The feeling of buying a new laptop or even exciting your first laptop is impeccable.
But with it comes a huge responsibility of choosing the right laptop that fits the main purpose you will be using it for.
However, when you go to look for one, there are gonna be a variety of laptops with different processing cores like Intel i3, i5, AMD Ryzen 3, Ryzen 5. Different Storage amount with HDD & SSD. & RAM of DDR4 or DDR5, etc., etc.. which will be really confusing especially if you are unaware of what these mean.
So here is a step by step guide that can help you find the perfect Laptop for your needs. This guide will also guide you about what you should consider while selecting a Laptop.
What are the steps to consider before buying a new laptop?
Step 1: First you need to know the purpose you will be using the laptop for in order to finalize the processor you would require.
Now knowing the purpose you would be using the Laptop for is a crucial factor that will help you find a perfect Laptop that fits your needs & purpose.
Since, once you know the purpose you can easily choose a suitable processor for your laptop.
The Computer Processor also known as CPU (Central Processing Unit) provides the instructions & power the Computer needs to do it's work.
In a laptop, a Processor is just a small chip that helps the laptop process data.
Now their are mainly 2 companies providing processors,
AMD & Intel.
AMD goes on to call it's processors Ryzen 3, Ryzen 5, Ryzen 7 & Ryzen 9.
Whereas, Intel maes them as Intel i3, i5, i7 & i9.
For now just consider Ryzen 3 as the equivalent of i3; Ryzen 5 equivalent of i5; Ryzen 7 of i7 & Ryzen 9 = i9.
Ryzen 3 or i3 are the least powered of the 4 whereas Ryzen 9 or i9 are the most powerful & therefore expensive processors which will give high performance the user.
Now, if you are looking to buy a laptop for everyday use — like only for watching movies & browsing the internet, then i3 or Ryzen 3 will suffice.
Whereas if you are looking to do a little bit of multitasking, photo editing & may have some tabs opened at the same time then go for Ryzen 5 or i5 instead.
Furthermore if you are willing to do a bit of gaming, editing, photoshop & lots of multitasking with several tabs & apps open & running at the same time & a bit of coding/programming to create projects & all then Ryzen 7 or i7 are better options to go with.
However if you want to do gaming, video editing, proper programming & coding & all such high end stuff.... then Ryzen 9 or i9 are great options.
The more high end tasks you are willing to perform on your laptop, the more processing power it'll require & the more expensive it would be.
Comparing Ryzen (AMD's process) with Intel's—
Just know that it's really hard to say which one's better. As both have their own advantages over the other.
Ryzen is powerful & cheaper then Intel, but the only drawback here is that Ryzen's processors can get your device heated up.
Whereas Intel offers high stability & therefore is more expensive.
A processor is just a chip with circuits & transistors.
Intel keeps trying to make smaller processors, every coming 1 or 2 generations.
Like— if we go back to look at Intel gen 3 or 4 then it was of 28nm (nanometre) back then. Later on with the coming generations it came down to 14nm & now the smallest we have is of 7nm.
Well the reason they try to make the Processors smaller is so because smaller processors consume less power & thereby increasing the battery back up of the device.
There are also dual core processors which have 2 cores; quad core processors with 4 cores; hexa core with 6 cores & octa core with 8 cores; & so on....
The more cores the faster the Processor can process the information & therefore provide instructions to the computer to respond quickly.
Coming back to Ryzen & Intel Processors.
It's really hard to tell which one is better. Everybody prefers one over the other based on their personal experience. You can go with any one of the 2 you find suitable for your needs.
Step 2: Choose the right Graphics Card (GPU) [Graphics Processing Unit].
Graphics Card are just electronic chips that basically display images & graphics on the screen or monitor.
There are 2 types of Graphics Card (GPU) [Graphics Processing Unit]—
Dedicated & Integrated.
An Integrated Graphics Card is slower in comparison to a Dedicated Graphic Card.
In an Integrated Graphics Card, the GPU isn't supported well for Gaming.
