Buyer’s guide: The perfect laptop on a budget
Picking the right laptop doesn’t have to cost a fortune – as long as you’re clear about your needs
You can easily spend a grand or more on a high-end laptop, but that’s overkill for most of us. Whether you’re looking for peak performance, a high-quality touchscreen, heaps of storage or day-long battery life, there’s something out there for you. The only catch is that, for this price, you won’t find all of those things in a single laptop. So it pays to think about your priorities: work out what’s important to you and what you won’t miss.
1 Convertible or conventional?
One of the first questions to ask yourself is whether you want a laptop that can transform into a touchdriven tablet. If you don’t then that’s fine: the conventional design is far from dead and just over half of the systems on test this month are regular clamshell laptops with non-touch screens. However, if you want a device that can be carried around clipboard-style or propped up in “tent” mode then that immediately narrows down your options.
Note that the converse doesn’t necessarily apply. Most convertible laptops these days look and feel practically identical to conventional models, the key differences being a touchscreen and a 360° hinge that allows the screen to flip all the way around. If you like the look of (say) the HP Pavilion x360, but have no use for tablet mode, you can happily use it as a regular laptop, and maybe you will even find yourself tapping the touchscreen from time to time.
The one exception is Microsoft’s Surface devices. These are designed as tablets first and convert to a laptop-type format with optional snap-on keyboards. The concept works well, but the user experience is somewhat different to a regular laptop and connectivity is comparatively limited.
2 Have you seen the screen?
Not all screens are created equal. In this month’s Labs, you’ll find some truly breathtaking displays that deliver super-bright colours and inky blacks. You’ll also find less inspiring panels that make games and movies look drab. It’s important to read reviews such as ours, as these are the best guide to quality – especially if you won’t see the laptop before you buy. If that isn’t possible, take a close look at the specifications. Ideally we’d suggest you look for a screen with a peak brightness above 250cd/m2, and a contrast ratio of at least 1,000:1. It’s also a good sign if the manufacturer quotes sRGB or DCI-P3 colour coverage and, ideally, Delta E, which tell you how accurately each screen reproduces the full range of colours used online and for professional photo and video applications. If these are lacking, things won’t look exactly as they’re supposed to, but if you chiefly want to browse the web and do a spot of work, that doesn’t have to be a deal-breaker. The resolution of the screen is worth noting, too. Full HD (1,920 x 1,080) is the minimum we’d choose as a rule of thumb, as this gives a clear, sharp image for screens between 13.3in and 15in in size. A higher pixel density means sharper text and cleaner graphics. If you want a big screen, however, this often entails a lower pixel density, and the size of the chassis will impact on portability, too.
3 The import of portability
If desk space is tight, you may be looking to buy a laptop for a purely desk-based role. If you plan to work on the move, however, there are several things to think about. As we’ve already mentioned, size is an obvious one: a 17in laptop probably won’t fit neatly in a satchel or rucksack, nor is it particularly practical to carry around in tablet mode (although that hasn’t stopped Dell from giving you the option – see p88).
Even if you go for something smaller, weight can vary considerably across different laptop models: the 14in Chillblast Fusion Helios 4 tips the scales at a fairly modest 1.39kg, while the 15.6in PC Specialist Cosmos weighs 2.04kg. In our feature table overleaf, we’ve also listed the weight of each system’s charger, as neither of those models has the stamina to get you through a full day’s work away from the mains.
That brings us to the final portability factor: battery life. Again, if your laptop will be mostly based on your desk, this isn’t a huge issue. For a more peripatetic role, though, it’s well worth comparing battery life: some systems this month lasted more than
nine hours in our tests, while others gave up the ghost after barely more than three.
4 What a performance
You don’t want a slow computer, do you? Well, the good news is that very nearly every laptop in this month’s Labs has the power to keep Excel, Chrome and even Photoshop motoring along (the one exception being the ultralightweight Microsoft Surface Go). However, some models are certainly faster than others, as our graphs on p90 reveal – worth bearing in mind if you have heavy workloads to process.
It’s the same story with gaming performance. Most of this month’s systems use Intel’s integrated UHD 620 Graphics, which is powerful enough to make 3D games perfectly playable – albeit perhaps not at the highest detail settings. Dell and PC Specialist have splashed out on discrete GPUs and these have vastly superior 3D capabilities, as our graphs once more reveal: if you’re serious about gaming, a discrete graphics chip is a must.
As for memory, 8GB is perfectly fine for almost any role, but 16GB ensures that even uncommonly big tasks or demanding games should run smoothly. Since you normally can’t upgrade the RAM after purchase, it’s worth asking yourself now if you’re likely to need that extra headroom.
Finally, let’s talk about storage. A 256GB SSD is a good practical minimum these days, and that’s what most mid-price laptops offer. Any less and, once you’ve got Windows 10 and a few applications installed, space will start to feel tight. When it comes to performance, even a bog-standard SATA SSD will let Windows run smoothly, but a faster NVMe model can give things a bit of extra snap. You’ll find storage performance comparisons for each system in this month’s Labs overleaf.
Even if you’re shopping for a convertible laptop, we’ll wager that you’re going to end up doing a lot of typing on your new laptop – so a decent keyboard is a must. Thankfully, most of the models on test in this month’s Labs offer pretty good keys, with decent spacing, a positive action and a solid backplate that doesn’t feel bendy or spongy as you type.
The touchpad is important too, unless you’re planning to rely on an external mouse (or if you’re intending to use the touchscreen as your primary input method, although we doubt that applies to many people). A good sized pad means you can effortlessly swipe the mouse pointer to where you want it to be, without your finger repeatedly bumping into the edge, and a positive clicking action makes your interactions with Windows feel more definite and confident. You might also be interested in things such as webcam capabilities, fingerprint readers and keyboard backlights; you’ll find these features detailed for each laptop on test in our feature table overleaf.
6 Hooking up
Plenty of people use their laptops as standalone systems, and that’s fine. If you intend to connect peripherals and accessories, however, you’ll need the ports to do it. All the systems in this month’s Labs offer at least an HDMI connector for an external display and some sort of USB connectivity, too – but the precise details vary. The Asus VivoBook S432F gives you twin USB 3 sockets, plus two USB 2 ports and a USB-C connector, while at the other end of the scale, Microsoft’s Surface devices have just one connector each. SD card readers and Gigabit Ethernet connectors are also by no means universal, so if you want those conveniences, you should check for them before you buy.
It’s worth giving a little thought to the accessory ecosystem, too. Buy into Microsoft’s Surface family, for example, and you can add on a custom case, a cover, a stylus and even a dock that adds extra ports. Smaller system-builders such as Chillblast and PC Specialist can’t provide such bespoke add-ons, but they can often offer a wider range of customisation options in the first place.
“Very nearly every laptop in this month’s Labs has the power to keep Excel, Chrome and even Photoshop motoring along”
7 Personal services
That brings us to the final consideration: what sort of service can you expect from each laptop manufacturer? UK-based companies tend to offer more generous warranty terms and, if you need support, you can expect a more personal touch than you’ll get from a big global corporation. However, you will need to pay for the cost of shipping if the cover is return-to-base (RTB), while many of the big brands will cover this – or rely on you returning the laptop to the shop where you bought it from.
To give you a broader idea of which companies assemble the most dependable hardware, and how attentive they are when things go wrong, the feature table includes each company’s reliability and support ratings, as voted for by PC Pro readers in last year’s Technology Excellence Awards.