Buying a new laptop can be a rewarding experience. When your old one is no longer at par with expectations, it sure makes for an exciting prospect to have a new and shiny but similar device—and one that performs way better than the same thing it’s meant to replace.
Despite how glossy or fresh the aesthetics are, however, buying a new laptop—a Windows 10 laptop—is not as simple as merely taking it at face value and expecting that it’s significantly better. Other times, these devices are mostly just fancy to look at from the outset but do perform worse than what you already have. Or that it may lack—or even have dated—features that you need or expect.
The Windows operating system has indeed come a long way, thanks to its built-in new features like the presence of the digital assistant Cortana, the Xbox App, the Edge web browser, etc., which make previous iterations seemingly lacking and truly out-of-date.
That said, let’s take a look at the factors you need to consider when purchasing a Windows 10 laptop:
Size
Before delving into the topic of components that ultimately define how good—or bad—a laptop performs, let’s talk about physical appearance. One mainly is the size.
Do you prefer a small one that can easily fit in most bags and, thereby, provide better portability, like a 12-inch? Or do you prefer one with a more prominent display for better viewing, such as a 15-inch?
If size is indeed a primary concern for you, then all the more reason you need to give the device’s dimensions primary consideration before going into the finer details.
Purpose
Not all laptops are built the same. This speaks about how you intend to use it, either for work or for leisure. If you are a power user or a heavy gamer whose usage of a laptop is more intensive than what’s common, then you would need something of a computing powerhouse.
If you are into graphics editing, video editing, animation, or playing video games, then you would require a laptop that is supercharged in the graphics hardware department, a.k.a. the Graphics Processing Unit (GPU).
However, if you are the kind of user who runs multiple programs simultaneously, then you would want to give attention to the amount of RAM the laptop has. As a general rule of thumb, the more significant the amount of RAM the computer has, the more the number of applications it can process simultaneously. Hence, this is why a laptop with 8 Gigabytes of RAM can handle running more applications at the same time than a similar device with only 4 Gigabytes of RAM.
But if you are simply a casual user who only prefers the experience to be seamless and smooth, then your chief consideration might boil down to the Central Processing Unit (Intel Core i7 9850-H, AMD Ryzen 5 2500U, etc.), which is essentially the “brain” behind every computer. Of course, the faster and more capable the CPU is, the more expensive the laptop will be. After all, this is that very same component that tends to be one of the most—if not the most—valuable in almost every laptop.
There is still another component that plays a pivotal role in the quality of performance of any laptop, such as the type of data storage used as a repository and source of information for processing. While the traditional Hard Disk Drive (HDD) is appealing for its capacity-to-cost ratio, newer technologies such as the Solid State Drive (SSD) and the HDD-SSD hybrid, SSHD offer better speed when booting up, running certain apps, and shutting down the computer.
Should you find the topic of buying a laptop based on hardware component confusing, check out Laptoplex for more guides.
Functionality
Do you still fancy the traditional laptop’s design that you pay no attention to whatever new feature is in trend? Or would you instead prefer the unique experience by wanting something more intricate and more complex, such as a touchscreen display, among others?
It is worth mentioning that newer perks such as those mentioned above do not necessarily come cheap, which could signal and set a differentiating factor between the traditional and the more modern laptops.
Price
If you are on the lookout for a laptop, you will do best to set aside a budget that is possible, more or less, around the same range as your old laptop. The idea may seem strange, but notebooks usually do not stray far from the established pricing for the consumers to afford. But the real value of the purchase comes in the difference of performance between the old and the new, which they uniquely possess.
Of course, you are still at liberty of wanting to spend more if you are genuinely keen on having a massive leap with your upgrade. But should you do, be grounded in the fact that such an option will not come cheap.
Final Statements
Indeed, not all of them are the same. But by knowing your personal preference and demand, and how such necessitate a custom-tailored device, finding the laptop that is right for you need not have to be a complicated process. This issue is even made easier thanks to the aid of experts whose expertise in the field makes coming across the right laptop guaranteed.
