Recommend a laptop please.

[Mack The Knife]

The following are my requirements:

1) Use Auto Cad.
2) E-mail.
3) Surf the internet.
4) Store tons of high resolution pics and videos as well in the future.
5) Write and store official corresspondence.
6) Perhaps store some music on it as well.
7) It should have a CD and DVD reader and writer.
8 ) It should have a connection for an external mouse.
9) Should preferably be dust proof and not require an air-conditioned room. If it could take a spill or two of tea, then that would be super.
10) Minimum screen size to be 15". 17" would be infinitely better.
11) Not bothered about weight or size as it will not be carried much.
12) The company must provide good after sales service.
13) The unit should be hardy and last for ages. Minimum five years. Double that would be better.
14) Would ideally like it to cost under Rs.40,000.00 Is this a reasonable budget?

Thanks.

Mack The Knife

[mundaire]

Not current with the models BUT MAKE SURE you don't buy one with Vista preloaded! It's a waste of money as you will invariably end up dumping Vista in favour of XP.

Edit: 40K is a decent enough budget. Avoid Dell & Acer or any of the new brands. I'd consider Toshiba, Compaq, HP , Lenovo in roughly that order.

Would have suggested the Macs but they are frightfully expensive in India and am not sure if AutoCAD has a compatible version.

[archer]

i have been looking at laptops for myself recently to replace my old one. i came across dell inspiron , which should fit ur requirements.(not sure about the tea part though...lol) i think the budget may be a little short atleast in india. you will get better deals in the US and south east asia. singapore and bangkok should be the best place to look. dell runs into about 1200USD .

the approx configurations are
2GB ram
15-17" screen
intell core 2 duo 2GHZ
and the rest are the normal stuff...

hope that helps.

parag

PS : dell is a bit expensive but their after sale service is the best that i have seen. thats the reason why i prefer dell over the others.

[Mack The Knife]

Thanks for the recommendations and please keep them coming with any other advice you think I ought to know.

Please bear in mind that I know nothing about computers.

[Mack The Knife]

Abhijeet, any particular reason for avoiding Dell? I ask because my wife may be able to get a discount on a Dell laptop.

[OverUnderPump]

Firstly lets replace laptops with notebooks , after the battery burn incidents you really wouldn't want to place one on your lap .

None of the leading brands carry XP as an option anymore. The Vista license comes with a downgrade option, whereby one can buy or request for an XP cd that comes with the machine. The XP CD has to be an OEM-Original Equipment Manufacturer CD for that particular OEM eg, Dell, HP, Lenovo etc. That cd can be used to downgrade the Vista (sucks) installation to XP. Other way out is to buy one with free dos or ubuntu and buy a licensed CD of XP separately (5000-6000 INR).

Ok now for the other bits;
Concerns numbering 1-6 are taken care of by ensuring that 2 GB of RAM is installed on the machine with a dual core processor.Hard Drive sizes 160 GB northwards would take care of storage related issues. When in need of more, one can buy a USB based external drive(available in varying sizes and very portable).

Please check for 3-4 USB ports on the machine(which is mostly standard for attaching a mouse,printer or any other USB based device)

Unless you're going to work in Rajasthan , you wouldn't require that level of dust proofing, though there are models which cater to that as well (ruggedized notebooks from Dell).Spill proof keyboards may not be an option available with most notebooks. Personally, I would suggest a 14 inch XGA or SXGA resolution based notebook, a 15 inch screen will make the notebook heavier,(which is ok with you, since it wont be lugged around) besides if the LCD backlights are not LED based, it accounts for low battery standby.

Going by the applications that you will be using, your range can start from 40,000 (HP) to 50,000+(Dell) and if you want a black carbon fibre based 0.7 inch thick machine , try HP voodooo, but that might bring in more evil spirits .

Service wise I would rate the vendors in the following order.

1.Dell
2.Lenovo
3.HP
4.Apple (Personal experience, others may have had better ones)
5.Acer

Dell does have excellent service if one choose 'Next Business Day' warranty. They respond within one business day of registering the complaint. If the repair requires a part replacement it would require 3-5 days and 5-7 days in case the entire motherboard needs to be replaced.Software troubleshooting is done completely over the phone though.But you could pay a small fee to any of us IT boffins to sort it out for you . HP on the other hand has a kind of class distinction in terms of service between its Compaq and Pavillion series, steer clear of the Pavillion (good looks aside), because thats where it belongs "in the pavillion" . HTH, If you have any other queries, do let me know.

regards

OUP

[Mack The Knife]

OUP,

Thanks for some excellent suggestions. I think I will buy an external hard drive at the start and use that as a back-up for important drawings, pics, documents, etc. in case the notebook goes tits-up. Could you give me an approximate idea of what these costs?

The reason I wanted something dustproof is because I am a chain smoker.

Keeping all the above parameters in mind, could you recommend a few models in order of preference.

Thanks a bunch.

P.S.: Would it make sense buying a notebook from Singapore airport? Are they a lot cheaper and would warranty be a problem? From what I have seen Singapore can be pretty dear. However, I did not look up computer prices.

[sitar]

compaq presario c 734 or higher

[diskaon]

The reason I wanted something dustproof is because I am a chain smoker.

I thought you smoked ciggarettes???? LOL

Go for HP would be my personal choice. You can buy at Singapore airport, but not much difference - as they are not the best deals in town. Ideally ask someone from there to get you a deal (on the streets that is) and then carry it back. There is no import duty for individuals for import of laptops. Singapore is also very good for accessories like External HDD.

diskaon

[Mack The Knife]

I thought you smoked ciggarettes???? LOL

Very droll...

The reason I mentioned Singapore is that my wife transits through its airport on her way to Jakarta very frequently.

