Picking the right laptop for your needs and budget – Choosing a new laptop is an exciting time. With the digital world-dominating so much of our lives nowadays, our devices are important for work, learning, home administration and entertainment.
If you are new to buy a laptop, you can come across varies options, which will confuse you. Without knowing, you will buy an expensive laptop and miss some important features about technical terms and software features.
In this article, we will help you make the right choice as you buy your new laptop device.
Table of Contents
Decide on your budget
The sheer size of the laptop market is good from the perspective that there is plenty of choices. On the other side, it is also difficult to select between so many options to find you best choice.
Even if you want a simple laptop for daily use or an expensive laptop for gaming and designing, both needs a clear plan.
Your first step is to decide your maximum budget. You can find what you need for as little as a few hundred dollars. With this figure in mind, your search can begin in earnest!
Choosing the laptop that works for you
People use laptops for almost every part of their lives. Even as mobile and tabs become more popular, laptops still have an important role to play. Cheap options are perfectly good for the simple tasks you will need your PC to perform for daily routines.
Cheaper or lower mid-range options are perfectly fine if you do not plan to move them around too much, for watching movies or checking your email. They will also be fine for basic word processing tasks and browsing the web.
Field sales reps or regular commuters may find a slightly higher spec laptop to be beneficial. Better quality models will give a slicker finish, lighter weight and longer battery life. You will also want to ensure you portray the right image to your clients, and a mid-range or higher-end laptop will ensure you do.
The most intense laptop users are serious gamers and those working with rich media such as videos or graphics. These tasks require high computing power to provide a quick experience which is only available in higher specification PCs. For better visual experience most players require a large screen laptop to provide comfortable playing different games.
Facing charges
If you need your laptop to be in any way portable, you should give plenty of consideration to its battery life. Generally speaking the higher the compute requirement, the lower the battery life will be. Some of the cheapest PCs can also suffer from lower than expected battery life.
Although battery life is always increasing in laptops, it is sensible to pay attention. If you are using only a couple of applications and browser windows, you can expect at least 6-8 hours of battery life even from a lower-end laptop. Playing videos, games or other more demanding functions will reduce this.
However, with charging points becoming more common in public places and transport hubs, you should not have too much of a problem if your PC has a decent battery.
Making a shortlist
When you have weighed up some of these considerations, you are that much closer to being able to make your qualified choice of a new laptop.
The next step is to make a shortlist. Alongside your budget, consider your top priorities. Decide what you definitely need, and what you can live without if you have to compromise on features.
Whether computing power, screen size, or battery life are your thing, jot down your top three. When you begin your search, you can whittle down your shortlist to a manageable amount of laptops within your budget.
Once you reach this point, you can then focus on which brands and styles of laptops you prefer. By this point you will know your budget and your top priorities, so you will know you will have all bases covered.
Above all, enjoy the process! It is a buyers’ market, so be sure to capitalize on that as much as you can!