On a hunt for a laptop, I gathered information about more than five brands of laptops. I talked to many friends who are using pcs or laptops for quite some time. I contacted people who are professionals. I myself am a gadget buff and have been in the IT deptt. Of my organisation for more than four years before being transferred to general banking division. I have had an HCL laptop for about a year(company provided). I also have a PC whichh I bought in august 2004. The review I m going to give is taking in view that the one who is going to be benefitted is also a gadget buff and thus supports some good mobile phone.atleast one with symbian 60 series platform(even if version 1). I myself carry a nokia n73(s60 v3)
When I started, I wanted to buy a laptop with atleast 160gb harddisk and 2gb ram. I could as well settle for a 1gb ram because these rams can be upgraded for 1200/- bucks at the purchase points only. First, the brannd. I asked many of them and they told HP and DELL are good enough. Just that Dell has to be ordered online, and that service too could be accessed online only. But, for your information, the Dell people have come up with business partners and these are there in almost the cities.
Initially I had almost bought the Compaq presario cq 60 series laptop. It was costing 32800. The configuration too was good. 2gb ram, 160 gb HD, 16" screen, nvedia graphics, tv/svedio out, wlan, etc. But the processor was AMD althalon. This is why the price was this low. But the only problem was that the cq series dont support installation of windows XP. I have talked to the HP engineers at pune too. They confirmed that cq series dont take XP, and you have to go with Vista only. And I am not comfortable with Vista. Why? Well this will be a separate debate.
As my budget was 40000/-max, I could not think of HP. All the core 2 duos are higher range in HP. Then I went to acer. The acer aspiire 5920 seemed best choice. But they have stopped producing those now. They have perhaps 4920(perhaps I forgot the number). It is a good one. But the screen is 14.1", and I was looking for atleast 15.4". That was again out of question. Acer laptops support drivers of XP. Now this too out of question.
Lenovo and toshiba were out of question too. Not many of them to be seen around.
A friend of mine in singapore had three laptops, all of them HP. He changed all the three to Dell. And he is all praises for it.(three laptops?.well one in office, another his personal, still another his wife’s) a friend of mine in Jalandhar, punjab said, "bhaaji, dell le lo. Dekhne ko bahut acchhe nahin hain, but they are too good function-wise and hardware wise!"
Then I started looking for dell. I had already shortlisted 1510 on an earlier occassion, but had brushed it aside for the compaq cq 60. Now the dealer showed me 1525’s brochure. I like it instantly. The screen 15.4", ram 2gb, HD 160 gb, intel media card, 2mp webcam, dvd RW, three colours. I ordered it and got it the next day, i.e. 5th of november 2008
This laptop is a bag-full of functions! It has tv/svedio out, hdmi port, wireless conectivity, 5in1 card reader, multimedia buttons, three colours(black and blue and whilte, perhaps), four usb ports, two 3.5mm jacks for earphones, bluetooth connectivity.
It supports XP drivers( I m running XP only). With all the world’s software, it boots up in less than 30 seconds. The camera is average quality(pictures taken are just 20-25kb!), but this is a minor thing. There are scores of drivers on dell.com. And lots of support options. Lots of support documents. Battery back-up is for+- 2hours with lots of battery saving options. You will be better off if you get the requisite rivers from the dell site and not install third party drivers. The laptop will be pre-loaded with these when u buy one. I bought one with free dos. These dont come with pre-installed XP or Vista. I connect to internet thru my mobile by way of connectivity cable or thru bluetooth. The reception and recognition of the device is fast and flawless. I have had no problems at all with to laptop or with connections, what-so-ever.
And now, for the price. It cost me 39000 in the city.(that included 4%+ 3%). Outside the limits, it would have costed me 1500/-bucks less. There is no bag with the laptop. But you can coax the dealer for one. Just give him 500/-bucks and settle for a humpback, because that will keep your laptop safe and your hands free for other better things than to holding it!
All this I have written with no grudges towards other brands. They all are good, but wot sutis my needs is wot comes to me! Chao!