Check this out before buying a new laptop.

Buying laptops is not easy as most people might think. Most people don't even know what to look into laptops/desktops before buying. So, this article would give you an overview of what to look into laptops before buying one. In this article I would be discussing mostly about Windows laptops but I would cover some bits of MacBook too.

Before starting I would like to suggest you that if you have low budget which I would say under ₹30,000 ($350) then consider a second hand Windows laptop or a Chromebook, or if you need to do just casual tasks like watching videos or working on spreadsheet or notes then Tablets/iPad can also be a good option. The reason I am suggesting for these devices rather than buying a new Windows laptop is the performance, battery life and the overall experience won't be good. And go for MacBook if your budget allows, those are seriously some of the best laptops in the market. 

Now, Let's start -

Build and Design -

The Design of most the Laptops are more or less same, difference might be with form factor and the overall size or with some funky looks and RGB lighting. If you are a student or a Educational Professional that I would suggest to look into 2-in-1 devices which have touch/pen support which would make your work much easier. I have seen my Teachers and Professors having hard time in online classes. If you have lots of note making work then also do consider buying a 2-in-1 touch/pen supporting devices. Then there are 360 rotating devices which can be helpful if you consume a lot of media content. And then there are bulky gaming laptops with RGB lighting for gamers.

If you are a student then please do consider the thin and light laptops if you don't play lot of games and trust me if you are not a hardcore Gamer then buying those hefty Gaming laptops are useless because first they are heavy and they usually don't have good battery life. And as a student you always travel and might have to take your laptops various places like in classes, events etc. Unless you are into Content creation or heavy programming projects then you shouldn't go with heavy gaming laptops. 

Then there are various sizes 13inch, 14 inch, 15inch, 16 inch, the size is given is of screen area in inches diagonally. Depending upon your usage you can either of them. Smaller the size more portable it would be and bigger the size more space it would have to accumulate more components like bigger battery or robust cooling system. Larger size would give you better content viewing experience and you would easily be able to multitask on larger display size. Depending upon your usage you can choose either of it.

Build of these devices are mostly plastic or Aluminum build. Always prefer Aluminum build over plastic build and if possible Aluminum unibody construction. The Aluminum build Laptops have some advantages like sturdier build, less body flexing issues, better cooling as the heat will dissipate easier and it gives a premium touch to a laptop. And check whether the laptop is Aluminum build or it is just metallic finish over some plastic.

Display - 

Few things which you need to check in the Laptop's display are screen size, type of display panel, Colour accuracy of the display. Screen size depends upon your need which I have discussed earlier. Bigger screen will be better for content creation and consumption. Smaller screen if you need portability. Most of the display are atleast Full HD(1920X1080), don't go for HD display (1280X720), on higher end you might find 2K or 4K display which are even better.

Then the most important thing to check in display is the type of display panel which are commonly IPS LCD or some OLED panel. I would not go in detail about these display technology but rather an overview of it. Cheap laptops come with TN or TFT panel which have pathetic viewing angles and compared to other displays low brightness and bad colour quality. IPS LCD is what you get in most laptops which gives you better viewing angle and a has a pretty good colour production quality but usually brightness is low on IPS LCD displays which is around 200-300 nits (Higher the nits, brighter the dispaly would be). Brightness on IPS LCD screen is good enough but you might suffer in bright daylight even on full brightness of the display. Then there are OLED display which you would generally find in higher priced laptops but Asus is now providing in mid range laptops also. These are best quality displays, they have best in class colour production, usually they are much brighter (>=300 nits), they produce deep black and much punchier and vibrant colours. Try to get an OLED panel in your laptop. The Macbooks are now coming with microLED tech which is also a very good dispaly but this tech you might not find in Windows Laptops right now.

If you are content creator then do check the colour accuracy of the screen. Like check the colour gamut which represents the range of colours visible to the human eye on a output device. Wider the color gamut range richer is the screen colours are. The common colour gamut range of laptops is NTSC and it is often represented by a percentage, higher the percentage, bigger the colour range can be displayed. Genrally the percentage varies from 72%-94%. There is also an RGB test which can be used to find the colour accuracy of the screen.

If you are a gamer then you need to check the refresh rate of screen. Usually it is at 60Hz but gaming laptops and some other high end laptops come with 120 or 144 Hz which makes everything on the screen much smoother and games more playable.

