6 important factors you should consider before buying a laptop
Get the best value for your money
There's a wide variety of sizes, features and prices, which makes choosing the right laptop a challenge.
Here are a few factors to guide you on making the right call when choosing a laptop:
Operating system
Windows operating system (OS) is by far the most common platform as compared to Mac OS or Chrome OS.
Windows notebooks range in price and offer a wide array of features from touch screens to fingerprint readers to dual graphics chips.
Some people may, however, prefer laptops that come with a basic operating system called DOS seeing that they are cheaper.
It is, however, not advisable to buy them as one will be required to install a clean copy of Windows 10 which can be quite expensive and time consuming.
Storage capacity
Besides the speed of your CPU, the performance of the storage drive should also be factored in when buying a laptop.
If you can afford it and don't need a ton of internal storage, get a laptop with a solid state drive (SSD) rather than a Hard Disk Drive (HDD).
SSD storage greatly improves performance and speed of the laptop and is also more durable than HDD.
Screen size
Choosing the best laptops according to screen size depends on your budget and what you want to use the laptop for.
The ideal screen size for regular productivity would be 14 or 15.6 inches.
The screen resolution is also something you want to look out for. The more pixels you have, the more content you can fit on-screen, and the sharper it will look.
If you want to experience your movies or games in full clarity, it is recommended that you buy a laptop with a screen resolution of 1920 x 1080, also known as full HD or 1080p.
Processor
The processor is basically the brain of your computer as it is where data and input is processed before it appears on the screen as a picture, a program, a video or text.
The most recommended processor is a core i5 or i7 which is powerful enough to handle multiple applications like a browser, Microsoft Word and VLC Media player.
Laptops with Intel Celeron, Intel Atom or Intel Pentium processors are often associated with terrible performances.
Battery
A laptop with a minimum battery life of at least 6 hours is decent.
To determine a notebook's expected battery life, don't take the manufacturer's word for it. Instead, read third-party results from objective sources
RAM
Most laptops will come with 4, 8 or 16 gigabytes (GB) of RAM. Unless your computer needs are quite demanding, then consider buying a laptop with at least 4GB RAM.
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