I'm not sure if I have enough Laptop for this laptop buying guide article.
But the truth is buying a new laptop isn't
easy. There's so many things to consider.
It can get a bit confusing. You could
just jump on Amazon and type in laptop
and then filter by price size and
customer rating, but if you're spending
hundreds or even thousands of pounds on
a new laptop, you want to make sure
you're getting the right one for you and
it's good value for money. So I'm gonna
walk you through ten things that you
need to know in order to choose the
perfect laptop for you. And I've put
links to some of my recommended laptops
in the description in this article.
So first things first.
Do you prefer using Windows Mac OS or
Chrome OS?
There's no right or wrong
answer and it's usually best to stick
with what you know.
Windows is by far the
most common platform. So you've got the
greatest range of laptops to choose from.
Mac OS is obviously exclusive to Apple
Mac books and MacBook Pros which are
beautiful machines and really easy to
use, but they're also relatively
expensive.
There isn't much variety and the latest
models have a limited range of ports.
Chromebooks running Chrome OS are very popular with students.
So if you want a
laptop on a budget,then just doing basic
things like google docs streaming,
Netflix and send emails, a Chromebook
could be ideal. Personally though I tend
to prefer going for a Windows 10 laptop
because there's just so much choice and
it means I can pay what I want and get
the specs and the features I need.
And if you're into gaming Windows machines are pretty much your only option right now
although click at the top right to see
my video on how games streaming on PC
and Mac could be the future okay next
question do you want a traditional
clamshell laptop like this that's the
most common kind of laptop doesn't open
any further than that sometimes can be a
touchscreen or would you prefer
something a little more fancy like a
convertible two-in-one with a 360 degree
hinge so you can turn the screen right
around and use it as a tablet or you can
put it in tent mode and what sure Huli
does that or stand mode which is handy
if you're watching movies or something
maybe on a plane you basically get a
touchscreen tablet experience but all in
one laptop thanks to that 360 hinge so
these are convertible two-in-ones well
the third choice is a hybrid two-in-one
with a fully detachable keyboard
so you've got slightly more budget
options like this ace switch three so
you can just pull it off like that you
got the keyboard and tablet separately
that's pretty similar to the surface pro
or on the higher end of the scale I've
got the surface book two hits the
13-inch one and I can press a button
hopefully yep and the tablet is released
from the keyboard and that way you can
use it either as a normal laptop or you
can take it off and use it as a full
Windows 10 tablet there are downsides to
these though generally two-in-one
devices are more expensive than a
similarly SPECT normal laptop and quite
often they won't be as powerful due to
size and design restrictions that's not
always the case though going back to the
surface book - it's one of the most
powerful long gaming laptops you can buy
right now but the compromise is the
price it starts at 1500 quid for this
13-inch model the one actually I've got
here was 2500 for the 15 inch model well
it's even more expensive so when it
comes to power versus portability versus
price low price generally you can only
get two out of three now let's talk
about size because most laptops have 13
14 or 15 inch screen sizes you do get a
few 11 inch budget laptops and some huge
17 or 18 inch gaming beasts but we'll
talk more about that in a bit
generally as you'd expect the smaller
screen size the lighter and more compact
it is so 13 and 14 inch ultrabooks
which is just a fancy name for thin and
light laptops that use Intel chips make
great travel companions anything bigger
and you'll struggle to get any work done
on trains or planes but bigger 15-inch
laptops like this can be more powerful
often less room for a dedicated graphics
card and they can use more power-hungry
processors but the good news is that
brands are putting bigger screens into
more compact and travel friendly bodies
by trimming the size of the bezel around
the screen so if you're going to leave
your laptop at home or in the office you
may as well go for something a bit
bigger and therefore hopefully a bit
more powerful but if you want something
that's good on the road and you're
barely feel in your backpack then maybe
consider a 13-inch ultra book like one
of these but if you can afford it a
high-end MacBook Pro 15 XPS 15 or
surface book 215 are relatively compact
for their size and offer really high-end
performance the whole time you're using
a laptop you're looking at the screen so
you want to make sure
it looks good firstly make sure it's got
an IPS screen you can check the tech
specs or reviews to see if IPS is
mentioned as they offer much better
color accuracy and viewing angles
the alternative is ATM screen which is
still used on some cheaper models and is
okay but it can look grainy and viewing
angles are pretty terrible you should
also consider the screens resolution but
don't worry about this too much ideally
go for a laptop with a full HD so that's
a 1920 by 1080 resolution even though
everyone's talking about 4k unless it's
a 15-inch or bigger laptop and you
really want those extra pixels for
watching 4k movies or if you're editing
4k video I'd avoid it as it has a big
impact on your battery life and your
framerate in games and it's unlikely
you'll really notice the difference if
you thought this video couldn't get any
more exciting you were wrong because now
we're going to talk about tech specs
which actually as dull and complicated
as it can be is super super important
for knowing what kind of performance
you're gonna get from a laptop so
there's three main things to consider
the processor the RAM and the storage
and maybe also graphics cards if you're
into gaming or you run more intensive
workstation applications the most
important thing is the processor you'll
see most mid-range or high end laptops
come with an Intel Core i3 i5 or i7
processor generally higher the number