[mundaire]

Abhijeet, any particular reason for avoiding Dell? I ask because my wife may be able to get a discount on a Dell laptop.

Reason? A rather crappy personal experience... The computer I am typing this out on is a Dell Inspiron 630m and the reason I picked it up was, at that time (early 2006) it had a rather good rating as far as Linux compatibility was concerned.

First off the famed service was missing from the time I placed the order - they made me do several to & fros in terms of the documents they needed for their VAT/ Sales Tax compliance! Then they took a month and a half to deliver the damn thing. When delivered it came with a DVD-R/ CD R/W combo drive in stead of the ordered dual layer DVD writer. I complained and they took more than a week to send someone over to replace the drive (they said the part was out of stock). Which person left the combo drive in my care telling me someone would come & collect it in a day or two. I carefully stored the old part not wishing any needless damage to create warranty hassles for me. Which turned out to be a good idea because the person, who was to pick up the old part, did not turn up for more than 2 months!

Six months or so, after buying the computer, the touchpad left click button went for a toss, which in all fairness they replaced within 2 days of registering the complaint. Then I started having problems with the screen (it would randomly go blank) a month or so before the 1 year warranty expired. Someone came and replaced the entire screen within a day BUT a month or two later the problem resurfaced... by which time the warranty had expired. As it turned out later the problem was not hardware related but a poorly written Dell software driver, and I eventually found a solution through Google and it works fine now. No thanks to their support staff!

Two months after the 1 year warranty expired the battery went kaput... and I had to spring for a new one way before I had expected (at least two years of use was my estimate).

My last portable comp was a Toshiba (Tecra series) which lasted from circa 2000 to 2006 with one battery change, RAM upgrades and a Hard Drive upgrade. No major or minor hardware problems - ever! I was sorry to see that one go, but by the time I sold it, it was quite simply a dinosaur and I was limited in terms of the programs I could run on it.

At work I've also used IBM (now Lenovo) and they used to be well built machines, though I cannot comment on the current crop. Other machines I have used at work were Compaq (value for money), Acer (pretty looking but junk in terms of quality).

Also, if you do NOT need the to use the portability of a notebook computer, you would be much better off with a Desktop. They are a lot more comfortable to work on... with a full sized keyboard & mouse and the ability to pick up a much bigger monitor. With the drop in prices of LCD screens, you can easily get a much higher configuration (faster processor, more memory) with a desktop along with a nice 17" screen and a huge hard disk - plus you can add up to 3 or more internal hard drives as your space requirements expand (in the years to come).... with some change left over...

Cheers!
Abhijeet

[hamiclar01]

would you believe it. this thread springs up when i am in the middle of choosing a laptop myself.

when daddy-o nicked my sony vaio, in june, i had a look on the internet and the best budget laptop, with good reviews i came across was

http://www.pcworld.co.uk:80/martprd/sto ... ionSection

was actually about to bang the gavel, when browsed through a local apple showroom, and chatted with abhijeet. one week later, bought myself a macbook. decision made easier by apple offering good discounts to teachers and students. of course i had to dig out papers from stacks of files to prove my job contract includes teaching under and postgrads.

now, the missus wants a laptop of her own, since we've both got busy workloads. and i'm thinking of going in for the dell 1525 again. i know it's dell, but i figured the configuration is ok, and at our end of the woods, pcworld has a good support service, so far.

[OverUnderPump]

Sorry for the late response Big Chief , was away for the better part of the day.

Okay, here's my take on this.
For Dell, I would steer clear of the Inspiron and Vostro series for reasons I cant really disclose on the forum(call me, charges apply ). If I were to go for Dell it would have to be a Latitude series machine or an XPS(XPS M1530 and XPS M1730) but that might stretch your budget to INR 50,000 +. As a thumb rule the ones I have mentioned here are always sturdier and better built.Even more ruggedized ones come under the ATG and XFR banner,(sealed keyboard,shock mounted hard drive, magnesium alloy chassis and is actually used by the USMC as it conforms to MIL-STD 810F).They don't come cheap, prices range from $2078 - $3699).And they'd jump to ones beck and call if you go in for Next Business Day warranty with any of these models,but the build quality is pretty good so they stand up pretty well.

For HP you could choose the 6520s or the 6720s series which would suit the pocket 37,000 onwards and they keyboard can also take a little bit of ash pounding, but not a lot .
In HP you have different suffixes like P,W,S,B which stand for Performance,Workstation,Security and Business. I have quoted two models from the security series. Your needs can also be taken care of with the 'W' series machines like the 8530w or the 8730w.

Sony is also a good choice, but prices would be quite steep.I have used the VAIO TZ series which is pretty rugged (carbon fibre construction) but it retails for around 1,15,000-1,30,000 INR.

Apple and Acer (not that they are bad, but they might require some tweaking which I understand you would rather avoid) are makes, I'd rather have you avoid. Never used a Toshiba, so I can't comment on that.

regards

OUP

[MoA]

I have been using the Dell Inspirion and XPS series for years without issues.

[TenX]

I would suggest going in for a 160 Gb or so stuff and buy an additional external hard-drive which should be in the price range of below 4K for a 500GB one.
Personally, I have used Dell and IBM; preferred the IBM for speed; loved the Dell for their service an durability. The present Dell that I have has been dropped several times, and run over by my brother's 650cc Suzuki Bandit.. and still works fine. (minus one '8' numeric key).

In the Indian-buyer context - if you buy here and avail the warranty, then you cant do much. But if you can get one, say from US, you can save pretty much. The last time I came back, I got one for a friend at $699, which cost close to 72K INR here.

In the general price-range, all laptops have similar durability, and there will be small variations between models. Some have better IDs and will cost a bit more.

So.. this is wishing Mr. Gadget all the best in choosing a good laptop