Three "Centrino Duo" Laptops For Students

Admission season is upon us and with a lot of new students all set to enter MBA/ IIM/ Engineering colleges, one thing they need to purchase to allow them to work seamlessly, is a laptop. A laptop for a student is a necessity now, as most campuses now days have Wi-Fi. This allows them to function from virtually any corner and when one looks at the rather cramped quarters most universities have, a laptop becomes an essential requirement and not a luxury.

This brings us to the real problem. Intel recently launched their new platform “Santa Rosa”, which talks about significant performance upgrades, better battery life and greater compatibility with Windows Vista. Now this is where the problem starts. Quite a few companies have announced a rash of products without really phasing out their previous Core 2 Duo lines. Most manufacturers now offer both generations of products leading to confusion among users as what to buy. While choice for consumers is always a good thing, most manufacturers just don’t take the trouble of having a coherent product naming scheme that differentiates on product lines and makes the choice easier for the consumer.

So we decided to go through the various product launches and pick out 3 laptops that are based on the new “Centrino Duo” aka “Santa Rosa”.

Dell Inspiron 1520

It is rare to contemplate any kind of roundup, without a single Dell product in its ranks. The newly introduced Inspiron 1520 is a typical Dell product, that offers a range of new “Merom” processors ranging from the T7100 upwards, has a standard of 1 GB RAM, storage space of 120 GB, a choice of Nvidia’s graphical chipsets (8400 GT and 8600 GT), 802.11n support and a 15.4 inch screen with a native resolution of 1280x800. Apart from these basic specifications, it is the range of customization that Dell offers which makes this laptop interesting. Not only can one upgrade to an HD ready resolution of 1680x1050, it offers the choice of adding in a webcam and a Blu-Ray drive. With prices starting at Rs. 58,000, this is ideally our first choice for anyone looking to purchase a solid and a dependable future-ready product.

HP Pavilion dv2519TU

Having recently taken over from Dell the position of the world’s largest PC/Laptop manufacturer, HP continues to grow from strength to strength. One look at the DV2519 TU and it’s not difficult to guess why. For starters, it packs in a decent choice of processors ranging from the T5250 upwards to the T7100, has 1GB of DDR2 667MHz RAM, a 160GB SATA HDD and a Lightscribe Super Multi DVD Writer (+/-R +/-RW) with DL support. For its graphics it uses Intel’s GMA X3100 chipset, which is Windows Vista Premium ready. For its connectivity the laptop also packs in Wi-Fi 802.11n support, Gigabit Lan , a 5-in-1 Multicard reader and a 56k modem. HP recognizing the need for more security at a consumer level, has recently started building in security features into their laptops. This fact is amply illustrated by the fact that this laptop ships with a security fingerprint scanner.

The prices for this laptop start at Rs. 57,000 and make it an excellent alternative to Dell’s offering.

Acer 6292

Acer while not being as big as the other two brands in this roundup has built up an excellent reputation for offering solid VFM products. The 6292 reviewed by us is one such product. It offers a powerful Core 2 Duo T7100 processor, 1 GB of DDR 2 667 RAM, a 12.1 inch screen with a native resolution of 1280x800, X3100 Windows Vista ready graphics chipset, 160 GB of storage and excellent battery life of nearly 3 hrs under full stress.

The price for this powerful machine starts at Rs. 69,000. For a more detailed link please head on over here.