Laptop Buying Guide – How to Choose the Right Laptop

Choosing the right laptop is a daunting task, if not a rocket science! As such there are laptops available both offline and online. You visit websites like Amaon, eBay, Target or WallMark, browse through category to find laptops. If you are deal devotee, you are likely to be tempted by expiring deals and end up adding the same to your cart. Probably, you will be delighted to bag one within budget.

But you may not be as fortunate to choose the right laptop. If choosing a laptop was so easy, you might not be visiting this page. Before making this entry, I have undertaken a few internet search to find contents available on buying laptop. The top ranked once are not only lengthy but these are really not intended for any layman. You need to have technical knowhow to understand those guidelines. While those author’s have taken into account every details, in real life you are most likely to be confused with so many details. And most unfortunately,  you may forget to work out the key features which must be present in a laptop you want.

For school and college students, you need a laptop obviously, rugged and pocket friendly. The purpose of this laptop is mostly preparing school projects with little bit of elementary coding. Besides, these laptops need to be upgraded as students reach higher grades.

The purpose of business laptop or laptop for official use, price is surely a key performance indicator but more importantly, in this case, the speed of execution is also important. Your boss may not allow you time to boot (start) the laptop, or, wait for five minutes to open the spreadsheet (MicroSoft EXCEL File). Time is key. Also you may require some additional storage space to store occasional family photos, travel photos and videos. In this context a very quick word of caution. The cheap laptops available in market tend to go slower and slower as time progresses and different files occupy its storage space. For office or business purpose, you need budget friendly smart laptops. One more point to consider as a rare and exceptional process. If your office involves processing of huge data, like EXCEL sheets with 100,000+ records, you need laptop with great processing power. Otherwise, cheaper version of laptops will fail to manoeuvre such huge excel file. Besides, a business laptop should have a sound battery life as you do not like to run out of battery in the midway of a business presentation. You may want your laptop to run even during long travel hours. So, you need laptop with overwhelming battery backup.

There was a big confusion in my mind regarding standards for developers’ laptop. While an experienced developer can spell out their needs even while in slumber, the same is not correct for developers to-be. So, my point will be for developers to-be. Well guys, as I have explained earlier, I had a doubt. If you use too high configuration laptops, you may not be able to figure out slow processing queries, or, slow loading web pages due to heavy image files you might have used in design. This may permanently penalise your web applications. A too low configuration is definitely going to slow down your activity. So, you should ideally opt for a laptop with reasonable processing power and storage. Remember, disk space for any developers’ laptop must be as much free as possible. If you plan to create a Netflex backup in you local device, you are  surely going to pay the bills for the same by slowing down your activity. A developer’s laptop must be free from all clutter boxes, moderately configured.

The laptop for designer needs a big screen. Designs require designing space. A 13.3″ – 14″ laptop is not their choice. Besides, using of software like Adobe Photoshop requires huge computing needs. So, a multimedia laptop requires huge space, computing power and a big screen. Probably, if you are going to work with Videography, or Animation, or even some basic design flawlessly, you have to invest in high end laptop.

I am not an avid gamer. As such, I can not play. I do not have idea on Computer Games. However, I have fair amount of idea on laptops for avid gamers. You need laptop with super powered display, so you have to invest in Computing Speed, Graphics Cards, a Wide Screen with additional add-on input devices for gaming. Only factor you may ignore is storage space. Otherwise, be prepared to invest in Graphics Cards, Memory, Processor and a big screen laptop.

Well by far, I have explained the basic requirement based on actual usage. To summarise, we need the best laptop for gamers and multi-media works while students laptop should fit within budget. Laptops for office works or business, should be smart – equipped with reasonable processing power, RAM and storage space. Developers to-be require laptops with great computing power and moderate storage space.

Laptops are available with different processors. While INTEL chipset based processors are always our #1 recommendation, AMD offers great pocket friendly alternative. Given every other parameters same, AMD based processors are $150 – $200 cheap compared to INTEL laptops. Staring with low cost Core i3 processor, an ideal high end gaming laptop may have INTEL 10th Generation Core i7 processor. What does processor do? Simply, high end processors add more computing power to your laptop. You pay for speed. If you run several applications at the same time, which is called multi-tasking, a high end processor will continue to run without your laptop getting hang. Running resources intensive applications like Adobe Photoshop may be challenging if it is not supported with good processor. Also, if you need to process huge amount of data, even opening or filtering an excel spreadsheet becomes time consuming with low end processors. INTEL based processors are also better for display.

This is the memory used by different applications which will run on your laptop. While 4GB RAM is good enough for basic purpose laptop, 8GB or more RAM is recommended for resource intensive applications. As such, in today’s standard, 8GB RAM is more likely to satisfy even the most memory greedy applications.

