Laptop Buying Guide : 11 Essential Feature to Look.

People belong to different professions and have different lifestyles, so they have to perform different tasks with their laptops based on their own interests. Some are there who want the best laptop for video editing, some want a laptop for playing games, some want to buy the best business laptop and some want to know about the best laptop for college-going students. Like this, there are many categories to list the laptops but how to decide which one is best for us.

Laptop Buying Guide

01. Display Size and Resolution.

01/a. Display Size.

All Laptop screen size is measured diagonally and they come in several different sizes- starting from an 11-inch laptop and going up to a 17-inch laptop which is mainly found in big gaming laptops. The point to note here is that the laptop size increases with increasing display size.  

Display Size & Resolution

• 11 to 12-inch display-size laptops are the thinnest and lightest and weigh around 1.2 to 1.5kg.
• 13 to 14-inch display-size laptops are the best portable laptop to carry out all around and they weigh around 1.8 to 2.0kg.
• 15 to 16-inch display size laptops are bigger in size and you cannot carry them with you all the time.  

01/b. Display Resolution.

• HD resolution display has a 1366 x 768-pixel count. They are good for watching movies, playing basic graphic games or working with simple document.
• Full HD or 1080p resolution display has a 1920 x 1080 pixel count. They provide better and sharp visual experience and can play high graphic games.
• Ultra HD resolution display which is also known as 4K has 3840 x 2160 pixel count. They are best high-resolution video editing, watching 4K movies and playing games with higher graphics. 

02. Choose the Operating system (OS): Mac, Windows or Chrome.

02/a. Windows10.

Windows OS

Windows operating system is the most common operating system. It runs on more laptops models than any other OS. Apart from MacBook and DOS laptop, the most laptop comes with preinstalled Windows10.  The price range for Windows laptops huge, you can get the cheap one which will cost around Rs.20,000 or expensive one which will cost Rs. 1,30,000 or even more.

02/b. Mac Os.

mac OS

All Apple laptops (MacBooks) come with pre-installed Mac OS. Most of the software and hardware of MacBooks are design by Apple to work in sync and provide a smooth performance. And any additional software, if you try to install, must be compatible with Mac OS. It offers similar functionality like Windows10 but the interface is totally different.  Mac digital assistant Siri can perform tasks like taking calls or texts from phones and you can also unlock your laptop with an Apple Watch.

02/c. Chrome OS.

Chrome OS

Chrome OS is mainly for Chromebooks such as Samsung Chromebook 3. Working with a Chromebook required a high-quality internet connection, as it is primarily cloud-based and very few offline apps available in the system. It is less efficient than Windows and Mac OS. Limited software is available and for others, you can get an app from the Google Play store. It has Google’s built-in virus and malware protection.

02/d. Linux OS.

Linux OS

It is an open-source operating system which is mainly used by programmers and professional.  It is not recommended for normal users. There are so many different versions of Linux operating systems are available to download from the internet. You can install them on your laptop if you finding them useful for you. Few laptops come with a pre-installed Linux operating system. 

03. Performance and Specs.

The performance of the laptop depends on Processor + RAM + Internal Storage + Battery + Graphics Card. If you don’t know about all the above components, don’t worry we are going to explain each.

CPU is known as the brain of your computer and contains the component named above. Each component has some specific role in performing the task efficiently.

Deciding the laptop performance and specification depending on how you use your laptop.

Light Use: When you required a laptop just for surfing the web, checking emails, social media or watching movies.

Medium Use: When you need a laptop for office purpose, small editing or playing basic video games and have to work on multiple tabs at a time.

Heavy Use: When you need a laptop to run heavy software like video editing software, AUTOCAD, MATLAB or for heavy programming or for playing heavy games.

Intel Processor

03/a. Processor.

Processor of laptop decides, how fast it can perform the given task and how many different tasks you can perform on it. The two main processor manufacturing companies are Intel and AMD.

Processors example in increasing order of power.

