Well.its surprising that its been 2 and a half years and no reviews on this topic .the time when the market is flooded with laptop companies blowing one’s trumpet about the superiority by coming up with additional features!
In my case.i was selected in a b-school april’05 which happens to be the first fully wi-fi campus in the country .and hence obviously I needed to have a LAPTOP!
after lots of consultations with b-school seniors and friends.i shortlisted 3 brands- acer 4152, compaq presario M series, and Dell inspiron.
now it was tough.lets have a look what are the differentiating factors
1) configuration( RAM, Hard Disk, wi-fi enabled, processor speed etc)
2) Price
3) looks
4) Brand equity
now configuration is almost alike in each of them xcept some minor differences like hard disk( 40gb, 60gb), speed.
Price is very impt.acer was priced at around 43k, compaq 47k and Dell 55k.though the prices are decreasing day by day and its going to continue .thanx to the recent budget!
Looks.one more impt thing.when I saw IBM’s(now LENOVO)same configuration laptop.i was pretty dissapointed at the looks( afterall its a laptop) and had to leave it which otherwise as far as the brand is concerned is at the top!
now comes the brand.IBM, TOSHIBA, DELL, HP-COMPAQ, ACER.goes on.but before going for a brand one must go for the things suited to his/her requirements.each one of these have huge customer service base in india so.thats not a problem!
finally.i went for compaq presario which cost me 47000 bucks.silvery looks( it was very new at that time and looked good), up-to-date configuration( 40gb, 1.67 ghz speed, bluetooth, cd/dvd writer combo.so on)
its been 8 months now.and its doing great without a single hitch.so.it was a good buy.i must say!.but still those who are thinking of having one.my suggestion would be first instead of going for big ADs and brands.list down all ur requirements, consult ur seniors, see the demonstrations at the shops.then go for one !.afterall its a LAPTOP!