What To Consider When Buying A Laptop

Whether you are just browsing the web, need to type a research paper, work on video production, or play some of the best PC games, it's all best done on a laptop. So how do you know what to look for in a laptop Well, we've put together this laptop buying guide to help answer that question for you.

Since its launch in October 2021, Windows 11 has also added a host of improvements, including Focus Sessions and a Do Not Disturb mode. The 22H2 update also came with notable performance and battery optimization enhancements. Windows 11 laptops are great for students, researchers, and business users, and they're still the only gaming laptops anyone should consider.

The most impressive specs in the world don't mean diddly if the laptop you're shopping for doesn't have good ergonomics. If you plan to do a lot of work on your computer, make sure the keyboard offers solid tactile feedback, plenty of key travel (the distance the key goes down when pressed, usually 1 to 2mm) and enough space between the keys. If you're buying a Windows laptop, be sure it has Precision touchpad drivers.

Look for an accurate touchpad that doesn't give you a jumpy cursor and responds consistently to multitouch gestures such as pinch-to-zoom. If you're buying a business laptop, consider getting one with a pointing stick (aka nub) between the G and H keys so you can navigate around the desktop without lifting your fingers off the keyboard's home row.

Display quality is about much more than resolution. IPS panels range in color and brightness, so read our reviews to find out if the laptop you're considering has a good display. We typically look for a DCI-P3 color rating of over 85% and brightness great than 300 nits. If you want the very best picture quality consider an OLED display or miniLED, but read reviews of these models carefully as there can be battery trade-offs.

Touch Screen: If you're buying a regular clamshell laptop, rather than a 2-in-1, you won't get much benefit from a touch screen and you will get 1 to 2 hours less battery life. On 2-in-1s, touch screens come standard. If you still want a touch screen, check out our best touch screen laptops page.

Ports: While the absence of ports is usually not a deal-breaker when choosing a laptop, it's helpful to get the connections you need right on the system, rather than having to carry a slew of dongles. However, many mainstream laptops now only offer USB Type-C, Thunderbolt 4, or USB4 ports that are USB Type-C compatible. Having legacy USB 3.0 ports, an audio jack, an SD card reader, and HDMI can be useful, but depending on the type of laptop you are considering these features are growing harder to find.

Connectivity: If you need to use your laptop on the go, consider buying a 4G LTE laptop or 5G laptop. You'll have to pay for a data subscription plan, but this will allow you to access the internet away from a router. If you want a laptop with the latest and greatest connectivity options, find one with Wi-Fi 6 support. Wi-Fi 6 offers increased theoretical throughputs and a more stable connection than 802.11ac.

DVD/Blu-ray Drives: Very few laptops come with optical drives, because all software and movies are downloadable, though we've kept track of the laptops with DVD drives. However, if you really need to read/write discs we strongly recommend leaving this off the wish list for your laptop and buying an external DVD drive.

If you're buying a large, bulky notebook or a gaming rig that you'll use only on a desk near an outlet, you don't have to worry about battery life. However, if you plan to use the laptop on your lap, even if it's at home and or work, you'll want at least 7 hours of endurance, with 9+ hours being ideal. 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, such as our reviews.

Support is only part of what makes a notebook brand worth your money. You also have to consider how the manufacturer stacks up to the competition in terms of design, value and selection, review performance, and other criteria. In our 2020 Best and Worst Laptop Brands report, HP placed first, followed by Asus and Dell. We've also rated gaming laptop brands, with MSI taking first place and Acer and Alienware rounding out the top three. Look out for updated versions of those reports in the coming months.

A CPU (central processing unit) is like the brain of a laptop. This tiny chip has a hand in processing all kinds of different information from your applications, operating system, and more. This makes it one of the most important things to look for when buying a laptop.

There are also some laptops with DDR5 RAM, which is the latest generation technology. You might want to consider getting DDR5 RAM if you want to buy a high-end laptop that will last for several years.

Choosing the right Operating System (OS) is the first and the most important step when buying a new laptop as it determines the environment you will work in. Therefore, verify that the pre-loaded OS meets your end-use needs.

