Getting a laptop that ticks all the boxes, at a price that fits your budget, isn't the easiest thing in the world. But as long as you know what exactly to look for, you should be okayI was
looking to buy a new smartphone in October last year and, at that time, wrote about how unexpectedly complex the selection process has become. This time
around, I’m looking to buy a new laptop for my son, who’ll be going to college
later this year. He happened to drop his laptop 2-3 months ago and one of its
hinges is now broken, along with cracks in the bodywork and a cracked bezel. Repairable,
yes, but repairs will be fairly expensive. Plus, other issues include a non-IPS
LCD display that has very poor viewing angles, and poor battery backup. So, it’s
time for this laptop to go and for us to buy a new one.
My son uses his laptop for many hours every day. Most of his school assignments
are done on the laptop. And since he also runs a small NGO and is heavily
involved with multiple other events and activities, there are online meetings,
video chats, image and video editing work, making presentations, working on
documents, and… you get the drift. The last time we bought a laptop for him –
an Acer Extensa, powered by an Intel Core i3 N305 processor, along with just
8GB of RAM – it turned out to be a mistake. The Acer’s performance levels were quite
okay – no complaints there – but its non-IPS LCD display turned out to be very bad. I had ordered the laptop online, on Amazon, and had no way of knowing in
advance that the display on a 35,000-Rupee laptop could be so bad! I did try to return the laptop right away but Acer wouldn’t accept the return,
saying that they won’t take it back since there was no actual ‘defect’ in it
and that there was no ‘malfunction’ as such. Amazon India couldn’t help with
this either and we were stuck with the damn thing.