WTB: Lappy in Chennai 30K-40K

Hi guys,

My friend who stays at my college hostel wants to buy a laptop.
Budget is max.40K, but if the lappie is really good, can squeeze in a few more Ks.

Reason for buying lappie? -> He's a basic user and wants to learn simple stuff on a computer.

Could anyone tell me good locations in chennai to buy it?
Also how much will be the cost after adding the taxes and stuff?

These suggestions posted by Hacker in another thread seem good enough for this budget..


Regards
Vince

The last config posted by Hacker seems to better than the rest, exceeds ur budget by 5k though.

Try some Dell offer....and you can bargain with those guys!!

Whatever you do..Pls try & avoid a Celeron proccy..

Have a lookie at Dell 1300..

I have the Compaq 5201. Picked it up for 32,000 in Pune. I'm pretty happy with it. It's not the greatest laptop but for the money, you can't beat it. Or you can check out the latest range from Zenith. They offer Pentium Ms for almost the same cost.

@AMD4Life: There is nothing wrong with the Celeron processor. They are only marginally slower than P4s with a similar clockspeed.

Well if budget is a constraint, you really can't help it..but Celeron's do heat up more than Centrino's & are slower too..To add to that, with C2D now available in lappy's too, it doesnt really makes good sense to buy the lowest-end proccy (Read: Further kills the resale value!!)..Now does it?

More imp, within a bufget of 40K, if you can get a Centrino, then isn't that anyday better than a Celeron!!

Cheers dude!!

Really, there is hardly a difference in practical performance. And Conroe lappies are not there in India, yet.

Sure you can stretch your budget to 40k and get Centrino, but isn't 8,000/- a tad too much for a little bit more performance? And I think all the other specs stay the same. Incidentally, the Celeron used in these laptops is the Celeron-M, derived from the Pentium-M which is used in Centrino. How then can the Celeron give off more heat? I have a Celeron based lappy. Runs hardly warm to the touch.

No matter what you choose, both will have pretty much the same life span.

performance...barely perceptible difference (1 MB vs 2MB L2 cache being the only difference perf.wise)...

battery life: more than noticeable differnce with around 15-20% lower consumption on P-M under normal usage due to lack of speedstep on C-M

Oh, BTW Merom laptops are very much available in India

Dude..Core2Duo is very much available in India..DELL XPS for one, going for 60K-odd has it..I'm sure there are others too..

See, the Celeron or Centrino would be decent enuff to do all the basic stuff, but two primary reasons of suggesting Centrino lies in:
a) The thread-starter has a 40K budget
b) Looking at the purpose for it'll be used (Learning!!), I'm expecting heavy usage and thus, as superczar pointed out, the battery consumption factor comes to the fore..
And despite what you say, the Celeron heats up more than Centrino (may it be only marginally more!!)

PSon't take this too personally buddy..Your lappy roxx too..

Cheers!!

Er.. yea, resale value has to be taken into account too na.. so i guess he could go for the C2D..

@Superczar: Any recommendation on which location in chennai to get it from?
I COULD try to get it from S'pore by my sis, but i dont wannt take responsibility if something goes wrong, for this friend..
So might as well buy it in chennai itself..

Not aware of any C2D for 40K currently

HP/Compaq/Acer/Lenovo: Supreme Computers (Go to the R. street office...they have a laptop showroom in spencers' but the prices there would be MRP + taxes....you may want to take a look at the lappys at their showroom, and then head to Ritchie street and ask for a Tax waiver + discount...

Dell would of course have to be ordered online/on phone

Will be willing to invest more if the adv. is more

Oh cool! Thanks for that info

You mean 30k to 40k. And within that range, I would still suggest spending a little more than 30. the Centrino is a better platform no doubt, at least technically. But there is the law of diminishing returns, so if a student can happily get by on something that costs a little more than 30k, what is the need to spend 40k when there is very little value to gain in return?

Just to clarify again:

Centrino platform = Pentium M + Intel 845/915 chipset + Intel Pro WLAN

You could plug in a Celeron M in the above combo, but then you can't cll it a centrino
But if you are comparing a Celeron M with a Pentium-M, let us call it that ...comparing Centrino (platform) to Celeron M (processor )has no meaning.....

now between the celeron-m (C-M) and the Pentium -M (P-M), there are only two differences:

1- L2 cache of 2MB vs 1 MB...The real life performance difference would be marginal

2- No speedstep on the C-M which would make a ~ 15-25% battery life difference in real life ...e.g. a P-M system that runs 3 hours on a full charge would run say 2:15 mins only

So though the C-M is not a bad choice, it may be worthwhile to spend a couple extra grand for the P-M especially because unlike say 1 year ago, the price difference is very marginal now

If it's marginal now, then sure. But certainly not for a 25% premium. I think Zenith is now offering P-Ms at low prices, not sure but it would be worthwhile to check out.

I get around 2:00 to 2:15 on a single charge. But for most of the time I run my lappy from AC power. The college I attend has AC outlets especially for laptops. Hopefully the student who wants this laptop won't have to depend on battery life, even if it is 3 hours.