Whereas a Dedicated Graphics Card speeds up the image processing time. It is also suitable for Games, BUT it also consumes a lot of power especially while gaming.
So if your are looking for a laptop specifically for gaming or content editing & multitasking then a Dedicated GPU is recommended.
Also look forward to buying laptops with newly released GPUs or Graphics Cards.
Step 3: Consider the RAM requirement!
RAM stands for Random Access Memory. It is just your laptop's short term memory & it is where the data is stored temporarily by your Computer so that the processor can run & open your files.
In other words, the data goes through your RAM before processing any data & open files.
The more the RAM the faster you can expect the applications to open & the device's response time to be.
For Intel i3 or AMD Ryzen 3 core processors 8 GB of RAM should be sufficient.
& for i5 or Ryzen 5 core processors 16 GB RAM is a great option.
For i7 or Ryzen 7 core processors 32 GB of RAM or higher is good.
& for i9 or Ryzen 9 core processors 64 GB of RAM will be great for performance.
When looking at RAM... you'll get to see various options such as RAM DDR4 or DDR5.
Now, here it also depends if you are willing to buy a laptop that you'll be using for a long time.
The higher the RAM the more the speed of the laptop in opening & running applications even while multitasking. & therefore the quicker read write time, with less battery consumption.
Going with the highest of what is available can help your laptops performance in the long term. & the highest at the moment is DDR5, which could help in improving the battery life of laptops & also consumes around 20% less power then DDR4. As per an article published on 91mobiles.com. Learn more.
Step 4: Know your requirements for Storage, SSD & HDD.
Now based on your needs you should also decide the amount of storage, SSD &/OR HDD you should go for.
SSD stands for solid-state drive & HDD stands for hard disk drive a.k.a. hard disk.
Let's compare SSD & HDD.
So,
SSD provides a faster read write speed, is light weight & consumes less energy BUT is expensive.
Whereas,
HDD is cheaper then SSD & you can get much storage for less.
So, if you will be downloading & running games & applications then SSD can help with the speed but if you are okay with slow speed then you can get much storage for less with HDD.
To avoid any confusion I would recommend buying a laptop that has or supports both HDD & SSD.
Step 5: Display Panels.
There are mainly 4 popular types of Display Panels.
—
#1. TN (Twisted Nematic) [a.k.a. LED Backlit]
TN (Twisted Nematic) Display is a very basic type of display & the most popular budget wise.
In this display you can see from the front of the screen but from the sides you can barely see anything.
#2. IPS (In-Plane Switching)
IPS (In-Plane Switching) Display's color brightness is great. It has higher color accuracy & is fairly good for photoshop.
#3. VA (Vertical Alignment)
VA (Vertical Alignment) Display has a high response time but is less color accurate yet it provides a better view point then TN. It is favoured for gaming as it has low pixel response time.
#4. OLED (Organic Light-Emitting Diode)
OLED (Organic Light-Emitting Diode) Display provides fixed & the most realistic colors of all. It is great for watching movies & photo or video editing as well as gaming.
However it's one drawback is that it can't have anti glare coating which is why they are extremely reflective.
So you might need to sit in a dark room to get the best out of this display.
So these were the 4 Display Panels.
Also keep in mind, if you are going for an expensive or high budget laptop, also consider the one with FHD (Full HD) that is 1080 P in the same price range.
Talking about Display Resolution—
What is Display Resolution?
Display Resolution basically expresses how many pixels are present in a display or entire screen.
The highest display resolution is of 4K, with it being 2,160 pixels tall & 3,840 pixels wide equating nearly to 8.3 million individual pixels in total or 4 times as many pixels as FHD (Full HD).
With Display Resolution you can aim for a 4K 144 Hz RTX 40 Series, "in which... 4K is the highest Display Resolution.
144 Hz represents the refresh rate of the display which basically means that your display is refreshing the image 144 time per second.
& RTX 40 Series is a Dedicated GPU (Graphics Card)."
Another one you can aim for is FHD with 60 Hz RTX 3050; just to name a few.
Remember, the higher the Display Resolution the more expensive it will be.
