Buying a new laptop is always quite a task to tackle, as it’s not always a straightforward choice of a brand or build quality, but rather quite a few different things to be considered. For different types of users, and then there is no one laptop that is best for a specific type of users as a lot comes down to personal choices.
Hence, when we are faced with questions like what laptop should I buy? Or suggest me a good laptop. Our answer always tends to be, to first think and explain what exactly you need from your laptop. When this question has all the answers, only then one can go out shopping a laptop that fits that very criterion.
But coming down to some of the most important things you will want in a laptop, here is a list of a few that you should consider.
-
Size of the laptop/screen
Size of the laptop or the size of the screen of the laptop to be more precise is what matters a great deal, and helps define what particular type of usage you will be able to extract out of this laptop. At the same time, it’s one of the things you can’t change later, while at the same time being one of the most important things to look into.
There are laptops that are as small as 11.6 inches and as big as 17.3 inches. And of course, the bigger the screen the bulkier the laptop will tend to be, allowing the manufacturer to add more power circuitry inside. While the laptops that comes with smaller screens usually are meant for lighter tasking and more portability, hence carrying lighter and lower end processing power and limited RAM and storage options.
-
Quality of the Display
This is the second most important factor to consider because of course, the display is what you will be staring at for hours, and if it’s not up to the par and lacks in certain areas, then your time spent looking at it won’t be as enjoyable or well spent as it could be. Besides the clarity and definition on a screen can really make a difference on what type of a task and how much of it you can do. For example, if your tasks involve reading a lot of text, or looking at variations on graphics and images with involvement of micro details, or if you’re a gamer and you like to enjoy the quality of the visuals, then a lower end screen can definitely disappoint you. While having the right kind of display can help make your multimedia experience a very enjoyable one.
-
Quality of the Keyboard
The keyboard on your laptop is one of the most important things you want to look into, as it can make or break your experience, especially when it comes to the experience of typing. Most of us will end up writing something through the laptop, which can be very small amounts of texts just to search something in Google or YouTube, or texting and posting updates on social media. Everything comes down to having a good and responsive keyboard. Then the next thing you want to keep in mind for the keyboard is to check if it’s typing friendly and makes it a good experience or is it designed in an awkward way where you might get tired easily if you are a person who has to type long texts or pieces of content. Which is of extreme importance if you are a writer or a student/researcher. How loud the keystrokes are and also if they are backlit for using in the dark or not is also something people would like to know before making their choice.
-
The processing power of your laptop
The laptop’s ability to process information and how quickly it can is what you want to be looking at next. This does not only depend on the CPU, but also depends on other factors like the amount and speed of RAM, the processing of graphical elements through a dedicated GPU, and the amount and type of storage.
CPU or the central processing unit is the central core for processing all information, hence how quickly you can carry out specific tasks and how quickly the data will be processed or which types of games you will be able to play on your laptop all come down to the CPU. A good modern CPU can make a lot of difference in the type of tasks and how efficiently you can do them, as opposed to an older CPU, even if the speed stats of the CPU’s are same or even if the older generation one clock better than a newer.
If you are looking for a decent laptop that can handle the multimedia and offer some light gaming then you are good with having a middle tier i3 or i5, however for more intensive tasks and more gaming you want a CPU that is a minimum of a higher end i5 or i7.
RAM or Read Only Memory helps the CPU process that information quickly by storing it in the RAM and letting the CPU have quick access to it, instead of retrieving and constantly writing data to the fixed storage which tends to be very slow to access, read, and write. 8GB of RAM is pretty much the minimum standard these days while having a RAM of 16GB helps with the more intensive tasks and gaming.
-
The Storage
The type and size of the fixed storage device on your laptop, which can be a standard access optical hard drive, or a quick access SD drive. It is recommended to at least go with an overall size of at least 500GB nowadays, while 1TB seems to be becoming the standard. Most laptops come with optical hard drives with slow reading and writing speeds, while more and more manufacturers are adding SD storage options along with the optical drives as they provide a high-speed access to the data, and hence speeding up the entire performance of your laptop.
Images: pixabay
