Budget 71-90K Need Laptop Suggestions for Development and Freelancing (Budget ₹80000)

J

jerry3246

Recruit
I hope you're all doing well. I'm in a bit of a laptop dilemma and could really use your expertise and suggestions. Here's my situation:

I currently have a company-provided MacBook Pro with an M1 chip, but it's quite locked down and doesn't suit my needs. I'm looking to get my own laptop, preferably a MacBook Air with an M2 chip and 512GB SSD, but my budget is holding me back.

My basic requirements are for development purposes, and I'm planning to get into freelancing soon. I'd love to have an Intel Core i5 12th generation or newer, a 14-inch screen (though I'm open to 15.6 inches if necessary), DDR5 RAM, and a Gen 4 SSD would be a fantastic bonus.

For my work, I'd like at least 4-5 hours of battery life and an IPS or OLED display. I'm also looking for laptops with H or U series processors, and if it's Intel Evo certified, that's even better.

While I don't plan on gaming much, having a decent graphics card could be helpful for future editing tasks. However, my main focus is on development work.

I have a preference for brands in the following order: Dell, HP, Asus. Build quality is crucial to me as I plan to use this laptop for 4-5 years.

I've already shortlisted some options, but I'd appreciate your input on those as well. If you have any recommendations that come close to these specs, please do share. Your insights and suggestions are highly appreciated. Thanks in advance!

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DELL G15 Intel Core i5 12th Gen 12500H - (16 GB/512 GB SSD/Windows 11 Home/4 GB Graphics/NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050/120 Hz) Gaming Gaming Laptop Rs.93211 Price in India - Buy DELL G15 Intel Core i5 12th Gen 12500H - (16 GB/512 GB SSD/Windows 11 Home/4

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HP Pavilion Plus Intel Intel Core i5 13th Gen 1340P - (16 GB/512 GB SSD/Windows 11 Home) 14-eh1022TU Thin and Light Laptop Rs.93876 Price in India - Buy HP Pavilion Plus Intel Intel Core i5 13th Gen 1340P - (16 GB/512 GB SSD/Windows 11 Home) 14-eh10

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HP Pavilion Plus Creator OLED Eyesafe (2023) Intel H-Series Intel Core i7 12th Gen 12700H - (16 GB/1 TB SSD/Windows 11 Home) 14-eh0024TU Thin and Light Laptop Rs.104054 Price in India - Buy HP Pavilion Plus Creator OLED Eyesafe (2023) Intel H-Series

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HP Victus Intel Core i7 12th Gen 12650H - (16 GB/512 GB SSD/Windows 11 Home/4 GB Graphics/NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050) 15-fa0188TX Gaming Laptop Rs.99527 Price in India - Buy HP Victus Intel Core i7 12th Gen 12650H - (16 GB/512 GB SSD/Windows 11 Home/4

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ASUS Vivobook S14 OLED Intel EVO H-Series Intel Core i5 12th Gen 12500H - (16 GB/512 GB SSD/Windows 11 Home) S3402ZA-KM502WS Thin and Light Laptop Rs.98990 Price in India - Buy ASUS Vivobook S14 OLED Intel EVO H-Series Intel Core i5 12th Gen 12500H

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Why don't you buy a M1 macbook air? It is practically the same as M2 air. I know someone will say, but magsafe, notch. I don't think it is worth paying 50% more for those things. You will get it for around 70K with card offers offline.
OLED might give you a problem with 100% DCI-P3 coverage. It sounds good on paper, but to get Windows to play nicely with it is impossible. It is always better to buy a 100% sRGB screen compared to a DCIP3 display for Windows. Moreover, OLED screens have strong flickering in low "backlight" state. I would take a good 100% sRGB IPS over 100% DCIP3 display for Windows. I wish I had not been spoiled by the accurate colors of LG OLED, modern phones and Macbooks. Now, I cannot stand the oversaturated look of DCI-P3 in Windows.
 
