Tips: How To Pick The Right Laptop – A 6 Step Guide

Irrespective of the increasing adoption of smartphones and tablets in our day to day activities, laptops are still a very productive tool for more involving tasks & information crunching. It then becomes pertinent to know what laptops are best suited for our tasks or careers.

Here’s a quick guide to enable you pick the right laptop:

1.Screen size

Laptop screen sizes range from between 9inches to 17inches and ofcourse serve different purposes. Picking the right screen size is a trade off between portability and usability. Smaller screen (9-14in) laptops are easier to carry, have better lasting batteries and are meant for those not into heavy graphics use but light browsing. Larger screened laptops ‎(15inches and above) are preferable for heavy graphics tasks, Gamers, Architects, etc. More difficult to carry around & use up battery power quite quickly.

2. Processor/CPU

Processing speeds of laptop CPUs are largely determined by the cores running under the hood. The more the cores, the more powerful the laptop is able to handle tasks. E.g a Quadcore processor would handle more tasks quicker than Dualcore processors. Higher core processors (Dualcore & above) are preferable for gamers, heavy Internet users, designers and heavy word document users. Students as well as those not involved in a lot of data crunching, graphics and gaming can settle for single core laptops.

3. RAM, ROM options

Larger RAM laptops from 4GB & above are perfect for‎ the power users. This includes music producers, graphic designers, gamers, designers, etc. While low RAM laptops of 1-2GB are best for simple users like students, lower class teachers, secretaries etc. 

4. Battery Capacity

Laptop batteries are very cardinal in laptop choices. Accomplishing tasks on the go is largely dependent on how much juice your laptop is able to keep. While laptops built for gamers, heavy Internet users, heavy graphics designers, etc do not offer very long lasting batteries (usually between 4-6hr battery optimal use)‎. Simple use laptops with eg1GB RAM, single core processor would indeed last longer on a single charge.

5. ‎Budget,Pricing

The simple rule here is the more sophisticated a laptop is, in terms of specifications, the higher the price and vice versa. The trick here is to be able to ascertain what uses exactly you intend to put your laptop to and matching that with your budget. The more the tasks you hope to achieve, the higher the specifications which ultimately leads to higher cost laptops and vice versa.

6. Websites searches

Some laptop sales websites e.g Microsoft, allow for you to search for preferred laptops along predetermined criteria‎ like screen size, processor, price, etc. This allows for more specific searches that are based on your choice.

Source: CNET