Not only will you need to consider the amount of storage, but also the type of storage. Back in the day, hard disk drives were the favourite. With slimmer, lighter laptops in fashion, hard drives are not as popular. Instead, many laptop owners are opting for solid state drives, which are faster, quieter, and you guessed it, more expensive.

Storage differs not only in size, but in type. Hard disks are rarely found in laptops these days because people are buying slimmer and lighter laptops. The slimmer laptops do not support hard disk drives. Solid-state drives (SSD) have proven to work faster and more efficiently in laptops, but they are much more expensive than hard disk drive laptops.

Getting a comfortable gaming headset is important when buying a laptop for gaming, too. Besides the obviously important sound quality, you should look for a gaming headset with good sound isolation/noise cancelling, material quality, mic quality/adjustability, and surround sound capability.

A good consideration as well is perhaps pairing your laptop purchase with a docking station. That way, you can hook up your laptop to external monitors when you get home and enjoy your ample screen space for your code editor and all the windows you open while squashing bugs. Also, if your laptop of choice lacks ports, the docking station allows you to connect all your favorite computer accessories and peripherals.

Last but certainly not least, securing your laptop is important. There are several laptop security accessories you can consider, including laptop security locks, fingerprint readers and webcam covers. Some laptops come with some of these features built-in, but others do not.

We hope this guide helps you make an informed buying decision, no matter what your laptop needs are. CDW sells top-of-the-line laptops perfectly suited for all these objectives and more, from all the top brands including Acer, Apple, Dell, HP, Microsoft and many more. We get that you need a laptop perfect for you.

The laptop display is one major thing that a programmer should consider. That's because this is what you'll be looking at nearly 99% of the time when working. So, don't settle just for any display. Here's are some things to consider when picking out a device.

Whether you're buying a laptop for office work, programming, or gaming, today's minimum recommended RAM is 8GB. This amount will barely get you through, and if it's within your budget, you should always get a 16GB option.

If you plan to take notes or annotate presentation slides, consider a two-in-one convertible laptop that can switch easily between notebook and tablet forms. It usually comes with a touchscreen and a stylus.

With video conferencing on the rise, it is the time for the Web camera to shine. The 720p camera in most new laptops is more than adequate. When buying an external Web camera, a higher-end one may have a privacy cover that physically blocks the Web camera's view. Others may have an additional infrared camera that unlocks the computer via facial recognition.

It is good to have an HDMI port or USB Type-A ports as they do not require a dongle to use with compatible devices. If you can, spring for a laptop that supports the latest Wi-Fi 6 wireless standard that can achieve speeds approaching that of a Gigabit Ethernet port, when used with a Wi-Fi 6 router.

If portability is a top priority, then you should consider a laptop with a smaller screen, as they're designed to be light and slim. We'd recommend opting for an 11-13-inch ultrabook that weighs three pounds or less. If you're a regular traveler, the Dell XPS 13 (2018), with its barely-there bezels and decent battery life, is a great option. Plus, the black and grey model is snazzy as hell.

We'd recommend getting a laptop with a couple of USB 3.0 ports. This is useful for hooking up to a hard drive when you need to back up your files. SD card slots are also great, especially if you're a photo editor, as it makes transferring photos a breeze.

The 2-in-1 laptop combines the convenience and ease of a tablet with the utility of a keyboard. This category includes two most common designs: Convertible and detachable. The convertible can serve as a tablet by flipping the keyboard under the screen. The detachable is essentially a tablet with a removable keyboard but looks and feels like an ultra-thin laptop when combined. There are other types of 2-in-1s, such as the pull-forward design epitomized by the Microsoft Surface Studio Laptop, the HP Elite Folio, and the Acer ConceptD 7 Ezel.

In contrast to RAM, data in storage does not necessarily need to be in use. An installed program that is currently not active takes up storage space but not memory. Many modern laptops now use solid-state drives (SSDs) which are faster and more reliable than traditional hard drives, but more expensive when comparing identical capacities. 781b155fdc