Intel- Pentium < Celeron < Core i3 < Core i5 < Core i7 < Core i9 series.

AMD- A series < FX series < Ryzen series.

Intel Pentium/Celeron: There performance is slow and mainly come with cheap laptops. They are good enough for small activities like web surfing, watching movies or small document work.

Intel Core i3: It can perform all activity which Pentium/Celeron can much efficiently and you can also use them for small multitasking.

Intel Core i5: It is the best-balanced option with performance and price. It can do much more than core i3, you can play basic games or do photo editing. Core i5 has several models, the name ends with U (ex: Core i5-10210U) indicate Ultra low power, name end with Y (ex: Core i5-10310Y) indicate Extremely low power, name end with G (ex: Core i5-1035G4) includes discrete graphics on package, name ends with T (ex: Core i5-9400T) indicate Power optimized lifestyle and name end with H (Core i5-9300H) indicate High performance graphics.

Intel Core i7: It can perform the task which required high processing power, like you can photo editing, video editing, can heavy software like MATLAB or AUTOCAD. It is best to play heavy games on it. Core i7 models name end with HQ and K are best for playing heavy games and are more productive. Core i7 Y series models have low performance.

Intel Core i9: It has highest and the faster performance than any other Intel chip. It is mostly used in premium laptops and is too expensive to buy. Core i9 is for a workstation, researchers who have to work with heavy programs and hardcore gamers. It also uses for 3D modeling and rendering.

AMD A and FX series: These processors are mostly found in low-cost laptops. It provides an average performance and good for performing small tasks like web surfing, online chatting, editing small documents.

AMD Ryzen: It is newly developed by AMD to compete heavily with Intel Core i5 and i7. These are much power and good gaming laptops.  

03/b. RAM (Random Access Memory).

RAM

RAM provides power to laptops for better multi-tasking operation. More the RAM better will be the multitasking. RAM is temporary memory and stores your data for faster access. It only stores open software, files, game or data on which you are working in a present. More RAM means more space to store such data for faster access.

There are two types of RAM available, DDR4 RAM are faster, less power consumption and DDR 3 RAM is smaller and consumes more power.

Nowadays buying a laptop with 4GB RAM is not sufficient and enough. 4GB RAM slows down the laptop performance or the system to hang frequently. You should always go with a minimum of 8GB of RAM for better performance and or even better to go with 16GB of RAM to run heavy software like a video editor or AutoCAD.

03/c. Internal Storage.

Internal storage is also known as a hard drive, main memory or capacity of the laptop. It is the place where all your documents, apps, movies, and games are stored. Your laptop operating system is also installed in it.

Two types of internal storage is available in most of the laptops, HDD (Hard Disk Drive) and SSD (Solid State Drive). HDD is a mechanical disk drive that gives you a lot for storage capacity and a very minimum cost but they are slow in performance.

SSD drive is much-more faster than HDD and all your programs run faster with SSD but they are expensive than HDD. You will get a very less storage space for a very high price than HDD. There is one more type of internal storage named SSHD, it is a combination of HDD and SSD which means you will more storage capacity with faster performance.  

Add on: Our suggestion is always to go with SSD hard drive, as they give faster and better performance and you can buy an external HDD hard drive for storage purposes.

03/d. Battery Life.

If you are buying a laptop to carry with you all around then you required a minimum 7 to 8 hour of battery life. But if you are buying a gaming laptop, you don’t have to worry much about the battery as you are going to play on a desk with a power connection. Battery life mention in the company specs is not always correct, to know the exact battery life always refer to the review websites of that laptop.

Playing games, watching videos and working with heavy editing software drain more battery. 

03/e. Graphics Card.

Nvidia Graphics Card

Graphics Card is inside your laptop responsible for the quality of visuals on your screen. Higher the graphics card more smother your game will run in Full HD or 4k resolution.

