Animesh Dutta
Your best bet is the Nikon P3, costing around Rs 12,500. I’m talking grey-market rates. It features an 8.1 MP lens with 3.5x optical zoom and all the other features expected from a compact camera. Besides having great build quality, the P3 also features Optical Image Stabilization, which will allow you to take blur-free shots.
Graphics Cards Revisited
I have an MSI RS 480-IL motherboard, an AMD Athlon 64 2800 , a 250 W SMPS, an 80 GB SATA HDD, and Windows XP Professional. Now I would like to buy a suitable graphics card at around Rs 8,000 to 10,000. Please suggest a suitable one. If I upgrade to a high-end motherboard, can I use the same card? Will my current SMPS work fine? K Ashok Vardhan
Your motherboard has certain issues with all NVIDIA-based graphics cards. This narrows down your options to ATI-based ones. For the budget mentioned, I suggest you pick up a Sapphire X1600XT with 256 MB of memory. This card, while falling within your budget, will provide sufficient graphics horsepower. And yes, you can use this card with any high-end motherboard that has a PCI-Express slot.
I recommend upgrading your SMPS to at least 450 watts to ensure stable performance. Brands to choose from are VIP and Zebronics.
Cores Again!
I want to buy a dual-core-processor-based system. Besides programming, I will use the PC for DTP work, watching and burning movies, and also a lot of gaming. Please suggest a good configuration. Could you also give me approximate prices?
Aabid Hussain
Your best bet is an Intel Core 2 Duo based system. How apt that I’ve bought one myself and even written-on the previous page-about the components I considered before making my decision. For your needs I recommend the following:
Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo E6300 (1.86 GHz), Rs 9,200
Motherboard: MSI P965 Neo V, Rs 5,700
Memory: 1 GB DDR2 533 MHz, Rs 3,250
Hard disk: Samsung SP2504C 250 GB SATA, Rs 3,800
Graphics card: Geforce 7600GT (brands-Forsa or Palit), Rs 8,000
I’d recommend a 19-inch widescreen LCD to go with this configuration. This will cost you around Rs 13,500.
The minimum you should consider if price is a constraint is a 17-inch LCD. You’ll save around 3.5K.
A Question Of Essentials
I’m interested in the following components. Please suggest the best buy for the price.
A perfect 17-inch LCD monitor with good viewing angles and good for graphics on a budget of Rs 10,000 to 11,000
A processor and motherboard with onboard graphics, which can help a great deal in gaming and multimedia; budget Rs 12,000 ~ 13,000 for both
Rishabh Sharma
For a very good 17-inch monitor, you can look at the Samsung 770P. It’s a PVA (Patterned Vertical Alignment) panel and therefore costly-Rs 18,500. A regular 17-inch LCD within your budget would be the Samsung 740N, a TN (Twisted Nematic) costing 10K. The former will give you much better colour and contrast, whereas the latter is nearly half its price for the same screen size.
I suggest you extend that budget slightly to go Core 2 Duo. Get an Intel E6300 processor. You can expect to pay up to Rs 9,500. For the motherboard, go with an ASUS P5LD2-VM SE. This will be priced in the region of 5,000.
Modest Needs
I want to buy an MP3 player. 512 MB would suffice. My budget is Rs 2,700. If the player has an SD slot, so much the better.
Kunal Tyagi
I’d recommend the Transcend T.sonic 610. It offers decent music playback, a good feature set, and you can get it in 512 MB, 1 GB and 2 GB capacities. The price should be around Rs 1,850 for the 512 MB version, and the 1 GB version is just Rs 2,300-well within your budget.
C2D Mania!
I want to buy a laptop with at least the following specifications: Intel Core 2 Duo, 512 MB RAM, weight within 3 kg, 15.4-inch widescreen, 60 GB HDD, and it must have a DVD-Writer. My budget is rupees 40,000.
Prosenjit Mukherjee
Your budget is too low to get a Core 2 Duo processor based laptop. However you could just manage a Core Duo. I seriously suggest you consider AMD Turion options, as these my priced well within your budget. Celeron and Pentium 4 based laptops do not make sense. This is because of both performance and power issues.
Take a look at the Compaq Presario V3000 series. Costing Rs 45,000 and above, they are Core Duo based. Core Solo processors are available on the Compaq C300 notebook series. These will cost much less. HP laptops are all in the range of 50K and above. However, in the 15.4-inch category, you could look at a Dell Inspiron 6400 too. It costs just upwards of 45,000 (base model), and offers a Core Duo. Lenovo’s N Series also has a Core Solo model priced at around Rs 45,000. I’d suggest a bit of market research before taking the plunge.