The more the better. This is the physical space you have to store your digital assets.  A laptop with 128 GB SSD is good for students. For business purposes, you may just like to have one with 512 GB or higher space. Those in multimedia work should ideally look for 1TB or more space. They process bulky multimedia video or animations. This requires space. However, unnecessarily huge storage space may slow down the laptop. So, it is better to figure out your exact needs and acquire a laptop accordingly. As for my experience goes, each of my fancy tour consumes around 4 GB of space of my drive. So, considering yearly 3 tours, 15 GB space is enough for one year usage. If I plan well, I should look for a laptop with 256 GB + storage to store my travel photos. Besides, these days market is flooded with external hard drive with 1TB / 2TB / 4TB or more capacity. You can opt for one, if situation demands so. I personally use 128GB Internal Storage for my photos and videos I occasionally capture during tours.

Any high end laptop comes with Graphics Card for Gaming or Multi-media professionals. 4GB extra memory for Graphics improve visual display of your device. This is a good idea as well to relish eye-soothing visual pleasure. Better graphics card produces smoother images on your scrreen.

Ideally your new laptop should have a screen size of 13.3″ and up. Smaller screen size is great not only for portability but also to work while on the go. Larger screen size in the order of 15.6″ and above, is required for multi-media work or gaming. These days laptops with touchscreen is the latest trend. This is a good feature to have particularly in business laptop for presentation purpose.

While in any other laptop, you can safely rely on data provided by manufacturers, battery life is something only an experienced end user can certify. Ideally a laptop should work off-power for 4 hours – 6 hours. Different manufacturers claim end less battery life. But without a real drive, you can literally know nothing. However, good news is that all the laptops we have studied so far, comes with  4+ hours of battery life. Fact is that your battery life depends on your actual usage. If you use too much resource intensive applications, you are likely to drain your battery life too early. I have used the same laptop to run for 8 hours without any charging needs compared to 2 hours while using resources intensive applications. These days, you can always check for applications draining your batteries the most. You should quit those applications when not in use to save battery life and charge. Also reducing screen brightness saves eyes and battery!

If you can afford for it, go with Macbook. This is always on. This has all the built in Apps. Whatever your business is, you feel a Mac is just made for you. If you were a developer, Mac empowers you with unputdownable computing speed; if you were a multi-media professional, Macbook has the best display and essential software applications for video or image editing; presentations created at Macbook for business presentation is beyond any comparison. Battery life is excellent. But budget is something that is why a lots of guys float towards Windows. For Windows also, these days Operating System is very sound and stable. You also get rich multi-media experience, high-end computing speed and different software applications are made solely for Windows OS. Besides, our by-birth familiarity with Windows environment just let us go whenever our new Windows laptop is unboxed. Just one point must I mention here is that if you invest in Windows laptop, always go with one that comes bundles with licensed version of Operating System like Windows 10. You may always check the pre-loaded operating system while making online purchase. You can also ask the seller in a physical store to confirm the Operating System. It should be there pre-loaded. Cheap laptops coming with DOS (Disk Operating System) is not ready to be operational. You have to purchase and install an operating system to start using these types of laptops. That is something going to cost few extra bulks.

Powered by speedy, simple and secure Chrome operating system that powers every Chromebook, these are pocket friendly alternative to any modern laptop. Major brands like Dell or HP have already developed laptop based on Chrome OS.

As per today’s trend SSD is my recommendation. Nearly two years ago, I had the same confusion – SSD or HDD. HDD appears luring as these are still less pricey compared to SSD. Moreover, HDD allows more space to use. However, HDD (Hard Disc Drive) has rotating Mechanical Disk, which is prone to damage much more compared to SSD (Solid State Drive). So, far safe storage of your priceless digital assets, investing in SSD is worth the penny.

Laptops usually come up with one year warranty. The supports are provided mostly through remote assistance. If necessary, you may have to garage your prestige possession in a nearby service center. Most major brands have well scattered network of service center. So, this is not a big issue. Just get a confirmation, if your laptop is covered by warranty. These days, you can also extend warranty to cover 2+ users by entering in to agreement with the manufacturers or entering into an agreement with third party providers. Anyway, unlike common perception, I can assure, in this very competitive era, all the major brands are working hard to give you a very well tested, flawless device. So, chance of a laptop malfunctioning is very rare.

Few other parameters like connectivity, no. of ports., Web Camera, Audio, Video, Graphics Cards are also to be considered depending upon your exact nature of use. Things like Web Camera has become very important these days because of New Normal Work From Home culture and increased rate of Video Conferencing or Online Meeting through Zoom or Google Meet. However, most laptops perform fairly good so far as Web Camera is concerned. For gamers, they should check Audio Output as well. Because you cannot perform well unless you get to hear heart-throbbing fan-cheers!