I want to buy a mobile phone. By budget is Rs 10,000. I don’t want a flap mobile.

Amit Naik

You haven’t told me much about your spe­cific needs. The N73ME is priced around the Rs 11K mark, and is a feature rich option. SE’s K810i is a superb phone available for aroundRs 7,500 and is excellent value for money. These are slightly older phones and are very well priced in comparison to their newer siblings.

I am buying a new PC. I want a 19-inch monitor and a fast graphics card. Please recommend com­ponents that complement my choice of components. I also need 2.1 speakers. This PC is solely for gaming. My budget is Rs 60,000. How is ZOTAC as a brand?

Nikhil Sharma

ZOTAC is a new brand, albeit a good one. Their build quality is quite commendable from what I’ve seen. Although this configuration does exceed your budget a bit and I could have sug­gested a GeForce 9800 GTX based card in lieu of the HD 4870, I feel my choice is superb bang for buck and can challenge the GTX 280, (which costs Rs 32,000), in some cases. For a gaming PC the graph­ics card is by far the most important component and I’d give it precedence over even the processor. For speakers check out Altec Lansing’s MX5021 – they’re superb for the price of Rs 6,500.

I have a dual-core processor, 1 GB RAM, 160 GB HDD. I want to buy a graphics card, my budget being Rs 5000. Please suggest something.

Sumant Kumar

Look at the GeForce 9600 GT chipset. Although this may cost more than the mentioned budget you could get a killer deal for around Rs 5,600 for this card. Value based brands include Palit, EVGA, ZOTAC and MSI. If you cannot up your budget the GeForce 8600 GT should suf­fice. Expect to pay around Rs 3,500 for this card.

I am confused between a Notebook PC or a Macbook. I have a budget of Rs 70,000. Which one would be more economical? If I go for a Macbook, will I learn to operate it in a weeks’ time as I have never used it before. Also are there enough service centres in India?

Arun Kamath

I recommend a Windows-based note­book. If you want performance look at Dell’s new XPS series. If it’s a 15.4-inch you’re after their XPS 1530 will please. You can config­ure it yourself at www.dell.co.in. Opt for a 7200 rpm hard drive, and at least 3 GB of RAM.

I want to buy good 2.1 speakers for my desktop computer. My budget is Rs 2500. Please tell me which one I should buy? I live in Kolkata. Also please tell me whether Altec Lansing speakers are avail­able in Kolkata?

Prabir Ray

Yes, Altec Lansing is available there, check with Rashi Peripherals, their dis­tributor. For that budget look at Zebronics’ SW8000 – a superb value for money purchase.

I have Rs 12,000 to spend on a combination of products. I thought I would buy a 2 GB pendrive, a portable Hard disk, a nice pair of earphones and an MP3 player. Now I’m confused on whether I should spend more on the player and downgrade my budget on the external HDD. Since I am not interested in video playback even a small screen would suffice. I would not like to buy an iPod Nano. In terms of specifications, I’d like a large battery life, nice sound quality and some­thing that is physically small in size.

Karmanya Aggarwal

First of all what is the size of your music collection? If it’s in the range of 6 to 8 GB why not get a 16 GB pen drive for Rs 3,500 or so and ditch the idea of a portable drive alto­gether. Or you could get an external 160 GB 2.5 inch solution for around Rs 3,000 and forget the USB drive. An 80 GB drive will cost you around Rs 2,200 which means a 160 GB one is better value for money. For USB drives look at Transcend, Kingston and Corsair. Look at Western Digital for external HDD solutions.

I wonder why you are against the iPod Nano. It’s one of the best PMPs around for its price and fulfils your criteria of being compact and light­weight. The 8 GB Nano is available for Rs 7,500.

The Cowon D2 is also good – it’s priced at Rs 8,500 but will give you only 2 GB of storage, unless you shell out more for expansion. Both are excel­lent options and the D2 is a feature-rich device. Choosing earplugs is the easiest. The EP630 is the way to go and is identical to the MX300 in terms of performance. These will cost you Rs 800.

The new iPods allow you to use them as a portable drive, and you can set aside space for this. The iPod Classic 80 GB costs around Rs 10,500. Choose from the alternatives I’ve given you – either way you cannot err.