Whether you’re a professional who wants to stay on top of business, a renowned or aspiring artist, a gamer working on your next top score, or a hardworking student who is also a movie fanatic; the latest laptops balance portability and versatility with performance and power to keep you connected while on the go. Find your perfect laptop with our guide and features to consider.
General Features
to Consider
Storage
HDD provides sufficient capacity, at a lower price, and up to reasonable speeds.
SSDs on the other hand go to much higher speeds, meaning that capacity will have the largest influence on the overall price.
SSHDs could be considered as a middle option, these are hybrid drives.
RAM
Your RAM is as important as your processor, but if you’re a casual user you may only need 4 to 16GB of RAM, but we'd strongly recommend aiming for higher. Laptop manufacturers mostly bond the RAM to the laptop motherboard, which makes upgrading it later difficult for non-techies.
Processor
When you are thinking of buying a new laptop you will probably have an Intel processor on board. Known for its performing and power-efficient processors. Intel® Core™ processors bring faster performance and additional features than Intel® Pentium® and Intel® Celeron® models. Currently, the best Intel CPU is the Core i9-11900K. There are a few other types as well, such as Xeon, Itanium, Atom, and Quark.
With AMD they tend to have attractive pricing. Higher-end Ryzen CPUs can rack up an impressive core count and scale suitable for gaming and intensive and prolonged workloads, and AMD Athlon™ 3000 for fast responsive, and gorgeous entertainment.
Apple recently released their internally-made chip called M1, a processor that Apple developed in-house to power the newest Macs and iPad Pro. It's a powerful chip that excels in graphics output, and battery life.
Graphics & screens
Let’s first talk about graphic or video cards, those could come in discrete or integrated forms.
Dedicated | Integrated |
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Now, whether you’re a business user, gamer, or an artist you need to choose the best possible screen. since you’ll probably be staring at it most of the day.
Things to Consider for The Screen
Resolution
Most laptops come with low-resolution, 1366 x 768 screens that show far less content than high-resolution panels with at least 1920 x 1080 pixels. others are available with panels that are 2560 x 1440, 3200 x 1800 or 3840 x 2160 Better known as 4K resolution.
Touchable?
It’s cool to be able to touch your screen and it can be useful for some users, but you must consider their power consumption, additional overall price, responsiveness, and glossiness.
Brightness
You need a fairly bright panel if you work outdoors or near a window. Typically, the screen's brightness is in nits, where higher numbers mean a brighter screen. The screens on the market can reach 300 nits or more. However, any screen with over 250 nits will be ideal.
High Refresh Rate and Response Time
If you're buying a gaming laptop, consider these two more factors.
Refresh rate is the number of times per second that the screen updates itself, measured in hertz. Most laptop screens have the basic 60Hz refresh rate, but some high-end gaming and design models come with 120Hz panels. Response time is the number of milliseconds it takes for a pixel to change colors. A good response time for gaming is 5ms or less.
Simply, high refresh rates and low response time give you the ultimate gaming experience.
Operating Systems
Windows
Windows 10, in 2015, is considered a tremendous improvement over its predecessors. The advantage of using Windows is that it has a very broad range of available software, from business to home computing apps; there are also more Windows laptops to choose from than any other OS. However, you must pay extra attention to its security, as it is the target of a large amount of malware. If you're going to use it, you must keep your operating system up to date.
MacOS
MacOS is tightly coupled with the company's hardware, so your options are limited to MacBooks. Saying that you can always have Windows installed on your MacBook, but it’s much more complicated the other way around. The advantage of using macOS lies in its exceptional support for creative software such as Adobe Photoshop or Premier. They are however available on Windows too. In addition, Apple updates its system regularly and is usually free.
Hardware and ports
In addition to sufficient USB ports, make sure your laptop has an SD or MicroSD card reader if you're a photographer and need to constantly download images from your camera.
Now that you got to know a thing or two about the specs, it’s time to choose based on your activity, or how you plan to use your laptop.
We understand your need for a powerful device that could handle multiple files at once as well as specialized applications and spreadsheets. You require something sleek and stylish but with a reliable processor, visuals are a plus for when you need to create a presentation or a data visualization. All that with extended battery life for working on prolonged flights and business trips.
Some laptops are convertible and support the use of stylus. They also come in a wide range of options and prices to choose from.
Are you a content creator, an artist, or a design student? your device should be your right hand that enables you to realize and express your vision. Using creative design programs with ease, or editing images and videos seamlessly require top-grade visuals, clear screens with high pixel density, and strong processing powers with a memory that could handle all your masterpieces.
If you were a developer or aspiring to be one, then you’ll need a top-tier device with fast communication and connectivity that enables you to code, write, upload, and work for long hours without interruptions, with strong processing powers and as many ports as possible.
Whether you’re a content creator, an artist, or a design student; your device should be your right hand that enables you to realize and express your vision. Using creative design programs with ease, or editing images and videos seamlessly require top-grade visuals, clear screens with high pixel density, and strong processing powers with a memory that could handle all your masterpieces.
Find a laptop that meets your favorite game's specifications.
If you occasionally like to surf the internet and reply to emails from a café or prefer attending your meetings or lectures in a quiet place. Sometimes, after finishing your assignments, all you want to do is unwind and watch a movie or catch up on your favorite series. You don’t require much but would still like a versatile and reliable device that could last a few years. The best thing is even if you were on a budget, your options are still limitless.