codwapeace said:
Why don't you buy a M1 macbook air? It is practically the same as M2 air. I know someone will say, but magsafe, notch. I don't think it is worth paying 50% more for those things. You will get it for around 70K with card offers offline.
OLED might give you a problem with 100% DCI-P3 coverage. It sounds good on paper, but to get Windows to play nicely with it is impossible. It is always better to buy a 100% sRGB screen compared to a DCIP3 display for Windows. Moreover, OLED screens have strong flickering in low "backlight" state. I would take a good 100% sRGB IPS over 100% DCIP3 display for Windows. I wish I had not been spoiled by the accurate colors of LG OLED, modern phones and Macbooks. Now, I cannot stand the oversaturated look of DCI-P3 in Windows.
Click to expand...
Isn’t macbook air M1 too old given it was launched in 2020 and I am almost going to buy this at the end of 2023.
I won’t change my laptop for I guess next 4-5 years so I dropped the plan for taking MacBook AIR M1.

Any suggestions for Windows laptop with good IPS display and other specs which I have mentioned?
 
jerry3246 said:
Isn’t macbook air M1 too old given it was launched in 2020 and I am almost going to buy this at the end of 2023.
I won’t change my laptop for I guess next 4-5 years so I dropped the plan for taking MacBook AIR M1.

Any suggestions for Windows laptop with good IPS display and other specs which I have mentioned?
Click to expand...
It is not. M2 is the same(almost). I don’t think you can exhaust M1 even after 10 years in productivity tasks. SSDs have changed everything. Even 10 year old computer seems fine to me in productivity tasks.
For windows, I would suggest HP pavilion Aero 13 with Ryzen 7/5 Or you can try Lenovo yoga slim 7 pro with 11320h
both have 16:10 screen. Great battery life
 
A strict no for Dell model you selected above, my experience was terrible with same. Spend more then 20+ hours with dell support on whatsapp, went a complete waste.

Dell model has Very bad battery life, hardly 1.5 to 2 hours (on Performance mode)
Check/read reviews related to battery.

I bought Asus tuf F15 with 90wr battery LIFE instead of 53, 2 ssd slots instead of 1, memory upgradable to 32 gb, mux switch (but you won't be gaming, not sure if that is useful in other video/graphics editing work.
Only drawback be Asus comes with DDR4 3200MHZ vs Dell with DDR5 5800 MHZ

But I required battery life (easily get 5 hours + in performance mode, not tweaked anything and using stock/factory Windows 11)
 
jerry3246 said:
Isn’t macbook air M1 too old given it was launched in 2020 and I am almost going to buy this at the end of 2023.
I won’t change my laptop for I guess next 4-5 years so I dropped the plan for taking MacBook AIR M1.

Any suggestions for Windows laptop with good IPS display and other specs which I have mentioned?
Click to expand...
After ranting on about OLEDs I ordered an OLED laptop. Haha! Hypocrite much? I have heard that keeping windows always in HDR can help with the colour gamut problems. Let’s see how it goes.
Things that were important to me are:
  • 16 GB ram. Most laptops have soldered RAM but this has one SODIMM slot along with 8GB soldered. So, a win for me. It is 3200 MHz DDR4, but I don't care.
  • Small and light: 14" and 1.4 kg
  • Ports: I need my ports. It has a USB-C, couple of USB-A's and HDMI 2.0, separating charging port with ability to do USB-C charging.
  • Good quality screen: 100% DCIP3 with OLED. I know I am gambling here with the problems I might face in accurate colors.
  • Low power external GPU: 2050. I think it is 40W so it will be reasonably capable without drawing too much power.
  • 180 degree hinge. I am thinking that it might be useful for some reason.
  • 63 Wh battery: Better than most in "reasonable" price category. I am expecting 4 hours at least.
  • 12450H processor: Last on my list as I would have preferred a lower power processor as I don't think that processor is as important now a days since everything is so fast as long as you don't buy a really low powered celeron or something like that. Anything above 3000 passmark single thread score is great and almost all processors are. This is around 20K in multicore. So, great! Only higher power so will give low battery life.
  • 512 GB upgradable storage PCIe 4.0.
It ticks all my boxes, except the color gamut (but let us see how it goes) and build quality. I have only bought enterprise class laptops in the last 10-12 years, so they never break or die. My son even brought down my Dell latitude laptop from a height of 4 feet and it still works even if the speaker croaks. I don't think this laptop can hope to survive that fall. Those Dell latitudes are tanks. They can be easily used as weapons. The hinges are solid even after 12 years in some cases.

 
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