Your laptop the processor also contain graphics card which is known as the integrated chip, if are not going to play heavy games or run heavy video editing software then the integrated graphics card is enough for you.

If you required a laptop for playing heavy video games or work with heavy software then you have to purchase dedicated graphics cards externally. Nvidia and AMD are the popular companies that make dedicated graphics card. 

List of Nvidia and AMD Graphics Card in increasing order of performance. 

Graphics Cards

Nvida Graphics card	AMD Graphics card
GTX 1050	AMD RX 550
GTX 1050Ti	AMD Radeon RX 560
GTX 1060	AMD Radeon RX 570
GTX 1650	AMD Radeon RX 580
GTX 1660	AMD Radeon RX 590
GTX 1660Ti	AMD Radeon RX Vega 56
GTX 1070	AMD Radeon RX Vega 64
GTX 1070Ti	AMD Radeon RX Vega 64 Liquid cooled
GTX 1080	AMD Radeon VII
GTX 1080Ti	AMD Radeon RX 5700
RTX 2060	AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT 50th Anniversary
RTX 2070
RTX 2080
RTX 2080Ti
GTX 1660Ti
GTX 1660Ti

04. Conductivity and Ports.

Ports and conductivity are also essential to check before buying a laptop. Ports tell you about how many multiple devices you can connect to your laptop at a time like your pen-drive, disk, headphone, projector, etc.

Some essential ports that you can check before buying a laptop.

• USB type –A: These are for connecting your USB devices like Pen drives, smartphone, mouse or external keyboard. USB 3.1 is faster than USB 3.0 and USB 2.0. 
• Card reader: These are for your microSD or SD card use to copy your data.
• HDMI: These are the new type for connecting your laptop with a projector or TV screen.
• VGA port: These are also old type for connecting your laptop with a projector or other monitors.

For better conductivity, search a laptop with 4G Lite support, Wi-Fi 6 support for stable W-Fi connection and Bluetooth 5 is the latest and provide good conductivity with all your Bluetooth devices like headphones or speakers. 

05. Keyboard and Touch-Pad.

No matter you do a lot of typing work on your laptop or not, having a perfect keyboard and touchpad is always a plus. To choose a laptop with a perfect keyboard, you can check the spacing between each key and row and can also go for a separate Numpad if you have to work more with the number, for me a laptop with a Numpad is a must. And if you use your laptop is low light or dark then can for backlit keyboard laptops. 

You can check the position of your touchpad must be centered with G and H keys or try to access the touchpad with one hand on the keyboard’s home row.

06. Choose a price range.

You can buy a laptop with normal specs in a cost Rs. 20,000, but if you want to buy a laptop with more features and better performance then you have to increase your budget a little bit base on your requirement.

₹15,000 to ₹20,000: You can get a mini laptop with an ATOM processor or a 15-inch laptop with Linux or Pentium operating system. You can also go for a less expensive Chromebook which runs Chrome OS are mainly for surfing the web or watching movies. You can also purchase Lenovo Ideapad S145 (15.6-inch) best seller or Amazon. 

₹20,000 to ₹40,000: You can get a laptop with many sufficient specs like Intel Core i5 or AMD A8, up to 8GB of RAM and a minimum of 500GB of HDD storage. SSD storage and Full HD displays are hard to find at this cost however there are always some exceptions. 

₹40,000 to ₹60,000: Under ₹60,000 you can buy a high performing laptop to games on a high-resolution Full HD display. You can also get a better SSD storage which faster than HDD storage and helps to improve your laptop performance. ASUS TUF Gaming FX505DT (15.6-inch) and Dell Gaming G3 (15.6-inch) is the best laptop to buy under this price range. 

Above ₹60,000: In the price range above ₹60,000, you can a premium laptop with Ultra high-resolution screen, great battery life, faster processor, and even a dedicated graphics card. You can play heavy games or can run heavy video editing or 3D modeling software. If you want a light laptop to carry all around then you can buy MacBookAir or even more expensive one MacBook Pro.