It may be tedious when it comes to determining and buying the right laptop as there are so many brands and types of laptops out there, claiming to be able to suit your needs. To avoid making the wrong purchase and regretting later, consider these factors and see if the laptop you are going to buy really suits your needs.
1. What will the laptop be used for?
Is it for business, general use, education, design, multimedia or gaming? Different types of usage will require different specifications of hardware. For example, a gaming or multimedia laptop will require a dedicated graphics card but it is unnecessary for a business laptop which is or may be used for computing spreadsheets and surfing the Internet only.
2. Cost
Determine the budget for your laptop and then compare and look for a laptop that gives the most value for your money and at the same time suits your needs. To get the most out of your money, it is best to do some research on and compare different models and brands of laptops which are in your budget range.
3. Hardware
Look out for the processor speed, ram size, hard disk space, screen size, graphics card and battery life. The higher the specifications of these hardware, the higher the cost. Therefore we will only want to have the hardware specs that best suit our needs to avoid inflicting extra cost.
Below are some specifications recommended for different usages of laptops. Depending on your budget, the specifications provided are just a reference. If your budget is higher, you can always opt for a higher specifications such as higher processor speed or go for more multiple cores, larger ram, larger hard disk space and more.
(i) Business, education and general use.
For business and general purposes, we will only need a medium specification for everything.A dual core processor with speed of 2GHz will be sufficient, 2GB of ram, 350GB of hard disk space and a 14 inch LCD screen will be fine. On board graphics card will be sufficient most of the time and can even handle light computer games, therefore there is no need for a dedicated graphics card which will cost more.
Battery life is not important unless you travel around frequently and need to use a laptop on the go. For frequent travelers, consider a battery with at least 6 cells, enough to last for around 2.5 hours on a single charge.
(ii) Design use.
There are many types of design work but generally they will need a laptop with a higher processor speed (2.4GHz Dual Core preferably) and ram (4GB preferably) because design applications needs lots of resources and computing power to compute and simulate large amounts of data. A dedicated graphics card such as the nVidia Quadro is recommended for this kind of work. A screen size of 14 inches and above should be enough most of the time unless massive design work is involved.
(iii) Multimedia and gaming.
Laptops for these purposes have to be very powerful and are pretty costly. They have to be able to handle high definition movies, music and high end, hardcore games. A high processor speed is required, at least 2.6GHz, quad core will be an added bonus, otherwise get a dual core if the budget doesn't allow it. A minimum 4GB of ram is required to enable things to run smoothly at high settings (for games), large hard drives, 500GB at least since multimedia files are large, especially high definition ones. Most important of all, this type of laptop must have a high end dedicated graphics card with at least 512MB of VRAM. A full HD LCD screen, 17 inches or more will be nice for watching movies and playing games.
Multimedia and gaming laptops are not really portable as more powerful hardware results in a heavier machine. Therefore, battery life is not a concern as it will be hooked to the socket at home most of the time for entertainment purpose. Anyway, any kind of battery wouldn't last long under this kind of heavy use.
4. Software
By this we mean the operating system and office application if it is for business, general and education use. Check that the laptop comes with your desired operating system and office application if needed. If you already have a copy of the operating system and office, you can buy a laptop without these softwares and install it yourself. Be aware that some cheaper laptops don't come with an operating system or may come with a free operating system, Linux. Office applications such as Microsoft Office will be needed if you need to work on spreadsheets. However, you can save a lot of money by using free office applications such as OpenOffice.
5. Warranty
Most laptops come with a 1 year warranty, some may offer the option of extending it to 3 years but you will have to purchase it. Depending on yourself, it will be unnecessary to extend the warranty period if you like to keep yourself updated with the latest model of laptop. If you would like to use the laptop to its full lifespan even though it has become outdated after some time, it is best to purchase the extended warranty which will save you time and money in case your laptop malfunctions in the future.
Good luck and happy purchasing your new laptop.
Please, feel free to comment or suggest anything, your response will be very much appreciated.
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