Are you looking for a guide on what things to consider before buying a laptop? Then let me guess it’s your first time buying a laptop and I know that nobody likes their hard-earned money to get wasted. Fret not, I am right to make your worries escape from your mind.
In this comprehensive guide, you will learn the important things to consider before buying a laptop for the first time.
I’ve explained the technical term in simple ways so it’s a one-time careful read and you are good to go purchase your first-ever laptop.
So without any further ado, let’s begin…
Types Of Laptops Available In The Market
There are mainly 3 types of laptops available in the market and below I’ve listed all of them with an easy to understand explanation:
Notebook Laptops
It includes laptops from the price range of Rs.25,000 – 50,000. This type of laptop is mainly purchased by students, regular users, media enthusiasts, and office goers.
Ultrabook Laptops
As the name suggests, this machine is thin and lightweight compared to a notebook and mainly focused on providing a fruitful performance. It mainly ranges between Rs.40,000 – 80,000 however, there are ultrabooks in the market priced above Rs.1,00,000.
Gaming Laptops
This type of laptop category is the most popular, the gaming laptop starts from Rs.55,000 and goes all the way up to Rs.3,00,000.
There are tons of gaming laptops with different configurations. The laptops that fall under this category majorly weigh high compared to notebook and ultrabook laptops.
Technical Terms To Understand Before Buying A Laptop
Like I said before in the introduction, I will be making the technical terms to understand as easy as possible and the things comping next are crucial one to understand because it helps you make a great decision while buying the laptop for the first time.
CPU (Central Processing Unit)
Unless you are a kid, you definitely have heard this term a lot if you ever browsed tech videos on youtube. It is known as the heart of the CPU that commands each and every component.
Understanding CPU is not that hard, all you have to pay attention to three major things that are cores, clock frequency, and threads.
The higher amount of core results in a better multicore performance which means you can access more software and chrome tabs at the same time without noticing much lag.
There CPU with 2, 4, 6, and 8 cores. Now, the question is which one do you need? It’s easy, and I have explained some of the use cases below so it will be easier for you to digest.
- 2 core CPUs are for students, regular users (who just do browsing and research), media enthusiasts, etc. In short, people with less workload.
- 4 & 6 core CPUs are for multitaskers, working professionals, gamers, photo, and video editors.
- 8 core CPUs are for people with solid workloads who need to run high-end triple-A title games, software like SolidWorks, and other CPU demanding software.
The clock frequency will vary from processor to processor the lowest speed starts from 1.1GHz and the highest turbo clock frequency is 5GHz.
You understand the term, and when you go out there in the market you will notice processors from Intel and AMD.
Here’s a piece of advice while looking at the CPU of laptops.
If you go with the Intel make sure to go for the i3 11th generation and in AMD go for the Ryzen 3 series or above. Anything less and you will regret in the after use.
RAM (Random Access Memory)
The RAM works with the CPU back and forth and processes the task that you commanded.
In laptops, the lowest RAM is 4GB and the numbers go all the way up to 64GB. Keep in mind, that laptops with more RAM cost higher.
More RAM means you can do more things at once.
But trust me, you don’t need 64GB, 8GB is more than enough for any regular multitasker who is not a gamer. Even if you are a hard-core gamer then the maximum RAM you will ever need is 16GB or 32GB.
The one interesting things about RAM is that many laptop manufacturers allow you to upgrade the RAM in case of need. In notebooks and ultrabooks, it is difficult to have this facility but all the gaming laptops have one slot extra for extending the RAM.
Storage Type: SSD vs HDD
Let me clear the acronym for you. SSD stands for solid-state hard drive and HDD full form is hard drive disk.
SSD storage does not just act as standard storage, but it also helps to elevate the laptop performance with its remarkable read(how long it takes to open a file) and write(how long it takes to save a file) speed.
HDD does have the read and write speed but is very low.
I suggest if you find two laptops one with the 1TB HDD and the second one is with the 256GB SSD, always choose SSD laptops because you can buy a storage medium later but compromising on performance is something I strongly do not recommend.
Display
You will find laptops with a screen size of 13.3, 14, 15,6, and 17.3-inch. The most preferable is 14 and 15-inch laptops.
Next comes the resolution, I always prefer to go with the Full HD display and will recommend you the same however if your budget is lower than Rs.35,000 then an HD display is also fine.
Laptops are designed for indoor usage or the place where sunlight can not directly hit the panel so brightness level won’t be an issue.
Battery Life
Before I explain this term let me clear your misconception that the brand shows in their advertising, a battery life mentioned in the marketing never be true except for the Apple MacBook.
In most budget Windows laptops, you will expect a battery life of around 4-5 hours, in ultrabooks, you will get power backup of up to 8-10 hours.
Gaming laptops have the worst battery backup, if you play the high-end game then the battery will die in 3 hours or less but it’s common and you can always plug in the charger to keep playing the games.
GPU (Graphics Processing Unit)
To keep this section below because it’s optional, only core gamers and photo/video required a dedicated GPU. Otherwise for a normal user and multitasker integrated GPU is fine.
An integrated GPU is connected with the CPU and it will be available on all the laptops, and the dedicated GPU requires to run heavy software.
For light video editing a 2GB Nvidia MX series GPU are fine but if your use is intense then prefer buying a laptop with a 4GB Nvidia GTX series CPU or above.
Miscellaneous
We discussed the most important terms. The remaining things are the keyboard, webcam, trackpad, and I/O.
You might hear backlit keyboard is a must but trust me even if you don’t have and you will get used to your laptop keyboard then you can type in a dark environment without even looking at your keyboard.
Most Windows-powered laptops work with the Windows precision drive so all of them will work fine and as far as I know the majority of the laptop user uses external mouse because it’s more convenient.
There are very few laptops with a good webcam and one thing to keep in mind is that a laptop webcam is not as good as your smartphone camera so don’t give it a hard thought.
About the I/O, it means input and output ports. On the sides of the laptop, you will find several ports such as USB 2.0/3.0/3.2, HDMI, RJ-45, SD card slot, USB-C, etc.
In this modern era, you must not miss out on a USB-C port so make sure if you are buying a laptop in 2021 or after a USB-C port is the most beneficial.
Verdict
That’s all folks, I have explained to you the most important things to consider before buying a laptop. If you ask me what laptop I used then my answer is Honor MagicBook 15.
Why I bought this? Because, I am a multitasker who surfed through a lot of tabs in my daily life so it’s a budget-friendly laptop with an AMD Ryzen 5 (4-core) CPU, 8GB RAM, 256GB SSD, 15-inch display, 5 hours of battery life, and have some other decent but useful features.
Always define the purpose of use before buying a laptop because it will help you narrow down your list of products to select the best one.
I hope you will find this buying guide a useful one if you do then do share it with others and if you still end up scratching your head then don’t hesitate to fill the commend box with your queries I will be happier to help.
Till then, Sayonara!
