There are tone laptops on the market at any given moment, and almost all of these models are available in many configurations to suit your performance and budget needs. If you feel saturated with options when looking for a new laptop, it's understandable. To help simplify things for you, here are the main things to consider when you start looking for.
Price
The search for a new laptop for most people starts with a price. If Intel statistics manufacturers and computer products are correct, you will stick to your next laptop for at least three years. If you can afford to stretch your budget a little to get better specifications, do it. It states whether you spend $ 500 or more than $ 1,000. In the past, you could get out of spending less in advance and look to upgrade memory and storage in the future. Laptop manufacturers are increasingly moving away from making components easy to upgrade, so it is best to get a good laptop as much as you can afford it from the beginning.
Generally, the more you spend, the better the laptop. It can mean better components for faster performance, a nicer display, a stronger building quality, a smaller or lighter design than materials with a higher level or even a more comfortable keyboard. All of these things add to the price of the laptop. I would like to say 500 USD will get a powerful games laptop, for example, but that's not the case. Now, the sweet point for a reliable laptop that can manage average work, home office or school tasks is between $ 700 and $ 800 and a reasonable model for creative work or games up to $ 1,000. The key is to look for discounts on models in all pricing ranges so you can get more features of the laptop for less.
Operating system
The choice of operating system is part of a personal choice and part budget. For the most part, MacOS on Microsoft Windows and Apple do the same things (except games, where Windows is the winner), but they make them differently. Unless there is an application specific to the operating system, go with the one that feels most comfortable with use. If you're not sure what it is, head to an Apple store or a local electronics store and try them out. Either ask your friends or family to let you test them a little. If you have an iPhone or iPad and you like it, chances are you will like MacOS.
When it comes to price and variety (and, again, computer games), Windows laptops win. If you want MacOS, you get a MacBook. While Apple's MacBooks regularly tie our best lists, the most expensive is the M1 MacBook Air for $ 999. It is reduced to $ 750 or $ 800 regularly, but if you want a cheaper MacBook, you will have to consider the older renovated.
Laptops for Windows can be found a little like several hundred dollars and come in all sizes and designs. Well, we will be difficult to find a $ 200 laptop that would make a full recommendation for, but if you need a laptop for online shopping, email processing and text, they exist.
If you are on a narrow budget, think about Chromebook. Chromeos is a different experience from Windows; Make sure the apps you need to have ChromeApplication Android or Linux before making the jump. If you spend most of your time walking the internet, writing, transmitting video or using cloud gaming services, they are well suited.
Size
Remember to consider whether to have an easier, thinner laptop or a touch screen laptop with a good battery life will be important to you in the future. The size is primarily determined by the screen – healthy, laws of physics – which in turn factors in battery size, laptop thickness, weight and price. Keep in mind and other physics -related features, such as the ultra -laptop is not necessarily lighter than dense, you cannot expect a wide range of connections to a small or ultra -ultratin model and so on.
Screen
When it comes to decision -making, there are different thoughts: how much you need to show (which is surprising more about the resolution of the screen size), what types of content you see and whether you will be using it for games or creative work.
You want to optimize the pixel density; It is the number of pixels per inch that can be displayed. Although other factors contribute to sharpness, a higher pixel density usually means a sharper giving elements of text and interface. (You can easily calculate the density of the pixels on any screen of DPI calculator If you do not feel like doing math, and you can also find out what mathematics you should do there.) We recommend a point of points of at least 100 inch pixels as a rule.
Because of the way Windows and the MacOS display scale, you are often better with a higher resolution than you think. You can always make things bigger on a high-resolution screen, but you can never make them smaller to collect more content in the view-on-the-screen. This is why the 4K, 14-inch screen may sound unnecessary, but maybe it's not if needed, say, see a wide table.
If you need a relatively accurate color laptop that shows the most possible colors or supporting HDR, you can't simply trust the specifications. Manufacturers usually fail to provide the necessary context to understand what the specifications they quote mean. You can find tone details of the considerations of different types of screen use in our instructions for buying monitor General Purpose Monitors, creators, Watching gamers and HDR.
Processor
The processor, aka processor, is the laptop's brain. Intel and AMD are the main manufacturers of the Windows laptop processor. Both offer an incredible choice of mobile processors. Making things fiercely, both manufacturers have chips designed for different laptop styles, such as electricity saving chips for ultra -portraits or faster games laptop processors. Their naming conventions will let you know what kind of use. You can head to Intel's Or AMD pages for explanations to get the desire you want. Generally, the faster the processor speed and the more cores it is, the better the performance will be.
Apple makes its chips for MacBooks, making things a little simpler. Like Intel and AMD, you will still want to pay attention to the naming conventions to know what performance to expect. Apple uses its chips from the M series in Macs. MacBook Air at the entry level uses an M1 with an eight-core processor and a seven-core graphics processor. Current models have a silicon from the M2 series that starts with an eight-core processor and a 10-core graphics processor and climbes to M2 Max with a 12-core processor and a 38-core GPU. Again, in general, the more cores there are, the better the performance.
Graphics
The GPU (GPU) handles the whole job of driving on the screen and generating what is displayed, as well as the acceleration of many graphics -related operations (and increasingly related to AI). For Windows laptops, there are two types of GPU: Integrated (IGPU) or discreet (DGPU). As the names imply, IGPU is part of the CPU package, while DGPU is a special memory chip (VRAM) that communicates directly, making it faster than sharing a CPU memory.
Since IGPU divides the space, memory and power by the CPU, it is limited by the limits of them. It provides smaller, lighter laptops, but does not perform almost as well as DGPU. There are some games and creative software that will not work unless they reveal DGPU or enough vram. However, most productivity software, video browsing, web browsing and other non -specific applications will work well on IGPU.
For more graphics power needs, such as video editing, games and streaming, design and so on, you will need DGPU; There are only two real-life companies that make them, Nvidia and AMD, with Intel offering some based on XE-branded (or older UHD graphics) IGPU technology in their processors.
Memory
For memory, we recommend 16 GB of RAM (absolute minimum of 8 GB). RAM is where the operating system stores all application data that is currently operating and can be completed quickly. After that, it begins to change between RAM and SSD, which is slower. Many laptops below $ 500 have 4 GB or 8 GB, which in connection with a slower disk can make a frustrating slow experience with Windows laptop. Also, many laptops now glue the motherboard memory. Most manufacturers reveal this, but if the type of RAM is LPDDR, assume it is glued and cannot be upgraded.
Some computer manufacturers will glue the memory and also leave an empty internal slot to add RAM to RAM. You may need to contact the laptop manufacturer or find the full specifications of the internet laptop to confirm. Check the users' network for users, as the slot can still be difficult to get, it may require non -standard or difficult to get memory or other traps.
Storage
You will still find cheaper hard drives in budget laptops and larger hard drives in gaming laptops, but faster SSDs have everyone, but have replaced hard drives in laptops. They can make a big difference in performance. Not all SSDs are equally fast, and cheaper laptops usually have slower plants. If the laptop has only 4 GB or 8 GB of RAM, it can end up with the exchange of that drive and the system can slow down quickly while working.
Get what you can afford, and if you need to go with a smaller drive, you can always add an external drive or two on the road or use a cloud storage to strengthen a small interior. One exception is game laptops: we do not recommend going with less than 512 GB SSD, unless you really want to uninstall games every time you want to play a new game.