LAPTOP SPECIAL.... Buyer’s guide

Buyer’s guide

I have to buy a laptop for official use and travel within a budget of ₹80,000. It should have a sturdy build, be lightweight, and come with long battery power per recharge. Please suggest relevant features and a few models.

– Sankalp Jadhav, Rohit Khatri, Darshan Patel, Ephraim Thomas

SCREEN SIZE AND TYPE:

Consider a laptop with a 13.3-inch display if your work revolves around internet use and e-mails. Laptops of this size are generally lighter and weigh under 1.5kg. Go for a larger 14-inch display if you work with presentations, design, spreadsheets and multimedia. If you can, opt for a touchscreen. But understand that these displays usually have a glossy finish which are quite reflective in bright environments.

PROCESSOR:

 All the machines in this segment can handle productivity suites, playback of Full HD content and image-editing with ease. However, there are minor performance differences: While the AMD Ryzen 3 chip is on a par with the Intel i3 eight-gen CPU, the Core i5 provides a 15-20 per cent performance improvement over the two in tasks like archival, batch processing, photo editing and audio/video encoding. STORAGE: Consider laptops with a solid-state drive (SSD) only.

This storage type offers faster bootup, resume-fromstandby, and data read/ write times than a hard drive. Besides, an SSD does not contain moving parts so it is less prone to mechanical failure caused by bumps or shocks. BACKLIT KEYBOARD: This feature is handy when working in low light or in the dark.

CONNECTIVITY:

The laptop should support dual-band Wi-Fi (denoted by the 802.11 “ac” standard). This will let you connect to the higher 5GHz wireless band, when available, for better Wi-Fi speeds.

All the laptops suggested below sport a metal build, Full HD display, backlit keyboard, battery life of around 3.5-4 hours per charge, and dualband Wi-Fi.

Some are also equipped with a fingerprint sensor and/or an infrared camera for face recognition…

HP Envy x360 13-ag0034au ₹63,500 13.3-inch Full HD touchscreen 2GHz AMD Ryzen 3 2300U processor 4GB RAM AMD Radeon Vega 6 graphics 128GB SSD USB 3.1 Type-C, HDMI, (2x) USB 3.1, infrared camera Win10 Home 1.3kg

Acer Spin 5 SP513-52N (NX.GR7SI.001) ₹68,000 13.3-inch Full HD touchscreen 1.6GHz Intel Core i5-8250U processor 8GB RAM Intel UHD Graphics 620 256GB SSD USB 2.0, (2x) USB 3.0, HDMI, fingerprint reader Win10 Home 1.6kg

Dell XPS 13 9360 (XPS1358256iS5) ₹77,900 13.3-inch Full HD display 1.6GHz Intel Core i5-8250U processor 8GB RAM Intel UHD Graphics 620 256GB SSD (2x) USB 3.0,USB Type-C Thunderbolt 3, USB 3.1, HDMI, Ethernet, fingerprint reader Win10 Home 1.2kg

HP ProBook x360 440 G1 ₹78,250 14-inch Full HD touchscreen 2.2GHz Intel Core i3-8130U processor 4GB RAM Intel UHD Graphics 620 256GB SSD (2x) USB 3.0, USB 3.1 Type-C, Ethernet, HDMI, fingerprint reader Win10 Pro 1.7kg Asus ZenBook UX430UN-GV069T ₹79,000 14-inch Full HD display 1.6GHz Intel Core i5-8250U processor 8GB RAM Nvidia GeForce MX150 (2GB) graphics card 256GB SSD USB 2.0, USB 3.0, USB 3.1 Type-C, HDMI, fingerprint reader Win10 Home 1.3kg

 Lenovo ThinkPad L380 (20M8S20N00) ₹79,000 13.3-inch Full HD touchscreen 2.2GHz Intel Core i3-8130U processor 8GB RAM Intel UHD Graphics 620 256GB SSD (2x) USB 3.1, (2x) USB 3.1 Type-C, HDMI, fingerprint reader Win10 Home 1.5kg

Acer Swift 5 SF514-52T (NX.GTMSI.004) ₹80,000 14-inch Full HD touchscreen 1.6GHz Intel Core i5-8250U processor 8GB RAM Intel UHD Graphics 620 256GB storage (2x) USB 3.0, USB 3.1, HDMI, fingerprint reader Win10 Home 1kg

– Ashutosh Desai

ET 17NOV18