the better the performance you get
unless you're doing lots of photo or
video editing or more intensive tasks a
core i5 will be just fine but also look
for what generation it is every year
these chips get refreshed and improved
with the latest
eighth generation processors now
offering four cores rather than two
which is better for multitasking seventh
generation chips are still fine I've
still use this Dell XPS 15 but where
possible try and get the latest one some
cheaper laptops will come with a pentium
or Celeron processor but unless you're
using it for more basic tasks or you're
on a super tight budget I try to avoid
these as a rule of thumb and then we've
got RAM which is much easier usually
you'll get 4 8 or 16 gigabytes of RAM in
a laptop again unless you're going for a
basic machine I'll avoid 4 gigs the
sweet spot is 8 gigabytes for video
editing rendering or any sort of power
user go for 16 gigs where possible and
finally in terms of specs let's talk
about storage and I can't emphasize this
enough how important and
SSD or solid-state drive in your laptop
is it makes a huge difference just to
how fast everything feels from boot
times opening programs generally using
the desktop
I really do highly recommend making sure
your new laptop comes with an SSD some
laptops have both like a 32 or 128
gigabyte SSD and then a second higher
capacity hard drive that's fine too and
it's arguably the best of both worlds
you get the SSD speed boost for Windows
but you also get enough storage for all
your files but let's keep things simple
if you've got a budget of say five
hundred to a thousand look for a laptop
that has an Intel Core i3 i5 eight gigs
of RAM and at least a 256 gigabyte
storage SSD over a thousand and then you
can start looking at i5 and i7
processors up to 16 gigs of ram and
maybe a 512 gigabyte storage SSD but if
you want a tight budget under five or
six hundred maybe consider something
that has a core i3 or if you're really
pushed maybe an Intel Celeron or Pentium
processor this Asus which 3 has a
pentium and it's fine because it's
backed up by an SSD it's got 32
gigabytes of flash storage and that for
basic Windows tasks makes the biggest
difference in terms of performance and
how fast everything feels now let's move
on to gaming because while that lot will
play some games maybe a lower to medium
settings if you drop the resolution if
you want to play games seriously and of
the rares of the graphics have higher
frame rates you're going to want to look
into a gaming laptop this is the HP omen
X I've got here and these generally come
with an i7 processors 16 gigs around and
importantly a dedicated graphics card
while this is going to be ideal for
gaming there is a halfway house between
someone who wants a powerful but still
portable laptop and someone who just
wants the best gaming performance
possible and you can still get dedicated
graphics cards in laptops like these the
Dell XPS 15 I've got here or the surface
book 2 they both come with an NVIDIA GTX
1050 so look for either NVIDIA GTX or
AMD rx or aim the Vega branding on a
laptop that means it has a dedicated
graphics card which will make a laptop a
lot more powerful and capable of playing
games with higher settings and a high
resolutions I will be making a separate
all about gaming laptops so make sure
you click that subscribe button and also
click that notification bell or tap it
if you want a phone so you don't miss
that USB HDMI card readers ports are
really important and to be honest all I
would recommend is making sure the
laptop you get comes with at least one
USB 3.1 type C port it is still
relatively new but it can do pretty much
everything and will definitely
future-proof your laptop but even if the
specs and the price and the size
everything is right if the keyboard and
a touchpad are rubbish then it's not
gonna be very nice to use in my
experience MacBooks and MacBook Pros
have the best touch pads they're big
responsive and has great gesture support
in Mac OS for Windows laptops try and
get one with a Microsoft precision
touchpad this basically guarantees the
touchpad will be fast and precise if
you're not sure if it's got one just
google the laptops name along with
precision touchpad and see if any
reviews mention it don't worry too much
if it doesn't have one although I would
recommend then maybe trying it in the
store before you buy it and same with
the keyboard it's very difficult to
describe a keyboard other than saying
it's responsive or clacking or spongy in
a video like this so I would definitely
recommend going to try it in person
because keyboards are very tricky to
talk about a lot of people use key
travel how far the key goes in
essentially as a differentiator between
quality but that's not always the case
and the latest keyboards say on the
MacBook Pros have very very minimal key
travel but are still very good so it's
not a great indicator but what about
battery life how long should your laptop
last well anything quoted above six
hours is decent but since most brands
test them at low brightness if a
retailer says 6 hours you can expect
more like 4 in the real world the size
of the battery 4k resolution screens
graphics cards and all the generation
processors have the biggest impact on
battery life most reviews you read will
tell you how long a laptop lasts but if
you can get one with at least 6 hours
but preferably 8 to 10 hours then that
will do nicely if you're still here I'm
very very impressed because that was a
lot to take in and I appreciate you
sticking with me hopefully that's me
things a little bit clearer now you know
what to look for when you go out and buy
a new laptop I will put links to my
recommended laptops in the description
below for all sorts of different budges
and I will keep them updated as well
with the latest models as they come out
and if you've got any other questions or
if you've got some laptop buying advice
of your own that maybe I've missed put
it in the comments below and then we can
share it with everyone and if you want
to see more of these types of videos tap
that like and subscribe button below
thank you very much for watching guys
and I'll see you next time right here on
the tech chure
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