Laptop for Productivity and occasional gaming

[virajdhuru]

1) What is your budget? (INR or USD)
1.3L INR

2) What size & weight consideration (if any) would you prefer?
Mainstream; 15" - 16" screen

3) What are the primary tasks you will be performing with this notebook?
The laptop will primarily be used for general productivity (YouTube, Office apps, browsing) and occasional gaming when I have some time off work.
Would like to play Euro Truck Simulator 2 and other AAA games from the last 4-5 years that I missed and future games for atleast 2 years at 1080p Medium settings. No Fortnite/Apex and I am more of a single player story mode game type of guy.

5) Any typical configuration in your mind you're eying for ?
Currently thinking of either a Ryzen 5 5600H/ Ryzen 7 5800H and RTX 3060 or any of the new 12th Gen Core i5/i7 with RTX 3060.

Looking at the Lenovo Legion 5 with RTX3060 and the HP Omen 15/16 with RTX

4) Are there any brands that you prefer or any you really don't like?
a. Like: Lenovo, HP
b. Dislike: Dell, MSI, Acer


6) Anything else you would like to say?

• Screen resolution ( 1080p (Full HD) / 1440p)
• Battery back up ( normal (3-4hrs) / extended (5-7hrs) )
• Purchase place ( Online (Company website, Amazon) / Local - Will prefer a brick and mortar store but can also get online if substantial savings.
• Current laptop has a GT840M so only played GTA5 at 30fps as the last graphic intensive game, and would really like to play RDR2 finally.
• Also wondering if I can save some money and get by with a RTX3050 laptop for the same requirements. Tried hard for a XBOX Series X but my patience has run out procuring one.
• Does a MacBook Air + Xbox make more sense as I’m heavily invested in the Apple ecosystem.

Cheers.

 

[omega44-xt]

Get Legion 5 with R7 5800H, 3060 & QHD panel. Easy winner for a gaming laptop. Get an extended warranty for like 3-4k for 2 years.

I mean Mac air + Xbox Series X is also not bad, provided you can get the latter. Also, be ready to pay for online multiplayer, but I think you can get 3 years of XGP ultimate for like 8-9k, good deal.

 

[virajdhuru]

Yes I think Legion 5 would be my best bet. Now to search for some deals on the same…

Thanks for your suggestion @omega44-xt

Cheers.

 

[virajdhuru]

UPDATE: Got the Lenovo Legion 5 RTX3060 with 1TB SSD and QHD screen for 1.30L from the offline store. Got 2 years additional warranty + Accidental Protection as well for 3k.

Cheers!

 

[omega44-xt]

Congrats

Use it with Hybrid mode off to get slightly better gaming performance, bad battery life though. When using battery, turn on hybrid mode. Also check if you warranty & extended warranty are reflected in Lenovo website.

 

[virajdhuru]

Yes, currently for my day to day productivity tasks I will be using the QHD screen but for gaming will connect it to my 1080p external monitor for better performance with MUX switch off. The extended warranty will be updated in 2-7 days after the purchase so will check in a week’s time.

 

[omega44-xt]

Yes, currently for my day to day productivity tasks I will be using the QHD screen but for gaming will connect it to my 1080p external monitor for better performance with MUX switch off. The extended warranty will be updated in 2-7 days after the purchase so will check in a week’s time.

You can run games on your laptop panel with MUX off as well.

 

[virajdhuru]

Any suggestions for a secondary 1 TB NVMe SSD for games and media storage?

Currently looking at the Samsung 980 for 9K although I am reading conflicting reviews due to it not having DRAM. Any other suggestions are also welcome.

Samsung’s 970 EVO Plus is available at 13k but I don’t think it’s worth spending that amount for a storage/games drive.

 

[TheSloth]

Check if the applications you use benefit from a very fast NVME drive. If its for casual use then you wouldn't notice much difference between Samsung 980 and 970 Evo+. A general advice is to go with whatever you can afford.

 

[omega44-xt]

Any suggestions for a secondary 1 TB NVMe SSD for games and media storage?

Currently looking at the Samsung 980 for 9K although I am reading conflicting reviews due to it not having DRAM. Any other suggestions are also welcome.

Samsung’s 970 EVO Plus is available at 13k but I don’t think it’s worth spending that amount for a storage/games drive.

WD SN570 1TB is under 7.9k now. Good deal. Samsung 980 is slightly faster, so not a bad deal as well. Both are DRAMless but fast.

WD SN750SE 1TB used to be 9k not anymore apparently.

As mentioned earlier, for your usage, you won't observe any difference between even 980 & 980 pro (top tier SSD).

 

[virajdhuru]

Check if the applications you use benefit from a very fast NVME drive. If its for casual use then you wouldn't notice much difference between Samsung 980 and 970 Evo+. A general advice is to go with whatever you can afford.

Thanks for your suggestion.

Any application that would need the speed would be kept on the default 1TB SSD (Samsung PM981a), which I've found is the OEM version of the 970 EVO PLUS and is thus very fast. The second drive will only be used for Steam/Epic games and movies.

WD SN570 1TB is under 7.9k now. Good deal. Samsung 980 is slightly faster, so not a bad deal as well. Both are DRAMless but fast.

WD SN750SE 1TB used to be 9k not anymore apparently.

As mentioned earlier, for your usage, you won't observe any difference between even 980 & 980 pro (top tier SSD).

I think I'm going to go with the Samsung 980 for the second drive, the price is only about 300 Rs higher than the WD SN570 on Amazon right now.

Will post an update here once I purchase and install one.

Cheers!

 

[virajdhuru]

Just another update: Got the Samsung 980 1TB (9.6K) about a couple of weeks back. Installed it in the second slot, and have downloaded a couple of games like MFS and a couple of other games on the drive along witha few movies and other data from my older laptop. Do not see any issues with respect to read/write speeds yet, and with a 160GB SLC cache I am yet to face a slowness in the drive, so it being DRAM-less is not much of an issue as with other non-NVMe drives.

Cheers.