Nine steps to choosing your perfect laptop
From brightness to batter y life, we reveal the key factors that will help you choose a winning laptop – and steer clear of the duds
Pick a platform
Windows remains the world’s most popular computing platform – but there’s another option. Chrome OS is gaining momentum, especially at the cheaper end of the market. For sure, if you want to edit photos and movies, or play the latest games, you should stick with Windows. But thanks to online services such as Google Docs and Office Online, you might be surprised by how much you can get done on a humble Chromebook.
What’s more, Chrome OS has recently had a big boost with the arrival of Google Play. This opens up a vast library of downloadable apps and games for compatible hardware – including all of the Chromebooks in this month’s Labs. The only catch is that most of these downloads were originally written for Android, so they may not be a perfect fit for a keyboardand-mouse interface – which is why Chromebooks are increasingly coming with touchscreens.
Chrome OS is also more secure than Windows – thanks to its highly locked-down architecture, we’ve never yet seen a single major malware attack on the platform – and it often comes with lower prices and better battery life. While Chrome OS isn’t a complete replacement for Windows, it’s an alternative that’s well worth considering.
Don’t succumb to performance anxiety
Nobody wants a slow computer, but in this price bracket you’re not going to get a blazing Core i7 processor. Happily, raw performance matters less than you might think. Typically, a laptop will be used for more casual, lightweight computing than a desktop. And as modern laptops are designed to prioritise responsiveness, a mid-range model will probably feel every bit as responsive as a desktop workhorse. As you’ll see on the following pages, our favourite system this month is far from the fastest.
That’s not to say that any old processor will do: Intel’s Atom range remains too sluggish to run Windows satisfactorily. And Intel’s integrated graphics are quite limited in their 3D capabilities; you’ll need a high-end chip to make recent games playable.
Finally, if you’re considering a Chromebook, don’t assume that all models will give similar performance. Big web apps such as Google Sheets can be frustratingly slow to open and edit on a low-spec Celeron processor: you don’t need a top-of-the-line CPU, but if you opt for a very lightweight system, you may regret it.
Scope out the screen
Regardless of which platform you choose, your laptop’s screen is the thing you’ll be staring at all day, so its quality has a huge impact on your overall experience.
The first thing to consider is size: a bigger screen is generally more pleasant to work with, but it makes the system less portable, as we discuss below. Then there’s resolution. A low resolution gives you less desktop space to work with, and on a big screen it translates to a low pixel density, causing text and graphics to appear blocky.
Then there’s the quality of the panel itself; two key measurements here are brightness and contrast. A brightness of around 300cd/m2 looks nice and vibrant; once you get much lower than that, things start to look a bit dull. Ideally, we also like to see a contrast ratio above 700:1, so the brightest whites are at least 700 times as bright as the darkest blacks. A lower contrast ratio can make things look drab and washed out.
Have you got the touch?
Microsoft doesn’t shout much about touch interfaces these days, but as the Universal Windows Platform gradually catches on, a touchscreen may become increasingly desirable. And as we’ve noted, through Google Play, Chrome OS has a huge range of touch-enabled apps for the taking. Not everyone needs a touchscreen, but bear in mind that it’s not something that can be retrofitted if you later change your mind.
There’s also the question of how you’ll use your touchscreen. Prodding an upright panel isn’t very practical or comfortable, so most touch-enabled laptops have a 360-degree hinge that lets you lie the screen down flat on the desk, or fold it around into “tablet mode”, with the keyboard at the rear. Of course, depending on the size of the device, it may or may not be practical to carry it around like a tablet.
“Your laptop’s screen is the thing you’ll be staring at all day, so its quality has a huge impact on your overall experience”
Battery matters
These days it’s quite common to use a laptop as your principal computing platform. It might live on your desk, therefore, and be rarely unplugged from the mains. If that’s your intention then battery life is probably not a major concern.
