How To Choose A Best Laptop

                                                                  

How To Choose A Best Laptop: Laptops are compact enough to carry with you, yet versatile enough to run demanding applications. It's the best tool for doing serious work or play whether you're at home, on the road or in a college classroom. For those reasons, we've compiled lists of the best business laptops and best college laptops, not to mention our best laptops rankings for most users.

While standalone tablets and smartphones are always popular, most people realize that everything from typing a research paper to crunching video to gaming works better on a laptop. So what type of laptop should you get? We put together a laptop buying guide to help you out.

There's a wide variety of sizes, features and prices, which makes choosing the best laptop a challenge. That's why you need to figure out what your needs are.

WHAT TO CONSIDER WHEN BUYING A LAPTOP?

You can't just walk into a store and buy a laptop that the salesman is selling to you without knowing its pros and cons. So, here are 10 things you should keep in mind before buying yourself a laptop.

1. BUDGET:

Everyone has the purchasing power but how much can you really spend on buying a laptop is what you should ask yourself before purchasing one. For example, if you are a student, your purchasing power will be lower than that of someone who is working and who has a decent salary, right? So after you have decided your budget you can look out for laptops in that particular price range.

2. PROCESSOR:

Now, let me explain this to you in layman's term. The CPU is the main part of a laptop which defines the speed of processing any task. In short, if you want to multi-task on your laptop you should buy one which has a powerful processor. Otherwise your laptop will end up hanging every time you try multi-tasking on it. Most laptops come with an Intel or AMD CPU brand. Both are decent performers but Intel is considered more powerful than the AMD.

LATEST GENERATIONS OF PROCESSORS:

Intel 10th Gen CPUs - Ice Lake vs Comet Lake:
Intel introduced two types of 10th Gen processors that will power the next generation of laptops. You can read about these processors in more detail here (Ice Lake) and here (Comet Lake).  To summarize, Ice Lake --- a 10-nanometer chip --- offers improved integrated Iris Plus graphics whereas Comet Lake --- a 14-nanometer chip --- is all about raw performance, especially the six-core Core i7-10710U. Not sure which one is right for you? Check out our guide, which will also help you decipher Intel's confusing naming schemes.

Intel Core i9: Supplanting the Core i7 as the new top-of-the-line CPU from Intel, Core i9 processors provide faster performance than any other mobile chip. Available only on premium laptops, workstations and high-end gaming rigs, Core i9 CPUs are only worth their premium price if you're a power user who uses the most demanding programs and apps.

Intel Core i7: A step up from Core i5, which Models with numbers that end in HQ or K use higher wattage and have four cores, allowing for even faster gaming and productivity. There are also Core i7 Y series chips that have lower power and performance. Keep an eye out for CPUs that have a 10 in the model number (ex: Core i7-1060G7 for Ice Lake or Core i7-10710U for Comet Lake) because they are part of Intel's latest, 10th Generation Core Series, and offer better performance. Note that Intel's H-series 9th Generation CPUs are available now.

Intel Core i5: If you're looking for a mainstream laptop with the best combination of price and performance, get one with an Intel Core i5 CPU. Models that end in U (ex: Core i5-7200U) are the most common.  Those with the a Y in the name are low power and have worse performance while models with an HQ use more wattage and appear in thicker gaming and workstation systems. Intel's newest 10th Generation "Ice Lake" CPUs have four cores, and a number of useful features, including Wi-Fi 6 support, Thunderbolt 3 integration and better AI. Read our benchmarking article to see how they perform.

Intel Core i3: Performance is just a step below Core i5 and so is the price. If you can possibly step up to a Core i5, we recommend it.

Intel Xeon: Extremely powerful and expensive processors for large mobile workstations. If you do professional-grade engineering, 3D modeling or video editing, you might want a Xeon, but you won't get good battery life or a light laptop.

Intel Pentium / Celeron: Common in sub $400 laptops, these chips offer the slowest performance, but can do if your main tasks are web surfing and light document editing. If you can pay more to get a Core i3 or i5, you'd be better off.

Intel Core m / Core i5 / i7 "Y Series:" Low-power and low heat allow systems with these processors to go fanless. Performance is better than Celeron, but a notch below regular Core U series.

AMD Ryzen 4000: A new set of chips that are designed to compete with Intel Core i5 and Core i7. We've found Ryzen 4000 chips to outperform equivalent Intel Core processors. For example, the Ryzen 5 4500U CPU delivers about the same performance as an Intel Core i7 CPU. These chips are typically found in much cheaper laptops.

AMD A, FX or E Series: Found on low-cost laptops, AMD's processors -- the company calls them APUs rather than CPUs --  provide decent performance for the money that's good enough for web surfing, media viewing and productivity.


