If you are not tech-savvy and haven’t looked at the laptop specs for some time, you would be very confused about which one to buy if you are in the market for a new laptop. Which brand of laptop should I buy? Which Processor is best? AMD or Intel? If it’s Intel then, why there are a lot of different types of Core i3, Core i5, and Core i7 processors seen on laptops? If AMD is the best, then which Ryzen processor should I go for? Let’s be honest, even a very well-informed person would find it difficult to suggest or choose a laptop from the many many variants of laptops available in the Indian market.
This simple 2022 laptop buying guide aims to help you to choose the laptop with the right specs suitable for your needs. This blog post is published on Aug 28, 2022, and if you are reading this in 2023 or 2024, chances are this information would be a bit outdated.
Best Entry Level Laptop Specs [ 2022 ]
If you are looking for a general-purpose laptop, with basic Home and Office use, an Intel Core i3 or i5 powered laptop would be more than enough. AMD-powered Ryzen 3 and Ryzen 5 offer similar or sometimes better performance as well. Intel has recently launched 12th Gen Alder Lake processors which offer better performance and more cores compared to the older generation 11th Gen Tiger Lake Intel Core i3 processors.
As of this writing, there aren’t many 12th Gen Intel Core i3 laptops available in the market though, but I would strongly suggest you choose laptops with these new processors over older generation ones if you want to get the best performance for the money. Since not many are available, you better wait for a while for new models to launch in the Indian market. For sure, Asus, Lenovo, Acer, Dell, etc are planning to bring more variants soon.
11th Generation Intel Core i3 Processors: Core i3-1125G4, Core i3-1115G4, Core i3-1110G4.
12th Generation Intel Core i3 Processors: Core i3-1215UE, Core i3-1220PE, Core i3-1215U, Core i3-1210U, Core i3-1220P
AMD Ryzen 3 Processors: Ryzen 3 3250U ( 3rd Generation ), Ryzen 3 5300U ( 5th Generation )
AMD Ryzen 5 Processors: Ryzen 5 5500U ( 5th Generation ), Ryzen 5 3500U ( 3rd Generation ), Ryzen 5 6600U ( 6th Generation ).
If you were to ask me to suggest a laptop with AMD Ryzen laptop with 8GB ram and 512GB SSD storage with price around Rs 50,000, i would recommend you check laptops with Ryzen 5 5500U.
Recommended Reads
12th Gen Intel Core i3 Laptops India List [ 2022 August ].
Top 10 Cheapest AMD Ryzen 5 5500U Laptops in India
How to identify which generation Intel processor you have in your laptop?
It’s actually quite easy. Check the first two letters of the processor name. For eg Intel 1115G4 ( Core i3-1115G4 ) is a 11th Generation processor and Intel 1215U ( Core i3-1215U ) is a 12th Generation chipset.
How much RAM do you need?
You would still find a lot of laptops launching in 2022 with 4GB ram. If you are planning to use your laptop only for basic tasks, the 4GB ram is enough, but I would strongly recommend you get a laptop with at least 8GB ram. Apps like Google Chrome are notorious for using lots and lots of ram memory. So for a budget entry-level laptop with good lag-free performance, buy a laptop with at least 8GB of ram.
Recommended Read: Cheapest Best Selling 12th Gen Intel 16GB ram laptops in India.
SSD or HDD?
SSDs are more expensive than HDD drive, but are much faster and offers better performance. HDD drives also get much slower with use compared to an SSD. So makes sure, you are buying a laptop with an SSD drive instead of an HDD drive to get the best performance. Even though rare, there are some laptops that have both. Such models use the SSD drive to boot the operating system and the HDD drive for regular storage.
What about the Display? Should I go for OLED or IPS screen?
An OLED panel for sure gives a better visual experience and colors but should cost more. It would be very rare to get an OLED laptop for under Rs 50,000. An idle display would be an IPS panel with a 100% sRGB color gamut and 300nits brightness. However, most budget laptops would come with a 45% NTSC ( 72% sRGB ) screen with a 250nits max brightness. It’s ok – nothing fancy. One thing you should keep in mind when checking the display specs is that it is not a VA panel as these panels generally don’t have great viewing angles compared to an IPS panel.
If you really want an OLED screen laptop for under Rs 50000, check out the ASUS VivoBook K15 OLED K513EA series. This is powered by Intel Core i3-1115G4 11th Gen processor and has 8GB ram + 256GB SSD storage. Check out the current prices on Amazon.in here.
Check out the Best Selling and Cheapest 8GB ram 512GB laptops on Amazon.in here.
Do I need a dedicated Nvidia Graphics Card?
Since we are talking about budget, entry-level laptops, integrated graphics like Intel Iris Xe, and AMD Radeon Graphics are more than enough for your day-to-day tasks. Having a dedicated Nvidia or AMD graphics card makes the product more expensive as well as heavy. If you really really want an Nvidia graphics card and don’t want to pay a large sum, then look for laptops with Nvidia GTX 1650 graphics ( Find on Amazon.in ).
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