Loading
-
Notebooks under Rs. 40000
Roydon Cerejo, Dec 30, 2008 1950 hrs ISTWe compare the most popular Notebooks under Rs. 40,000 and find out which one suits you best.
 |
With so many Notebooks flooding the market almost every week, how do you find the one that suits you the best? Every person has his/her own priorities and while someone may want a large screen, another may want a faster processor or more memory or a lightweight Notebook.
The worst part is that it's very difficult to find all those features in one Notebook as there's always something missing. Today we will be looking at several Notebooks under the Rs. 40,000 price tag, most of which we've recently reviewed.
What should you expect from a sub-40,000 Notebook?
Well, first and foremost it should be able to run all your Office applications like Word, PowerPoint and Excel; give you a back up time of at least 2-2.5 hours and should be light enough to be carried around. Basically it should be able to perform all your day-to-day chores like browsing the internet, working on presentations, etc. Also, it should not die off during a meeting. Don't expect anything more from these Notebooks, I mean you can watch an odd movie or so or even listen to some music but don't expect miracles from the speakers.
With this in mind, we've rounded up most of the newer Notebooks available in the market today with some older ones making a comeback to give you a comprehensive look at how even similarly configured Notebooks vary in performance. Some of them look bland while others have some serious style backed up by good performance too.
There are a couple of Notebooks from HP/Compaq that did not make it to the roundup even after calling for them, so before you start flaming me, remember this is not the be-all and end-all list of Notebooks under 40K but just some of the recent additions that seem to be creating a lot of buzz.
While testing these Notebooks, following are the parameters we've kept in mind in order to evaluate their final performance.
Battery Life
This is probably one of the most crucial features that you need to look at while purchasing a Notebook. In our class of sub-40K Notebooks, all of them come with a 6-cell battery, which ideally should give us a back up time of 3 hours. However, this may not be the case most of the time as we've seen in the past reviews.
A lot depends on the configuration and your usage style. For example, if you're going to be using Wi-Fi a lot and listen to music in the background, it will surely affect the battery life.
Graphics Performance
This should be the last thing you should be looking for in this category of Notebooks. Most of them feature onboard graphics, which is just enough for some basic 3D gaming, although we do have one contender that defies this rule.
Keyboard Ergonomics
Another key feature is the layout and design of the keyboard. Here you'll usually find a 87-88 key configuration in most of the Notebooks. Here we see if the keys have a good tactile feedback and also the size and dimensions of the keys. For example Dell and Lenovo tend to have your typical full-sized keys that are very comfortable, while LG, Acer, etc. tend to go with the flatter design. While it looks sleek, it may not suit everyone.
Screen Quality
Today most of the sub-40K Notebooks come with LED screens that require lesser power to operate while providing really sharp and bright pictures and text. Here we look for the viewing angles whether or not the picture is accurately viewable while moving from left to right.
Benchmarking Process
PCMark 05/Vantage
This software gives us a comprehensive analysis of the system as a whole by running a number of tests that stress the memory, graphics, hard disk and processing capabilities of your Notebook.
SiSOFT SANDRA 2009
This is the latest edition in the SiSOFT family. We've chosen 6 benchmark tests from the group that evaluates the raw processing power of the Notebooks processor and also tests the memory bandwidth, and efficiency that usually translates into the overall responsiveness of the operating system.
Processor Arithmetic
Processor Multimedia
Multi-Core Efficiency
File System
Memory Bandwidth
Cache and Memory
I'll explain in detail what each test means once we get to the performance segment.
3DMark 06
3DMark06 is a PC benchmark suite designed to test the DirectX9 performance of your graphics card.
A 3DMark score is an overall measure of your system's 3D gaming capabilities, based on comprehensive real-time 3D graphics and processor tests. By comparing your score with those submitted by millions of other gamers, you can see how your gaming rig performs, making it easier to choose the most effective upgrades or finding other ways to optimize your system.
Before we take a look at the contenders, let's just have a quick look at the main features they offer.
Feature Comparision
|
Do you agree with this aritcle?
Discussion Board
(7) Comments
murthynk
,Bangalore, on Jan 20, 2009 05:34 AM
Report abuse
G.V.NAGARAJ
,MYSORE, on Jan 01, 2009 08:04 PM
Aaruni Upadhyay
,Allahabad, on Dec 31, 2008 05:02 PM
HaRMaN
,United States of Chandigarh, on Dec 31, 2008 12:29 AM
Opinion Poll
- Which desktop web browser do you use?
-
Internet Explorer
Firefox
Chrome
Safari
Opera
Other (specify in comments)
Poll Results View Previous Polls