Laptops have become necessary and are an essential part of our day to day life. Buying a laptop is not that simple as no matter what your price category is, there are always too many options to choose from. Actually, there is no single best laptop since there is no single kind of laptop user.

Here we have listed the set of criteria that every user should consider before buying a new machine.

LAPTOP SIZE

Size does matter when it comes to laptops. Most of the time it depends on what you intend to do with your laptop. Laptop size isn’t like the RAM or ROM which can be upgraded at any later stage. This is something to consider upfront so choose wisely. Laptop size starts from 11.6-inches and goes way up to 17.3-inches. If portability is your priority, then you must go for a smaller size but you could face limitations of high-end Intel CPUs and or graphics cards. If you do kind of work which requires a larger display then you should go for large size laptops which tend to be heavier.

Whatever you do, keep in mind there is no one size that fits needs of everyone. Your laptop usage will define the size of your machine.

LAPTOP SCREEN RESOLUTION

A comfortable screen is what you definitely need as you will be looking at your screen for hours. These days, touchscreens are very common. Unfortunately, they can add a glossiness to the display which is sometimes undesirable. Glossy screens lead to reflections, which are a definite negative if you’re gaming, watching content or editing images and video content.

Next up, be sure to look at the resolution on any laptop you’re thinking of buying. A 1920×1080-pixel resolution (Full HD) should be considered if you want plenty of space to line up windows and keep things in view. Nowadays modern laptops also offer 4K resolutions. However, these high-end display panels are generally costly.

Lastly, viewing angles are extremely important. A laptop screen that touts IPS (in-plane switching) technology offers the widest viewing angles and the best user comfort. So always prefer a laptop with an IPS display.

KEYBOARD QUALITY

If your work involves long typing sessions, a comfortable keyboard is a must-have. You don’t want to get a keyboard that packs in every key under the sun (think keyboards that have squished in number pads) because that can translate to poor overall user experience when hunting for specifics like the arrow or delete keys.

You want a keyboard that has a comfortable layout with full-sized keys and some space around the arrow keys. The keys should have adequate travel on the down stroke and snappy responsiveness when you let them go. Make sure the keyboard is also backlit so that you can type with an easier view on the keys in dimly lit environments.

CPU SPEED

For the best performance like multitasking and multimedia tasks, you need to have Intel`s core based CPUs (Core i3, Core i5, or Core i7) in your laptop. These days, most of the machines have Core i5 CPUs. However, if you still want more out of your laptop and the best performance, go for the Intel Core i7 processor and enjoy the ultimate dream machine experience.

RAM SIZE

A few years back, 4GB RAM was considered for the ultimate laptops. But these days, you want to consider 8Gb of RAM as a minimum. If you want to own a powerhouse go for 16GB RAM. Gamers also use 32GB RAM systems as modern games demands such for the best performance.

More RAM allows for more applications to be run at the same time, and for more data to be quickly accessible by the system at any one time, which comes in handy for tasks such as editing photos or video content.

STORAGE DRIVES

Hard drives, these days are mostly out of favor, especially for the lighter laptops. Typical hard drives can be slow, bulky, and may produce noticeable heat and noise.

A solid-state drive (known as SSD) on the other hand, is faster, light in weight, and are silent as well. Stick to an SSD for your new laptop and you’ll love the speed with which it can load programs, access your data, and also how quickly it can boot up your system. SSD however, don’t offer more space which means with more space your SSD is going to be expensive. SSD generally comes in 128GB, 256GB, and 512GB but costs more than 1TB or 2TB hard drive.

There are also NVMe solid-state drives which are much faster than traditional SSDs but also more expensive.

LAPTOP BATTERY LIFE

If you ask a manufacturer, they will probably say ‘battery life is almost never indicative of what the real-world experience of using a laptop is like’. This seems to be true in a sense that, there are too many variables affecting the battery life. There is screen resolution, screen brightness, the number and type of applications that you are using on your laptop and whether or not you actively remain connected to Wi-Fi or Bluetooth devices.

The operating system on which laptop is running also plays a major role in determining the battery life. For example, ultrabooks and convertibles running on Chrome OS tend to offer superior battery life than those running on Windows 10.

If you are using programs that need lots of processing, lots of videos and other graphics usage and gaming, then your battery will definitely drain sooner.

Do check the rating of the battery in watt-hours (Wh) or milliamp-hours (mAh). The larger these figures are, the longer the battery life is.