A lot of friends and relatives often ask me for laptop recommendations for themselves or for their friends/relatives. Since new year is coming, a lot of you guys might be interested in buying a laptop for yourself or as a Christmas/New year gift for family. So I decided to make a list of best options according to budget and usage. I will mention only 1 in each category unless something deserves an honorable mention.
For those of you who don't care about the budget and just want the best of best, here are my ultimate picks
Best all-rounder: Asus ROG Zephyrus G14(Base Model)
➕ Up-to 8 core 7nm Ryzen processors
➕ 100% sRGB 120Hz 14 inch display
➕ Dual M.2 slots
➕ Portable and lightweight(under 1.7kg)
➖ Not really "affordable" considering Indian market
Best Workstation/Editing Laptop: Asus ROG Zephyrus Duo 15
➕ Dual display for better productivity, primary display is available in both 1080p 300Hz and 4K 60Hz
➕ 32GB RAM Pre-installed in all available models
➕ Dual SSD in RAID 0 available, means blazing fast speeds
➖ Really expensive, if portability is not mandatory then I'd recommend desktop build instead(which will be more powerful and cheaper).
General Purpose/everyday use laptops(for students and office goers)
Best laptop under ₹30,000
You can't do much of nitpicking in this price segment. You have to settle with whatever you can get your hands on. But that doesn't mean that there aren't good options.
Asus Vivobook M415DA-EK002TS - This laptop comes with Athlon 3050U(dual core 2.3GHz), 4GB RAM(extra slot available for expansion), 256GB PCIe SSD, sleek, slim and lightweight body. And the best feature is, the 14in display is actually Full HD(1080p), which is rare in sub 30K laptops.
Best laptop under ₹40,000
Asus VivoBook M515DA-EJ312TS - It has Ryzen 3 3250U(2 core, 4 thread), 4GB RAM(expandable), 256GB SSD, 15.6in FHD display and Fingerprint Reader. You can purchase additional 4GB RAM and a 2.5in HDD and it would still be under 40k. The only con in my opinion is that it is only a Dual core processor, you should be getting quad core processor in this budget but unfortunately, Ryzen 5 models are either out of stock or being sold for much higher price.
Honorable mention: HP 15s-gr0010au - This is the only quad core processor with pre-installed 8GB RAM under 40k. If you just want to start using your laptop without opening it up for upgrades then you can consider this. But you do loose fingerprint reader though.
Best laptop under ₹50,000
Asus VivoBook 14 M413IA-EK582T - Now this one costs 51k. There's a reason I went straight to 51k. There aren't any laptop that are noticeably better performer than what I have recommended under 40k. So instead of buying those, buy this. It comes with 7nm Ryzen 4500U, which is a really fast 6 core processor which can make even i7 processors look bad.
Honorable mention: Acer Aspire 3 A313-23 - If you want to stay strictly under 50k, then no other laptop can provide better value for money than it(for now).
UltraBooks
Ultrabooks are super thin and light laptops with excellent battery backup for working professionals who need to work on the go. So here are some best Ultrabooks that I think you should consider.
Apple MacBook Air M1 - Apple's own new processor took everyone by surprise. Knowing Apple, we knew it won't be a bad processor but it exceeded our expectations. So if you like Apple and your work can be done on Mac OS then it is definitely the best option right now.
LG Gram 17 - If for some reason you need a really big screen then this 17in laptop might surprise you. Despite have such large display, it is surprisingly lightweight at just 1.35kg and can definitely last whole day. And the 15in variant is even lighter(just under 1kg).
And another great candidate has already got spotlight at the beginning of this post. Battery backup of Zephyrus G14 may not match these two but it is still a great alternative if your work requires more powerful Windows laptop.
Gaming Laptops
Entry Level(₹50,000-60,000)
HP Pavilion Gaming 15-AC1024AX - Equipped with Ryzen 5 4600H(6 core processor), 8GB RAM, GTX 1650 and 144Hz display. The only downside is, it comes with a HDD(SSD model is not under 60k).
Honorable mention: Asus TUF A15 - It could have been a great laptop but poor color accuracy of the display made it just a gaming device. Also being out of stock most of the time didn't do it any favors. But if you already have a spare monitor at home then you can still consider it for more than gaming(assuming it comes back in stock by the time you're reading this).
Honorable mention 2: Any laptop with Ryzen 3550H or i5-9300H with a GTX 1650 is still a decent purchase if found under 55k.
Decent Budget(upto ₹80,000)
Dell G5 15 SE - Equipped with Ryzen 5 4600H, 1080p 120Hz IPS display and RX 5600M 6GB GPU. This laptop is often overlooked because some people were complaining about game crashes. Keep your windows and drivers up to date and the issue will be fixed. RX 5600M performs similar to 1660 Ti. And if you are up to date with laptop prices then you know it is a steal deal because 1660 Ti + 6 core processor usually means spending over 90k.
Honorable mention: If you are too afraid to go with Dell G5 because of those alleged crashing issues, then your alternatives are Asus TUF A15(which rarely comes in stock), Asus Zephyrus G14 512GB SSD base model or sacrificing few extra CPU cores to get MSI GF65.
PS: If you are spending that much then you should also take a look at my recommendation for under ₹60,000 gaming PC build.
No Budget Constraints(₹80,000+)
Well if you have a budget of over 80k then just buy the highest configuration you can buy. But if I had to pick one as the best, it will be Asus Zephyrus G14(obviously). The RTX 2060 may not be the best gaming GPU, but for 1080p gaming, it is more than enough.
Honorable Mention: Asus ROG Zephyrus Duo is the ultimate gaming+streaming laptop you can buy(for now). Get the 300Hz 1080p display variant and you're set. It got only honorable mention because of the price. You can buy a much better performing desktop for cheaper.
Special use cases
Editing and designing(video/photo editing, graphics designing, CAD)
There aren't many editing and designing specific laptops are made. So video editors often turn to MacBooks. Because MacBooks are optimized for productivity workloads. But MacBooks are not really considered affordable, so students/trainees and beginners look for cheaper alternatives. And cheaper alternatives are Gaming laptops. They're powerful enough to handle these tasks and cheaper than MacBooks. So find any gaming laptop with IPS(it must clearly say IPS, not 'IPS like' or 'IPS level') display and you will be good to go. And if you want to be extra careful about color accuracy, make sure that display is rated to have atleast 90% sRGB or 70% Adobe RGB.
Data Scientist and AI, DL, ML
Data Scientists don't need any high end laptop(in general, although some of them might need a powerful PC depending on the project). So any decent enough laptop will do the job. So buy any i5/i7 or Ryzen 5/7(4000 series) laptop with atleast 8GB RAM(16GB preferable).
Same goes for AI, Deep Learning and Machine Learning. Unless you're a pro with huge projects, any powerful enough laptop will do the job. Except you need a little more juice than data scientists. So get any gaming laptop in your budget.
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