What you need to check when buying a laptop

Figuring out which laptop to buy can be a stressful journey if you don’t know what to look for.

You might have a budget in mind, but don’t know how big you need your laptop to be. You might know that you need a back-lit keyboard but not which device gets the best value of money.

There’s no one answer to which laptop is the best, but if you follow a few guidelines you’ll be able to figure out which laptop is the best choice for you.

1. Size does matter

Screen size has a big role to play is how you’re going to be using your laptop. If you are on the go and portability is your priority then the smaller the laptop, the better. But you’re a graphics designer or a video editor, you might prefer to go for a bigger screen.

Most mainstream laptop brands offer 13.3-inch, 15.6-inch and 17.3-inch variants of the laptops they launch. But certain models, depending on their selling position, may also be available in smaller sizes like 11.6-inches and go up to 14-inches.

It should be noted that as a laptop gets smaller, the numbers of ports normally reduce simultaneously. They also may not be able to support higher-end CPUs and GPUs.

2. Carrying it around

Size, isn’t just about the screen. It also includes the thickness of a laptop and how much it weighs overall. Batteries have a role to play in that regard. Normally, the bigger the battery, the higher and thicker the device.

If you’re looking for something portable, you don’t just want it to be small — you also need it to light and slim so that you carry it around in your bag without it taking up too much space.

One size doesn’t fit all so base the choice of the size of your laptop on the tasks you plan carry out using it.

3. To touch or not to touch, that is the question

If you’re going to spending hours in front of your laptop’s screen, then you want to be comfortable. A lot of the options in the market today come with touch screens, but the catch with them is their glossy finish.

The glossiness of touch screens in an undesirable feature that causes reflections — a definite downside for anyone looking to game, design graphics or edit videos of their laptop.

A good way to see whether or not a screen works for you is the check the laptop’s viewing angles. It requires you to go on an offline store to test, but the wider the viewing angle, the more comfortable the laptop will be to use. So far, an IPS display has the widest viewing angles in the market.

4. The bells and whistles of a laptop screen

Aside from choosing between touchscreen and an ordinary screen, it’s important to note the screen’s resolution. A full-HD screen is normally the way to go, but brands offer upto 4K resolution on their laptops — for a price. But if you’re a photographer or any kind of content creation professionals, it might be worth the investment for the sake of color accuracy and sharpness.

In you’re a gamer, on the other hand, the refresh rate of the screen is a more important aspect of a screen that its resolution. A 90Hz refresh is adequate, and can even be found on gaming phones today, but laptops stretch up to a refresh rate of 120Hz.

5. Keyboards

Not a lot of people pay attention to the nuances of a keyboard when go shopping for a new laptop. As long as it works, it’s usually enough. But, again, a laptop is normally something you use for hours on end so you want something that’s going to end up giving you carpal syndrome.

Larger laptops might have everything crammed together on one keyboard, including the extended number pad — a feature that may be useful for bankers and accountants who use laptops to crunch numbers.

But as a general rule, users should try and go for a laptop that has a simple layout with keys at a comfortable distance from each other. The arrow, alt, control and shift keys should also be easily reachable otherwise shortcuts won’t feels short as your fingers stretch out.

The other important thing to look out for a backlit keyboard. It’s a true lifesaver when you’re working in dim lighting.

6. The CPU

In today’s market, placing your bets on an Intel core based CPU is normally the safest option. Casual users normally still with the Intel Core i5 since it’s a good balance of power and efficiency without making a laptop exorbitantly expensive.

Entry level laptops normally have the Intel Core i3 on board for users who aren’t going to be doing a lot of multitasking on their systems.

The best of the lot is the Intel Core i7 processor for the best performance. It may be a fine processor, but the reason it hasn’t made its way onto mainstream laptops is that it generally tends to overheat the device.

If you decide that you really need an i7 laptop, then investing in a cooling pad will elongate the life of your laptop.

Laptop equipped with the Intel Core i9 processor are also on the market — like the ASUS Zenbook Pro or the Acer Aspire 5 — but the price tags for those devices start at ₹200,000.

7. RAM

The days when you didn’t need more than 4GB of ram are long gone. It’s hardly even considered enough for phones. 8GB is the ideal buy-in as per the current standards and more RAM you opt for, the faster your computer will function.

Higher RAM also future proofs your laptop against developments in the future where games and applications are becoming heavier and heavier to use, and thus need more memory to function optimally.

More RAM is also a boon for users looking to multitask.

8. Storage

Usually when buying a laptop users get carried away looking at the storage capacity of a laptop. But with the emergence of cloud data storage, the question isn’t about how much a laptop can store but how well it can save it.

When buying a new laptop, you see laptops that have hard drives (HD) and ones which have solid state drives (SSD). HD used to be standard but in comparison to SSD, it’s an old uncle that needs to retire.

SSDs are more efficient and quicker are retrieving information — not to mention that they’re a whole lot more durable as well.

The only limitation is that SSDs normally aren’t every large. Not only is it more expensive in comparison to HDs but they cost significantly more while offering less space.

But not to worry. Because of the cost disparity between SSDs and HDs, laptop manufacturers are now coupling SSDs with a larger HD on one device. So, you can secure your more important documents on the SSD and let the HD take care of the rest.

9. Battery Life

There isn’t much to say about batteries because there are too many variables that affect battery life — like screen brightness, multiple application usage, video streaming, gaming, and connectivity — and they vary from use case to use case.

The best way to figure out how much battery you need is the same way you decide on you screen — depending on what you plan to do with your laptop.

If you’re going to be an intensive user with a lot different applications open at the same time and brightness on full, then the bigger the battery the better. But if you’re a casual user, battery size may not be the determining factor for your purchase.

10. Ports

The number of ports and the type of ports can make the difference between an hour long transfer of files or a quick relay that takes five minutes. You want to make sure that your laptop that at least one USB 3.0 port to make that fast transfers are feasible — ten times faster than a regular port.

And, if you’re feeling especially ambitious, you could opt for a laptop that has Thunderbolt 3 ports which can reach speeds of 40GBs per second.

11. Durability

Last, but not least, is the laptop’s durability. Anything that can move around without a wire is bound to fall at least once or twice but the goal is to make that your laptop is equipped to survive that fall.

Check for IP ratings and laptop tests to figure how just how rugged your laptop is. Some modern laptops are built specifically with rough terrain in mind built to withstand rain and sand. There are also a few that come with military grade protection.

Choosing what kind of laptop to buy is personal choice and differs from person to person. Before getting caught up in the specifications of the device that you’re going to buy it’s important to determine what you’re going to be using your laptop for.

Once you know the end goal, you should be able to determine the configurations your need automatically using the guide above.