The perils of buying

Read t he sma ll pri nt ca refu lly or you m ig ht end u p wit h a specificat ion you d id n’ t expec t, or spend h u nd reds of pou nds more t ha n you need

You might think that having chosen your preferred laptop from this month’s Labs, the actual purchase would be easy. Sadly, manufacturers and stores sometimes seem hell-bent on making it as difficult as possible.

For a start, they usually sell what’s essentially the same product in a range of different configurations, featuring different processors, screen technologies and storage capacities. They then label these with model numbers of such complexity that you could spend months trying to work out the minor distinctions.

To make things even more complex, some stores may still be selling what’s effectively the same laptop but with last year’s components inside. The cheaper model may include a sixth-generation Core i5 rather than a seventh- generation processor (look for a product name that goes Core i5-7xxx rather than Core i5-6xxx; the 7 denotes a seventh-generation chip). Others sell their own variations, either to provide a cheaper option or (more cynically) to ensure they can’t be beaten on a price comparison.

How do you know you’re getting what we’ve tested? Well, in some cases you won’t want or need the exact same product; review samples tend to reflect the higher end of a product line-up, and there’s no point spending, say, £2,149 on the Core i7/512GB Surface Pro if the Core i5/256GB model fits your needs for £900 less.

Manufacturers are also all too aware that these thin-and-light models aren’t user-upgradable, allowing them to demand massive price hikes for additional RAM or a larger SSD. For instance, the price of the Surface Pro creeps up by £280 for an extra 4GB of RAM and 128GB of capacity.

It makes sense to compare prices across the same spec from different manufacturers to make sure you’re getting the best deal, and remember that a stylus or backlit keyboard that’s an “optional” accessory with one product could be bundled in with comparable alternatives.

The best way to get exactly what you want is to make a note of the manufacturer’s part number or SKU. Where possible, we publish this for the exact model tested in the feature table on p80. With some products that ship with various custom options, that’s not always possible – but we try to provide a specific offer code to help identify what we’ve reviewed.

“To make things more complex, some stores may be selling what’s effectively the same laptop but with last year’s components”