Performance - 

What most people think when it comes to performance is the Intel i series CPU and some kind of GPU but actually there is much more. Now I won't get in detail otherwise the article would become huge so I would be discussing only important points. CPU is the central and most important thing for performance. There are two companies which provide CPU to manufacturers AMD and Intel. Intel has huge range of CPU's like Celeron and Pentium for entry level laptops but to be honest don't get those rather spend few more bucks and get either Intel i3 or AMD Ryzen 3 series processor. Now there are some terminologies used for different processors like Intel i3 12xxU, here i3 is the name of processor 12 is the generation of the processor and U means power efficient, there are P & H series processors also which are designated to balanced and high performance processors. Then there is i5, i7 & i9 processor, here higher the number after i, higher will be the performance. Entry level laptops come with i3 processor which costs between ₹30,000-₹50,000 ($350-$600), i5 laptops come under the range of ₹50,000-₹75,000 ($600-$900)and then high end laptops come with i7/i9 processors which would cost you more than ₹70,000($850). If the processor is designated with U then that processor is very battery efficient and consumes very less power so the battery life on those U powered devices will be very good, Then if the processor is designated with P then it is a balanced processor which means it consumes little more power than U series but offers more power. If the processor is designated with H then it is a very high performance chip but will consume a lot of power. The generation of processor is also very important,13th generation is the latest offering from Intel and 7th generation is the latest offering from Ryzen. AMD Ryzen has also same naming scheme like Ryzen 9 7950X, AMD offers Ryzen3 in budget laptops, Ryzen 5 in mid range laptops and Ryzen 7/9 in high end laptops, Ryzen also uses U for battery efficient processors and H/HS/HX for high performance laptops. From my personal experience I think Ryzen offers better value for money processors and compared to Intel provide much more battery efficiency and less produce less heat. So do check out Ryzen powered laptops too. So this was all about processors. 

There are other things too to be considered for a performance of a laptop like the secondary memory which might be HDD, SDD or a hybrid. To get a smooth and fluid experience SDD is a must. A hybrid system is a one which provides both HDD and SDD which is also a good option but don't buy a laptop with only HDD as HDD has a very slow speed. Other thing to consider is atleast 8GB RAM on the device and if it is expandable it is better. If you are buying a high performance laptop then do check if it has dual channel RAM or not and then get a 16GB RAM variant too. If you are buying a laptop then do check for GPU which should atleat be GTX1650Ti equivalent or more, don't go for MX350 or any MX series GPU.

Battery -

The battery life depends of on the battery size and the processor used, as I discussed earlier U series processor are battery efficient hence would last longer than a high performance laptops with H/G series processor. Gaming laptops usually don't have good battery life because of high performance processors and GPU's. According to me a laptop should have atleast a 41/45 Wh battery which would give you minimum of 3hr battery life. Chargers are generally of 65Watt which are proprietary of respective brands but some have USB-C charging capability which is better.

Other -

Some other things which needs to be check before buying a laptop are -

Try to get a laptop with dual speakers and if possible front firing one, honestly Windows laptops have very bad speakers and you shouldn't expect much from them.

Backlit keyboard which is very handy if you work in dull or low light environment.

Check if all the necessary ports which you might need are available or not, it should have atleast one USB-C port. Ethernet ports are now being removed from laptops slowly and some even do not have HDMI port. Dongle will ne needed if your laptop doesn't have these ports.

Web cam is a must and if 1080P web cam is available then it is better.

Fingerprint sensor are also now becoming available in lower end laptops so do check out if your laptop has one or not.

Large glass trackpad is needed for easy navigation so find a laptop with large trackpad.

Check out if the RAM and storage are expandable or not, if not expandable then buy the variant with more RAM and more storage.

Check out the cooling system of the laptop is good enough or not because if the laptop over heats then it will degrade performance and reduce the battery life too.

Don't get fooled by the RGB lighting on the gaming laptops, do check out the proper specification of the laptop and especially the CPU, GPU and the cooling system.

NOTE -

HP, DELL, Lenevo do charge you extra compared to other brands but they have better after sales support and robust service networks and compared to other brands there parts don't malfunction easily. And please don't buy the laptops from 3rd party companies which just assemblers or from new brands like Infinix and all because they just label there name on some 3rd party chinese vendor. They might offer a very good value for money but they would not last very long and you will be unable to get after sales support for those devices.