Seven questions you need to ask before buying 1 How do I choose the right processor?
Buying a laptop on a budget means weighing up each factor and making sacrifices in some areas. Here are the tough questions you need to tackle
If there was a pyramid of mobile processing power, AMD’s Ryzen 4000 Series would sit at the top. The new Ryzen 5000 Series is technically faster still, but you won’t find them in sub-£1,000 laptops for a while. The Ryzen 3 is the least powerful in the range (with four cores, which we’ll come to in a moment), while the six-core Ryzen 5 series is roughly 50% faster and the Ryzen 7, with eight cores, sits at the peak.
Next in our pyramid: Intel’s 11thgeneration Core processors. These are denoted by an “11” at the start of their names, such as the Core i7-1165G7 in the ZenBook 14 UX425. Similarly to Ryzen chips, the pecking order goes Core i3, Core i5 and Core i7. Intel’s naming convention holds an Easter egg too: the Core i5 and Core i7 11thgen chips include a speedy integrated graphics chip, called Iris Xe, which is denoted by either “G5” or “G7” at the end. If it says “G1”, the graphics chip is older and slower.
Several manufacturers are still selling laptops that use AMD’s Ryzen 3000 Series and Intel’s tenth-gen
Core processors. They will be speedy enough for general use for years to come, but the built-in graphics in both families are slower.
Finally, as promised, we should talk cores. As a rule of thumb, the more cores you have, the quicker that demanding tasks such as video editing will be completed. If you aren’t going to be using your laptop for intensive jobs, though, it isn’t worth paying over the odds for an eight-core processor.
2 How much memory (RAM) do I need?
This is a much easier one to answer: while Windows will work with 4GB of RAM, it’s happier with 8GB. Only those who use demanding applications will need 16GB or 32GB of RAM.
3 How important is portability to me?
If you’re constantly on the move – a student going to lectures or a worker who will return to the office commute one day– it’s worth choosing a laptop weighing 1.2kg or lighter. T h e s e t e n d to be slimmer and easier to slip into a bag. Also take note of the battery life because this will dictate whether you need to bung the charger in there; many lightweight laptops include
“As a rule of thumb, the more cores you have, the quicker that demanding tasks such as video editing will be completed”
lightweight chargers too, and we include their weights in the feature table overleaf.
If your laptop is going to spend most of its life on a desk, there’s not much point worrying about weight. Anything under 2kg is fine, but as laptops approach this weight you won’t want to lug it about the house every hour. If you know you’ll be moving from room to room room, try not to go over 1.5kg.
4 What about abo screen size?
The yin to portability’s po b yang, screen size is one of o the biggest decisions you need to make. If this is going to be your y daily machine, you might migh find that h a 13in screen is a fraction fr too small. 14in screens are that much more comfortable comfo to use, and by comparison compa 15.6in screens can seem absolutely enormous. enormo
However, if you you’re using a laptop for d daily work at home, we strongly recommend recomme that you partner it with a monitor. Ideally, c choose a monitor with a USB-C U connection and a laptop l that can charge via USB-C (again, we list l this in the feature table) t because this will make m your desk that much mu neater. Whilst you’re at it, mouse and keyboard y sets are cheap and make a huge difference to posture.
5 Do I need a touchscreen – or even a 2-in-1?
Few people need a touchscreen on their laptop: it’s only an essential inclusion l if you want to draw or write on the surface. Plus, , there’s an inevitable downside because it’s one more thing to go wrong and, should the screen break, it can be expensive to fix.
All of that said, a touchscreen is nice to have. Once you’re accustomed to a touchscreen laptop, you start instinctively ely using it to prod windows and swipe along, just like using a phone. And d if you choose a 2-in-1 design such h as the Dell Inspiron 15 7000 on p90, it adds a whole new dimension n to a machine: you can put it into tent nt mode for watching films and use the screen surface as a notepad d or drawing surface.
That t means you shouldn’t rule a touchscreen hscreen or 2-in-1 out entirely, ely, but just make sure you’ll ll use it to justify the extra cost t (and weight) – as well as the e potential long-term repair pair costs.
6 How much storage do I need?
While y you can get away with a 128GB SSD in a laptop (note that none of the machines on test this month include a slow, mechanical hard disk, and we strongly advise against choosing a machine with such a disk), you may find yourself fighting a constant storage battle.
Consequently, you won’t regret paying extra for 256GB if you can afford it. The jump from 256GB to 512GB gives welcome space, but will pay particular dividends if you know you’ll be downloading games or handling large media files.
7 Are there any other gotchas I need to look out for?
Yes, but how important they are depends on your usage. Take a good look at the connectivity in particular, with many laptops shifting to USB-C connectors alone. This could be a pain if you’re still reliant on USB-A peripherals, although buying a USB-C monitor or a port replicator will solve that problem.
In short, it pays to look closely at the detail, so read through the feature table overleaf and take a look at the peripherals (like monitors, printers, scanners and TV sticks) that you intend to connect to your new laptop.