3. CHOOSE THE RIGHT SIZE:

Before you look at specs or pricing, you need to figure out just how portable you need your laptop to be. Laptops are usually categorized by their display sizes:

11 to 12 inches: The thinnest and lightest systems around have 11- to 12-inch screens and typically weigh 2.5 to 3.5 pounds.
13 to 14 inches: Provides the best balance of portability and usability, particularly if you get a laptop that weighs under 4 pounds.
15 to 16 inches: The most popular size, 15-inch laptops usually weigh 4 to 5.5 pounds. Consider this size if you want a larger screen and you're not planning to carry your notebook around often. Laptops with 16-inch displays are rare but Apple might get the trend started with its 16-inch MacBook Pro.
17 to 18 inches: If your laptop stays on your desk all day every day, a 17- or 18-inch system could provide you with the kind of processing power you need to play high-end games or do workstation-level productivity.


4. RAM AND STORAGE:

RAM (random access memory) is key to computer performance, especially if you do lots of multitasking on your laptop – e.g. edit photos, write word docs, and browse the web all at once. The more RAM you have, the faster your laptop will be able to access data, and the more applications you can run smoothly at any one time.

For a decent experience, 4GB RAM is absolute minimum. But 8GB is recommended. If you are going to do a lot of video and photo editing, consider buying a laptop with 16GB RAM. Even if you are looking for a laptop in a more affordable category, always consider the machine that has more RAM compared to others.

More the storage, the better. Laptops with 500GB and 1TB hard disk drive (HDD) are quite common these days. However, with the advancement of smaller lightweight laptops, solid-state drive (SDD) are more popular. The SDD is faster but often come with lesser storage. So, do not forget to consider storage as per your requirement while buying a laptop.

5. SCREEN QUALITY:

If you’re like most of us, you’ll probably be staring into your laptop screen for hours everyday. So make sure you opt for a laptop with a screen that’s easy on the eyes. Glossier screens tend to reflect surrounding light, so keep that in mind. Also note that touch screen laptops will have a glossy screen, so weigh up the pros and cons.

Depending on how you will use your laptop, screen resolution will also be important. 1920×1080 is a full HD screen. This will give you great image quality and plenty of room to keep your windows in view.

Select modern laptops also now offer 4K resolutions. However, these high-end display panels are generally a costly add-on to an already-expensive product. They're only really going to be worth it for those who really need them.

6. KEYBOARD QUALITY:

If you plan to do a lot of work on your computer, make sure the keyboard offers solid tactile feedback, plenty of key travel (the distance the key goes down when pressed, usually 1 to 2mm) and enough space between the keys. If you're buying a Windows laptop, be sure it has Precision touchpad drivers.

Look for an accurate touchpad that doesn't give you a jumpy cursor and responds consistently to multitouch gestures such as pinch-to-zoom. If you're buying a business laptop, consider getting one with a pointing stick (aka nub) between the G and H keys so you can navigate around the desktop without lifting your fingers off the keyboard's home row.


7. BATTERY LIFE:

There are simply too many variables that affect battery life. There is the screen brightness, the screen resolution, the number of applications you have running in the background plus whether or not you actively remain connected to Wi Fi networks or Bluetooth devices.

If you run programs that need lots of processing, stream lots of online video, play graphics-intensive games or if you transfer lots of files over a wireless network, then your battery will drain a lot sooner than what the vendor has quoted.

A good practice here is to look at the rating of the battery in Watt-hours (Wh) or milliamp-hours (mAh). The larger these figures are, the longer the battery can last. For a 13.3in Ultrabook, for example, a battery with a rating from 44Wh to 50Wh will give you the best results.

8. CONNECTIVITY PORTS:

These days, if a laptop has only one USB 3.0 port on it, you probably ought to look at buying another laptop. Ideally, you should look for a laptop that has at least a couple of these USB 3.0 ports. They're the most common connector port in the industry and, while you can find a dongle for anything on Amazon, it's usually a better bet to just make sure your next laptop has them.
USB 3.0 is about ten times faster than USB 2.0. This means that data transfers over USB 3.0 take significantly less time.

9. BUILD QUALITY:

No matter how careful we are, most laptops are inevitably going to find themselves, dropped, thrown and knocked around by the rigors of everyday use. For that reason, it's worth checking out how much testing a laptop has undergone (the manufacturer usually crows about it) or whether there's any sort certification that you can put your confidence behind.

Modern laptops are often ruggedized to withstand rain and dust. Some are built especially for the brutal educational environments - and come with military-grade protection certifications. The most common of these you're going to see is MIL-STD 810G.

10. BRAND:

Lastly, the brand of a laptop matters a lot. The brand makes a huge difference. Avoid brands that you haven't heard of before, or aren't sure of.You should always go for the leading brands like Dell, ASUS, HP, Apple, Lenovo or Microsoft.


CONCLUSION:

During the course of this discussion, you remember that each brand has its own set of strengths and weaknesses. However, the final buying decision is at your discretion. You need to take the preferences, budget, and features before going with a specific brand.

If you are comfortable spending a bit more without having gaming preferences, we would suggest buying MacBooks. Similarly, the selections and suggestions change on the basis of requirements, budget, and even brand loyalty to a certain extent.

Lastly, while the feature sets look alluring, always go with brands that offer excellent customer support and after-sales coverage.