What are the specifications of a good laptop? – Laptop Buying Guide

The truth is, no one knows what the best laptop is for you better than you do. So just to get this out of the way, this isn’t like a top ten list of the cheapest laptops or anything, Here is a guide on how to purchase the laptop that best suits you. Also, some basic points like what are the specifications of a good laptop? So, the first thing you need to figure out is what you plan on using your laptop for.

Most people say that we will be doing a bunch of things like web browsing, email, game programming, app programming, photo editing, video editing, gaming. There are very few people in this world that actually do all these things on one machine.

So, you need to figure out what it is that you will be doing, and more specifically, which application you want to run. And you will often find that you will not need as powerful of a machine as you thought you did.

So if you’re a student or going to college for engineering or architecture, check with your colleagues or college what application you are going to install on the laptop. If you are into music production or something, try to figure out what production suite you’re going to be working with. Because once you figure out what apps or games you want to be running, it’s a lot easier to figure out what things you need to focus on and what features you need.

Now, most people don’t need particularly powerful laptops. They use them for school and work, and media consumption like YouTube, or Netflix, and maybe some light photo editing and gaming, and I would classify this as normal use. And most programmers actually fit in here as well.

You can code most apps or 2D games with very light hardware. Your compile times might be a little slow, but there are tons of successful apps and games that were coded using really slow computers and you can do it too.

So here we will look at what kind of specifications we are looking for:

1. Screen Size:

The laptop size available in the market may vary from 12 inches to 17 inches. However, selecting the laptop depends on the work for what you require. Therefore, picking an ideal size is important. Laptops from 12 to 14 inches usually are lighter weight and also thinner.

These include EliteBooks and Ultrabooks. Traditional laptops are around 15.6 inches, which makes them a good blend of portability and power for you. Nowadays most laptop brands release touch screens where you will be able to do many tasks through a screen without a keyboard.

2. CPU:

In terms of your CPU, don’t give it too much thought. Many laptops come with Core Based CPU’S, such as Intel’s i3, i5, i7, and i9 series. Even The i3 series of laptops have sufficient to run normal tasks. In terms of graphics cards Don’t worry about it, It really doesn’t matter. The laptop which has a default graphics card can play some light games using the integrated graphics so you are good to go.

3. RAM:

Now for memory, it depends on how many programs and tabs you won’t open at a time. Nowadays the default RAM size in all-new laptops is 4GB. You may need to go for 8GB or more RAM if you are running heavier applications.

Now if you’re on a tight budget like a normal user, the one area I would still focus on is the drive. Get something with an SSD or install your own because this will make your computer feel faster than any other upgrade that you would put at it.

Again, if you’re a normal user, don’t worry about the CPU, Don’t worry about the graphics, don’t worry too much about RAM. Just get a fast Solid-state drive (SSD) installed. Since SSDs have higher read-write speed, they can increase overall performance. The overall data loading speed is much faster during the system boot-up process. Hence, suggest going for a laptop that comes with an SSD drive.

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If you do some heavy photo editing, if you do a lot of digital illustration, or if you are a video editor making YouTube videos, hardware is important. The type of footage you work with affects the calibre of hardware that you need. So at the most basic level, you want to pick up as many CPU cores as you can and as much RAM as you can fit into your budget. CPU cores such as i3s and i5s are good.

If you have multiple processes running concurrently like video editing and photo editing then we suggest going with quad-core i7 chips are significantly better. Even 4K footage requires more CPU cores. If it fits your budget, go for a quad-core i7. For video or heavy photo editing on a budget, focus more on CPU cores, RAM, and an SSD if you can afford it. Don’t put too much thought into the video card.

4. Graphics Card:

Now for the graphics card, if you work with the Adobe Suite, like with Premiere or After Effects you don’t really need a graphics card. They help, but integrated graphics chips are pretty respectable for video editing.

If you plan on playing a lot of games on your laptop then this may help you in deciding on selecting the laptop. And depending on the games you want to play, your requirements will vary but in general, the GPU is king here. If you have a good GPU, then you will get better your performance.

A better graphics card is invariably gonna make your games run better. Now the bad news is, a lot of companies charge really hefty premiums for dedicated video cards. SSDs are awesome for system snappiness, and load times for apps and games, but it has almost no effect on frame rates in games. So for gamers, get a beast video card because that’s most important. Don’t worry too much about the CPU. Don’t burn money on RAM, and if you need to, sticking with the standard disk drive is OK.

Also read : How To Choose Headphones – Specs and Guide

Figure out exactly what you want your laptop to do, so you can kinda determine what features you need to focus on, and what features you can kinda get rid of. And then purchase your laptop from a big volume seller like Dell, HP, or Lenovo. Normally I wouldn’t recommend a 4K screen for any kind of budget-oriented notebook if you really needed it.

So in terms of actual recommendations, it’s pretty tough to get one just because the prices for these things fluctuate a lot, and there are literally hundreds of configurations and options that you can kinda tweak to make a notebook fit your needs.