What should I consider when buying a laptop? This is a common question among people who need a laptop and the truth about this is.. picking a laptop depends on certain personal needs.
In this laptop buying guide, NAIJAKNOWHOW would cover everything you should look out for before storming the stores for a new lappy. We help you to buy the perfect laptop, both qualitatively and inexpensively.
That said, let’s delve deeper into the following things you need to consider before buying a laptop or choosing a laptop!
Laptop buying guide – everything you should look out for before buying a laptop
1. Understand why you need a laptop
Before you go to the store or look for a gadget on the Internet, you have to first understand why you need it. Choosing a laptop differs from one user to another. In accordance with these needs, you have to most importantly concentrate on OS, technical characteristics and design.
You can not separate the functionality, OS and battery – they are parts of a single whole feature. It is the complexity of functions that are performed that distinguish the various types of devices, such as laptops. The options here can be a lot: from a mobile business device to a stationary gaming machine; from a children’s toy to a workstation. A laptop is a tool, like a pen or a notebook. To choose a laptop that is right for you, first of all, you have to consider what you usually do with a laptop and what components are needed for this.
2. Determine the required processor power
When choosing a laptop for daily work, pay attention to the number of cores in the processor. This is the key to the stable operation of a large number of applications simultaneously.
- For budget systems, the Intel i3 or AMD R3 series is suitable.
- The gaming laptop should have at least Intel series i5 or AMD R5 installed.
- For heavy applications for image processing or working with 3D objects, as well as games on the maximum graphics settings, you can not do without Intel i7 or AMD R7.
3. Understand what is needed and not needed
There are two criteria that should be considered when choosing a laptop. The first category is the things you can not do without. The second is what will most annoy you most. The first should be an important feature to strive for, the second – to avoid. For example, many laptops, especially expensive ones, have a touchscreen. Do you need it? How often will you draw or watch movies on it?
Another example is an ultralight laptop. If you constantly move from place to another, you need it. In most other cases, most likely, the standard version with a screen size of 13 or 15 inches is suitable. If you need a laptop for games or design work, it’s better to take a device with a size of 17 inches. So it’s important to know what’s most essential and what’s not!
4. Select a brand
Among the important indicators, don’t ignore the quality and image of the brand/manufacturer. Today, most of the top producers have already built a reputation for themselves. You know what you get by buying a device of a certain brand. Particularly surprising in this regard, Chinese smartphones, literally for a decade turned from cheap imitations into budgetary, but completely independent and quality devices that are not far behind the leaders in terms of popularity.
This is the same when choosing a laptop, there are quite a lot of top Chinese laptop manufacturers closely following top brands such as Apple, HP, DELL etc. Make sure you pick a brand that falls within your budget, quality and also, don’t forget the availability of service centres in your country.
5. Choose a convenient keyboard
If you are going to type a lot, check if it’s convenient for you to do it on this keyboard. If you are not accustomed to the keys, it could be a dilemma. For example, if the keys go deep, it may be more difficult to type – and you will do it more slowly.
It is also important to pay attention to certain keys: on some models, the buttons with arrows are much smaller than others, which is not suitable for gamers. Not all laptops have the Page Up and Page Down keys, in which case you’ll have to use the Fn key combination.
6. Choose a convenient drive
The cost of a laptop is significantly affected by the volume of the hard drive, so it makes sense to buy an external drive. If you like to carry a laptop with you and travel a lot, I would recommend an SSD (a kind of big flash drive): it’s faster and more reliable than the HDD, and, importantly, indifferent to shaking.
7. Decide how much RAM you need
To balance a powerful processor, the laptop should have an appropriate amount of RAM. If you like to open many windows in a browser, then you need more RAM. 8GB is needed for the normal operation of the quad-core processor. For the usual home laptop, 2GB is enough, gaming will need at least 4GB, but to work with complex programs, for example, for designers, you need to take a laptop with 8GB of RAM or more.
8. Decide on the price
Determine in advance the budget in which you want to fit. These days, you can buy a usable laptop for under $200 (around N70,000 to N100,000 naira), but if you can budget more, you’ll get a system with better build quality, stronger performance and a better display.
Here’s what you can get for each price range.
- $150 to $250 (around N50,000 to N120,000 naira): With this amount, you can get the least-expensive notebooks or low-end Windows systems with minimal storage and slower processors. Use these as secondary computers only or give them to the kids.
- $350 to $600 (around N125,000 to N220,000 naira): For well under $600, you can get a notebook with an Intel Core i5 or AMD A8 CPU, 4 to 8GB of RAM, and a 500GB hard drive, all respectable specs. However, at this price, most notebooks don’t have an SSD, a full-HD display or long battery life.
- $600 to $900 (around N220,000 to N325,000 naira): As you get over $600, you’ll start to see more premium designs, such as metal finishes. Manufacturers also start to add in other features as you climb the price ladder, including higher-resolution displays and SSDs.
- Above $900 (over N325,000 naira): At this price range, expect notebooks that are more portable, more powerful or both. Expect higher-resolution screens, faster processors and possibly discrete graphics. High-end gaming PCs and mobile workstations usually cost upward of $1,500 (over N500,000 naira) or even as much as $2,500 or $3,000 (N900k or over N1m naira).
There you go. I hope you make a great buying decision with the guide you’ve just seen. Let us know if you have a question by asking via the comment box below!
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