For those who like to carry their laptop around with them, however, battery life may be very important indeed – especially since batteries are typically sealed into the cases of modern laptops, so you can’t pack a spare for emergencies. Manufacturers typically cite battery capacities in watt hours or milliamp hours, but this isn’t hugely informative as different laptops drain power at different rates.
As we detail below, our battery tests offer a normalised comparison between all the laptops in this month’s Labs; Chromebooks, with their low-power processors, tend to last longer, but that isn’t something you can take for granted. Get the gigabytes right
As with the battery, laptop RAM is rarely upgradable nowadays, so be sure that what you get is ample for your needs. On Windows, we’d say 4GB of RAM is a bare minimum; 8GB is much more comfortable, but you’ll see little advantage to going higher than that. When it comes to the hard disk, bigger is almost always better, as it means you don’t have to worry about regular housekeeping.
There’s a caveat there, though: the largest drives still tend to be mechanical disks, rather than SSDs. We’d recommend you steer clear: once you’re used to an SSD, a traditional drive feels annoyingly slow and juddery by comparison.
On Chrome OS, RAM and storage tend to be much more limited than on Windows: low-end Chromebooks often come with just 2GB of RAM and 16GB of storage. Since the OS itself is lighter, and cloud storage is the order of the day, this isn’t necessarily a problem – but before investing, ask yourself whether you might need to run several heavy web applications at once, or store a lot of data locally for offline access. If so, seek out a more generously specified model.
On both Windows and Chrome OS, there’s also always the option of adding extra storage by plugging in an external USB device, or inserting an SD card. The former approach gets fiddly if you want to carry your laptop around, though, while the latter can be very slow compared to a real SSD. Make sure you’re connected All 11 of this month’s laptops support 802.11ac Wi-Fi, for the fastest connection speeds. Most also support Bluetooth – handy if, for example, you want to connect a wireless mouse, or some external speakers.
When it comes to physical connections, it’s more of a mixed bag. Many models offer just a single USB 3 port, alongside one or more old-school USB 2 connectors. HDMI ports aren’t quite ubiquitous, and only two systems this month offer VGA and wired Ethernet connections.
None of this has to be a showstopper. You can always hook up an external Ethernet interface via USB, and where HDMI isn’t offered, you can connect an external display using an adapter. If you need more USB ports, you can attach a hub. However, these extra peripherals can break or get lost in transit: whether or not that’s an issue is up to you.
Keys and pointers
As we noted above, the screen is important as it’s the part of the laptop you’ll be staring at all day. Similarly, the quality of the keyboard and touchpad is crucial, since these are the bits you’ll be physically interacting with. We always look for a keyboard with well-spaced keys, which respond positively beneath your fingers, and which don’t bow into the backplate as you type. To an extent, though, such preferences are subjective: there’s no substitute to taking a trip to your nearest retailer and trying out your prospective purchase for yourself.
It’s a similar situation with the touchpad. Obviously we’re looking for a pad that feels fluid and responsive; we also want it to be a decent size, as it’s distracting to keep bumping into the edges when you’re trying to move around the screen. A mediocre touchpad need not be the end of the world, however: in most scenarios you have the option of attaching an external mouse, as long as you don’t mind carrying one around with you. Carry that weight
If you intend to carry your laptop around with you more than once in a blue moon, it’s worth giving a little thought to physical portability. Clearly, a system with a dinky 11in screen is going to be more easily transportable than a 15.6in behemoth. But consider thickness too, as this can be the difference between a system that slips effortlessly into a satchel and one that barely fits.
Another consideration, naturally, is weight: this month’s contenders range from 790g to more than 2kg, so your shoulders won’t thank you if you make the wrong choice. Don’t forget that, if you need to bring the charger with you, that’s additional weight on top, not to mention an awkwardly shaped accessory that you’ll need to bundle into your bag. If portability is a major concern for you, then it might be smart to look for a system with sufficient battery life to let you leave your charger at home.
“Once you’re used to an SSD, a traditional mechanical drive feels annoyingly slow and juddery by comparison”