How to buy a good laptop

So you want to get a laptop, eh? I don’t blame you. These things sell like hot potatoes these days. The reason is, everybody needs one! You can not really live today without a computer. Everything is connected to Internet, and to use that, you need a desktop or laptop. You can either go to shop and just buy one the salesman recommends. Or then you can read my helpful tips and choose exactly the kind of notebook that is best for your needs. So, following are things you should know before you choose your next laptop.

Storage drive – Drive is the device in your laptop that you store your data in. Traditionally, only hard drives were used, but recently a new technology – solid-state drives – has emerged. So what is the difference between those two? Well, a hard drive is like a dinosaur: huge but slow. The current hard drive size is 1-2 terabytes. You can really store the whole world in such a drive, but the flip side is, those files won’t be served too fast. On the other hand, you have the option to opt for a solid-state drive. They are much smaller – ranging from 128 to 256 gigabytes, but will offer a lot better performance than hard drives.

Processor – Processor is often called the ruler of the computer. It decides most things and indicates how fast the laptop feels in use. Now, if you really don’t need a notebook for anything but web surfing and text editing, any kind of processor will do. Look for Intel Celeron units, they are cheap and will do the trick. If you’re a casual user who sometimes runs a bit heavier programs, your best bet is definitely Intel Core i3 or even i5. Now, there’s still one Intel Core left, and that is the i7. Those are ideal if you really demand heavy-duty performance, but also be prepared to pay more.

RAM – RAM, also known as memory, decides together with processor and storage drive how fast the notebook will be. The more RAM you have, the more things you can do at the same time without the system slowing down (also known as multitasking). Even if you’re not doing multitasking, more RAM will increase the performance. I would say that today, 4 gigabytes is the minimum. Double that in case you like to multitask or just have RAM in reserves if you some day decide to operate a resource-intensive program.

These are the three most important things you should know. They will make or break the laptop’s performance. And you don’t want too slow a laptop, however if you get a very fast one and don’t actually need it, you’d be paying a lot for nothing. Also things like display and keyboard are important, but they were not touched in this short article. Go to a shop and see yourself which screen you like the most, it is easy as that!