Choosing a laptop: What does one look for when picking a laptop. For starters, how much are you looking to spend? Laptop prices varies from ultra budget to mid-range to high-end. There are even some ludicrously priced laptops with eye-watering prices. Regardless of the price, here are five key things to consider:
1. Portability: how likely are you take your laptop with you everywhere. Besides the home and office, there are road warriors and field workers or entrepreneurs that works on their laptop wherever they go. For the mobile workers, lightweight and compact ultra portable laptops is what they need.
2. Performance: If you are a power user with your photo editing, video editing, software developing and 3D rendering applications to run, you need a laptop with at least Core i5 or Core i7 or equivalent processor. For 3D gaming, look for laptops with equally competent processors and a dedicated Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) with built-in graphic memory. For multi-tasking, at least 8GB of memory will do.
3. Size of display: Here is a toss up between portability and usability. A bigger and sharper display with higher resolution is great for everything from working on your spreadsheet, video editing to gaming but it would mean that laptop will be bulky or heavy. Displays on big laptops range from 15.6-inch to 17.3-inch. A more portable unit will have display of between 13.3-inch to 14-inch offering a balance between portability and screen real estate. Ultra portables, super slim and light laptops will have displays at 12-inch or less.
4. Weight: The weight of a laptop goes hand-in-hand with the size of its display, price tag and design. More expensive laptops tend to be lighter and have a more rigid body with a metal chassis. Cheaper laptops are bulkier, using magnesium alloy and polycarbonate plastic as material of choice. As a guide, anything under 2kg is considered portable.
5. Battery life: these days laptops come with energy efficient processors and power management system allowing them to last through the day. As a minimum, regardless of size, todays laptops ought to last at least 5/6 hours. Even gaming laptops with its huge display and power hungry components will last up to 5 hours. On the other hand, ultraportables can easily double that offering 10-12 hours of usage time sometimes more.
6. Storage options: most budget and mi-range laptops use spindle based hard disk for storage offering a size between 500GB or 1GB. More manufacturers are adopting the faster solid-state drives (SSDs) albeit a small one at 128GB for budget machines. More expensive machines have 256GB SSD drive or bigger. High-end and premium laptops uses bigger SSD storage at 512GB or 1TB. Some gaming laptops offer both SSD for performance and spindle hard drive for extra storage. For faster boot-up, better multi-tasking and generally more responsive machine, choose one with at least 128GB SSD storage.
7. Profile: laptops are no longer just your standard clamshell format. 2-in-1 laptops and convertibles let you transform the laptop into presentation or even tablet mode. This blurs the line between a laptop and a tablet especially those with detachable keyboard offering users even more flexibility.
Combining the good looks of the MacBook Pro and the versatility of Surface Book 2, the HP SPectre x360 13 is a versatile do it all hybrid 2-in-1 laptop that combines the power of eight generation Intel Core i processor with amazing good looks and well thought out features.
HP Spectre 13 ultraportable received an update in 2018 with a new colour option, slim and light weight design, new 4K display and the use of the new 8th generation Intel Core i7 and Core i5 processors.
Huawei’s attempt at a premium laptop to rival the likes of Apple’s MacBook Pro is pushing the limits of borderless display. The Huawei MateBook X Pro achieved 91% screen-to-body ratio making it one of the best near borderless displays on a laptop in the market.
Let’s cut to the chase, here is a convertible laptop for those who want to make a fashion statement. With its cover crafted from 100% genuine leather over space grey metal chassis, the HP Spectre Folio is a work of art.
The mid-range 2-in-1 offering from HP comes with a healthy choice of processors from both the CPU divide, AMD and Intel. The good people at HP has even included the HP digital stylus that supports Windows Ink for good measure.
The Lenovo Yoga 730 13-inch is the affordable mid-range convertible from the Yoga series. Still, the ultra portable is not short of features.
When I saw the Dell Inspiron 17 5000 and its configuration, I had to take a second look. All new sleek design, high performance components, dual storage option, dedicated graphics card, large display in one with a moderate price tag. It just looks too good to pass on.
Budget laptops based on Intel Celeron processors are truly dirt cheap and the market is full of them so how does one go about picking the best performing laptop on an ultra low budget.
Just like the HP Envy 13 but convertible, the HP Envy x360 13-inch 2-in 2018 features a flip hinge and solid build. Opting instead to use the AMD Ryzen 5 or 7 processors with AMD Radeon Vega 8 Graphics APU, this little number does not only perform well, but comes with a gaming streak too.
We get it. Not everybody needs a top dollar laptop with super duper high specs. Some of us just want a laptop for browsing the web, checking emails, watching videos on YouTube, messaging and updating our social media status. A budget laptop will do just fine but how to pick the right one.
Give your back a break with a slimline and fast ultra portable from ASUS. The ZenBook UX430 is not only light and compact, the good people at ASUS was able to squeeze a 14-inch display into a small chassis typically designed for a 13-inch device. All that for a price that won’t break the bank.
If the price tags on HP Spectre 13 and Dell XPS 13 are hard to swallow and you still want high-end looks and parts in an ultra portable, the HP Envy 13 is your answer.
With both featuring 4 Thunderbolt ports, with the same design, weight and size, what are the key differences between the two?
The laptop that started it all. Call it edge-less, border-less, bezel-less, the XPS 13 is a mainstay laptop from Dell spotting the signature InfinityEdge display. It has ultra narrow bezel around the screen so you can enjoy more of the display without thick borders getting in the way.
Since the launch of Microsoft’s Surface Pro, there have been many clones but none of them come close to its build quality. HP intends to change that with the HP Envy x2. Incidentally, it is also the device that HP intends to showcase the Mobile PC platform.
Lenovo has been building Surface Pro alternatives in the shape of the Miix 300 series (320), Miix 500 series (510 and 520) and Miix 700 series (700 and 720). With the Miix 630. it’s selling the idea of an always connected and always on device.
Google Pixelbook may have the most highly specified Chromebook there is in a stylish and sleek chassis, price wise, it may be out of reach for majority of users. We explore the best Google Pixelbook alternatives currently in the market that will match of come close to the convertible laptop from the search giant.
Don’t get me wrong, hybrid or 2-in-1 convertible laptop is a novel idea but when is turning your laptop into a ‘tent’ or folding your laptop with keyboard facing down on the table a good idea. Even in tablet mode, the keys on the keyboard while disabled are exposed.
The conventional laptop is a tried-and-tested design that has been around for ages. Now that other laptop profiles are in the scene, those with 360-degree flip hinge, detachable keyboard or 2-in-1 hybrids, would you consider this as a replacement?
High performance and low price tag do not often go hand-in-hand but things are about to change. We look at 5 of the best affordable mid-range laptops with powerful processors, Full HD displays and packed with features