!! :ban:

HP then, you guys say???

B

Hello???.....No response guys???? :chinscratch:

again i shall say till december more models may be out... at present u have the 3016tx as best option in terms of graphics at 42k ... btw which toshiba model are you talking about??

B

Toshiba L750 - i5 2410,4 GB RAM, 1 GB graphic

Born@1989 said:
Toshiba L750 - i5 2410,4 GB RAM, 1 GB graphic

Its has a 520M. It sucks.

Do you hate ASUS too?

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@Ishu : Dude...i don't "hate" any brand man!!!...i think u took my comment on HP products to be offensive....seriously man...NOM

N abt the Toshiba...i was jus answering to rohan's question :neutral:

I'm not against Asus...actually its on top of my list now.

How good id 540 compared to 520??

And one thing I really wanted to ask ppl was abt the reliability and service of Asus.

Born@1989 said:
i think u took my comment on HP products to be offensive

No not really.

N abt the Toshiba...i was jus answering to rohan's question

Oh ok. Apologies

How good id 540 compared to 520??

30-40% better.

yah man , if u are into gaming then go for the HP dv4..

..and i am really annoyed cause these manufactures using product code, cant they juss write the model... what is this n12p-lp model??

smartyrohan12 said:
yah man , if u are into gaming then go for the HP dv4..

..and i am really annoyed cause these manufactures using product code, cant they juss write the model... what is this n12p-lp model??

520M I think. Its is a FAIL GPU.

B

Ya...its the 520 M.
Here's a link from notebookcheck which lists all the GPUs:
Comparison of Laptop Graphics Cards - Notebookcheck.net Tech
You can check the codenames on clicking on the specific names.

By the way guys...dint answer my last question...abt...ASUS...anyone knows abt its reliability, service and issues??!! :unsure:

Anyone using ASUS can help by sharing their experience pls.

And another thing...I might seem to be a noob here...but can someone tell me whats the advantage of a 2GB GPU over a 1GB one?...i mean...does that mean that a 2GB combi wud give double the processing power?....for example...the 1GB 555M is supposed to be twice as powerful as a 540M one...so...if I use a 2GB combi of 540, wud it give me a there-abouts performance of the 555 if not equal???!!

I'm sure, i'm missing something here!

The GPU RAM is the amount of RAM the GPU has at its disposal. Unless the graphics card is really high end (even better than 6770 or 555gt) dont expect any real world gains in the performance with doubling of ram.

Its the GPU itself that counts for the most part. it just needs to have enough ram so that its not bottlenecked. 555gt is better because it is simply a faster card than 540gt.

Born@1989 said:
And another thing...I might seem to be a noob here...but can someone tell me whats the advantage of a 2GB GPU over a 1GB one?...i mean...does that mean that a 2GB combi wud give double the processing power?....for example...the 1GB 555M is supposed to be twice as powerful as a 540M one...so...if I use a 2GB combi of 540, wud it give me a there-abouts performance of the 555 if not equal???!!

1GB or 20GB. 540M is 40% slower than 555M.

540M isn't fast enough to utilize even the 1 GB VRAM.

If a graphic cards isn't fast enough to utilize the extra memory, its of no use.

Example, you can do 5 maths question in a minute (GPU speed). You are given paper enough for only 3 questions (GPU RAM). So now you'll have to do the first 3 ques and then get more paper (Free up RAM) than do the remaining 2 (Speed limited by RAM/Paper). If you were given enough paper for 5 ques, you wouldn't have to wait for more paper.

Now even if you get 500 pages of paper, you can only do 5 ques a minute (Speed is now limited by your speed).

That should make it clear.

Good explanation Ishu :thumbs:

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Ishu Gupta said:
1GB or 20GB. 540M is 40% slower than 555M.

540M isn't fast enough to utilize even the 1 GB VRAM.

If a graphic cards isn't fast enough to utilize the extra memory, its of no use.

Example, you can do 5 maths question in a minute (GPU speed). You are given paper enough for only 3 questions (GPU RAM). So now you'll have to do the first 3 ques and then get more paper (Free up RAM) than do the remaining 2 (Speed limited by RAM/Paper). If you were given enough paper for 5 ques, you wouldn't have to wait for more paper.

Now even if you get 500 pages of paper, you can only do 5 ques a minute (Speed is now limited by your speed).

That should make it clear.

Nice explanation Ishu :goodjob:

I was thinking the same...but thot of asking anyway :wink:

Going by that, 1GB of any good GPU shud be enough for playing most of the games!

Any ASUS user reviews, ppl????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

@born@1989 buddy i already know about the site and most of us do...dont be so sure check the model first ...the config says n12p-lp , whereas the site says n12p-gp\lv...

@ishu nyc explanation buddy..

Ishu Gupta said:
I am not sure what you are trying to do. The ASUS I linked is Rs40917. The toshiba you linked is 40k but with poorer GFX and smaller HDD.

Ishu,ever wondered why a thinkpad costs almost 60k with intel gfx and i3?
There are more to a laptop then the latest card :wink:

.

dude
if you are a gamer Hp's dv6 is good but really future is uncertain due to spin off
and
if not the go for Sony / Dell

I dont play much games due to office :/
thats why i choose xps

Born@1989; By the way guys...dint answer my last question...abt...ASUS...anyone knows abt its reliability said:
Asus has improved a lot in the service department lately,most cities now have on site warranty.
Few low end models had significant keyboard flex and in general they use poor quality lcds(just like HP,may be slightly better)
But you missed on an important thing..how long are you going to use this laptop?
If 1-1.5 years..you can go for HP,but you will have to baby it all the time and spend some good amount of time with the SC guys.
If around 2 or more years-compromise on the gaming and look into some serious laptops.

red dragon said:
Ishu,ever wondered why a thinkpad costs almost 60k with intel gfx and i3?
There are more to a laptop then the latest card.

1) Toshiba != Thinkpad. He has nothing against ASUS (He hasn't said so IIRC).
2) To me performance is all that matters. Couldn't care less about looks. Its all about getting your work done after 1 month of novelty.
And build quality of Thinkpad doesn't matter to me. Your handling is more important than quality.
Decent quality is enough for me.

IMO ofcourse.

@ everyone
Thanks guys

Who said Toshiba=Thinkpad?

red dragon said:
Who said Toshiba=Thinkpad?

So why mention the thinkpad? ASUS is def better than Toshiba.

Just to make you understand price is not always proportional to hardware specs for a laptop.
Nevermind,you will understand when you grow a little older!

red dragon said:
Just to make you understand price is not always proportional to hardware specs for a laptop.
Nevermind,you will understand when you grow a little older!

How old are you BTW?

At least 5 years older.