& that, the higher the Display Resolution the sharper the image & therefore clear in both focus & contrast.
Now talking about sRGB (standard Red, Green, Blue) color space.
You can aim for 90% or above.
sRGB helps to see/display colors correctly.
The range of sRGB can also be said as "color gamut range".
& as per ana rticle published on global.aorus.com
"The color gamut represents the range of colors visible to the human eye on the output device. The wider the color gamut range is, the richer the screen colors are. Otherwise, no matter how powerful the GPU (Graphics Card) is the screen wills till look grey, yellow & dim."
Step 6: Software/OS
Knowing the Software/OS (Operating System) you need will make it easier for you to choose your laptop over all.
Now, this is more of a Windows or any other O.S. based guide the Mac.
Because thise who are willing to buy a MacBook can just go ahead & do so, since Apple Silicon is great too & their aren't much of any other Operating Systems to consider.
BUT in case you are going with others then you may have a lot of different options to choose from which also gets slightly confusing.
Well in these cases you majorly have Windows OS.
Now you can decide if you want to get a Windows 10 or 11.
You may get a Windows 10 OS laptop which also supports Windows 11. In this case you will also be able to install Windows 11 whenever you want to.
Or otherwise you can get a laptop with DOS (Disk-Operating System), which will be alot cheaper. However DOS is not supported for much multitasking & in fact it is the first version of Windows released in 1985.
However, DOS will be much cheaper then any Windows 10 or 11 pre installed laptop.
You can buy a laptop with DOS which also supports Windows 10 &/OR Windows 11, so that you can get it installed later.
In this way you can get your laptop for slightly less, but still you would have to pay to get Windows 10 or 11 installed.
Apart from this you can also get Linux OS which is great for programmers & coders as well.
Step 7: Consider the Battery Life you need.
Battery Life is an essential component to look into while buying a Laptop since it is a vital factor that supports your laptops day to day task performance.
With new technology coming out today, we can get laptops with upto 12 hours of battery life.
So hence if the claimed battery life is of 12 hours. Then you can easily assume that your laptop is good to go for around 8 hours or so.
The battery life decreases with time.
So the more we can get, the more beneficial it would be in the long term.
Step 8: Consider the Laptop's Size (Screen Size specifically).
Today you can get screens from 11 inches to 17 inches.
Smaller Laptops are more portable since they are light weight.
So getting a smaller screen is great if you often require your Laptop to be carried from one place to another.
Otherwise if you are only going to mostly have your laptop at one place then it's up to you if you want a bigger screen or not. & if you are going to play more games then a bigger screen will be great for better gaming experience.
Step 9: Extended Warranty.
After you clear with the type of Laptop you wanna go with, you should look for offers with Extended Warranty.
A Laptop is just a device that will likely run into hardware & software issues in the long term.
So if you are looking forward to use your laptop for years.
Then look for extended warranty on your device. As in the long term (2-3 years later to be precise), every electronic device is really prone to running into issues.
So getting an extended warranty can help you sav your money in the long term.
****
Hmmm!
So this is pretty much it, apart from all this you can furthermore look into the type of ports on a device, like if you require to connect your laptop with other devices or monitors to edit content & all. Also check for SD card slot if you require one.
Also look for a built in microphone (preferably with noise cancellation), webcam & good audio speakers.
Also check the key placement in the keyboard especially if you are going to use the Laptop's keyboard. But if you are using external Bluetooth keyboard then it's upto you to consider.
You can also add & look into some other additional features that you can get in Laptops....
Additionals can be touch screen with digital pen/pencil (stylus) if you are into drawing & designing.
Also you can look for a 360° rotatable Laptops if you are going to consume multimedia & stuff as it'll help you keep the screen in a certain angle so that you can watch movies comfortably.
You can also consider touch screen laptops if you want to.
& the one's with finger print scanner.
These are just Additionals that you may consider having in case you want to.
& there you have it, our guide to buying a new laptop in 2023.
I hope you enjoyed this read!!
Thanks for reading!
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