How to choose a laptop for home
In recent years, the choice of a good laptop for work and entertainment has become so great, that an inexperienced buyer can easily get confused in all this variety. For, to make a purchase of a new device was easy and enjoyable for you, we have made a number of useful and detailed recommendations. From this material you will learn all about it, how to choose a laptop for home and work on the main characteristics in 2017 year. For clarity, all popular classes of devices will be considered, all their characteristics are analyzed in detail, as well as selected the world's most attractive brands.
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Popular laptop companies
so, first you need to decide, which company to choose a laptop, and then decide on the parameters. As in the case of clothing or cars, The manufacturer plays a very important role in choosing a computer. The name of some companies alone gives customers confidence in the quality and flawless performance of their products. This is especially true, of course, Apple Corporation. A line of their ultrabooks, called the MacBook, regularly receives high marks from critics, awards from authoritative profile publications, and also appears in various television shows and movies. The quality of each Apple device is really impeccable, but for all this splendor has to pay a hefty price.
If the design, you do not want to sacrifice quality and productivity, but you need an inexpensive laptop, then you should pay attention to the ASUS brand. This company primarily specializes in the production of components for desktop computers, therefore, she definitely does not need to have experience. Perfect fit of details, strong case, good matrix, coordinated work - all these are laptops from ASUS. So, prices for their products can not be called the lowest on the market, but they are, all the same, more attractive, than on Apple ultrabooks.
Another popular brand, present on the market for almost 80 years, this is Hewlett-Packard. It's hard to imagine, that once the company started with the production of measuring instruments, after all, now among its products you can find many inexpensive, but good laptops for home and office. In the arsenal of the manufacturer are as inexpensive solutions for a wide range of buyers, and business class models. HP products have gained widespread popularity due to the excellent quality of laptops and attractive price tags for each of them.
DELL and MSI started their work almost at the same time. Even the devices from these famous brands are a bit similar. And it's not about design, after all, each of the manufacturers is individual and very attractive, and in the very approach to the release of new devices. Example, if you need a gaming laptop, choose one of these companies, after all, each of them has a number of productive models for a reasonable price. Also, both manufacturers are flexibly adapted to the buyer, offering excellent options in the middle and lower price segments.
But, if you need the most budget laptops, it is better to pay attention to Acer and Lenovo. The product line of each company offers the simplest devices, cost of 2-3 hundreds of dollars, multimedia class solutions, the average price of which is $ 1000, as well as progressive gaming laptops, the high price of which is fully justified by their capabilities. None of the companies is afraid of bold experiments, thanks to which they are surrounded by a huge army of fans. All the same Acer is able to offer an incredible 21-inch gaming laptop worth in 5 thousands of dollars, the number of technological innovations in which exceeds even the most daring expectations and assumptions.
When choosing a laptop company, you can pay attention to all the manufacturers we present, every company produces good devices in all price segments. If your budget is low you may prefer Lenovo, DELL or HP, well, if you are a connoisseur of sophistication and style, it is better to choose from Apple and Asus!
Determined by the type and class of laptop
In the process of choosing a laptop, the user needs to decide on many different nuances. In addition to the brand, technical characteristics and the optimal price range, the buyer must also clearly set goals for himself, for which the device is purchased. So fans will not get what they want from ultrabooks, and fans of lightness and autonomy will definitely not be delighted with the mass and size characteristics of game models. The advice of experts and professionals will help you decide on the choice of the optimal laptop.
Netbooks
Among all types of laptops, which are presented on the market today, compactness enthusiasts often prefer netbooks. Due to the minimal size and weight, they do not take up much space in a backpack or bag and are great for working for breakfast in a cafe or while traveling to work on public transport. The screen diagonal in such laptops varies from 10 to 12 inches, but most often on sale you can find 11-inch solutions.
Another significant advantage of netbooks is their autonomy, but its downside is not very good performance. The processor installed in netbooks will be enough except for office applications and the browser, and even then the latter will not be able to "hold" many open tabs due to the small amount of RAM. But if the capabilities of the laptop are not important to you, and size plays an important role, then it is almost impossible to find something more attractive.
Ultrabooks
However, an alternative, if desired, find still possible. It can become, among other, ultrabooks. This is a class of thin and light laptops with a good processor, quality screen, comfortable keyboard and minimal thickness. In some models of ultrabooks, the manufacturer also installs very productive video adapters, which, though, do not impress with the graphics in the games, but most modern projects are able to "pull" on the minimum and even medium quality settings. The main advantage of this class of laptops is their lightness and small size. The diagonal of the screen in ultrabooks is usually larger, than the netbooks order 13-14 inches, but if you want, you can easily find compact solutions.
Transformers
Transformers are also a very interesting solution. According to reviews of laptops of this class, they are very convenient for those users, who are looking for a universal solution for all occasions. Depending on the dimensions, "Iron" and the method of transformation, such models may be similar to ordinary laptops and tablets. In the latter case, it saves on the purchase of a second device.
budget devices
Still thinking about it, which laptop to choose for intermittent home use and light-hearted tasks? Pay attention to the budget segment. You will not see anything outstanding in such devices: cheap plastic and not very good assembly, low RAM and mediocre display, slow drive and low performance processor. This option is suitable for users with very limited financial resources, as well as people, looking for a good "typewriter", which will not be used too often.
Average price range
If you want to choose the right laptop for work, then you need the middle price segment. For a reasonable price, such devices will offer you good performance, good matrix, pleasant materials of the case and silence in work. exept this, office models usually have good autonomy, which is important for users, are rarely "in the socket". They are suitable in that case, if you haven't decided yet, which laptop to choose for school or university.
professional models
For web designers, photographers, editor and people of other creative and not very professions need productive models with excellent screen quality. At the same time when choosing "iron" all attention is mainly paid to CPU power, after all, for most tasks will be enough for the simplest video card or even a built-in graphics core. So for processing of pictures the bright display with excellent transfer of color will be required, and video editing and model rendering will require significant processing power and a large amount of RAM.
Gaming
Last in line, but no less important are the game models. These are laptops with Intel processors and NVIDIA discrete cards, after all, it is this "iron" can provide the best gaming experience. However, such devices must have a large IPS matrix with a diagonal of 15,6 inches or more, as well as the ability to be at least Full HD. The price of such laptops, of course, high, but you can play the latest games at high graphics settings absolutely anywhere.
Basic selection criteria
Before going to the store you need to understand well, how to choose a laptop by parameters. If you have already decided on the class of the device, then you need to choose a processor, video card, drive type, display diagonal and housing materials. Most manufacturers today offer several modifications of their devices, so if the buyer can decide for himself, which chipset is better to choose for laptop use and with what graphics options, It is better to combine RAM and built-in storage.
Housing and mounting
The appearance and quality of the assembly - not the first, what to look for when buying a laptop. Even the most productive and autonomous models will not give you the desired pleasure of work, if in the torsion test the device almost falls apart, and the display unit constantly oscillates as you type.
In most cases, such problems are observed in plastic cases, although in expensive models of laptops and this material can be very high quality. But the best all-metal models, strength and durability of which are at a very high level.
Particular attention should be paid to the display hinges. They should be tight enough, so that the screen can remain static even with a slight movement of the laptop on the table, but at the same time provide the ability to easily open the device. Ideally, this should be the case, as in Apple's ultrabooks: they can be easily opened with one hand, but then the display unit is fixed.
We recommend that you check the device for squeaks before buying, backlash of fastenings and deflections of plastic near the keyboard block, these are the most vulnerable places of this type of products!
Choose the diagonal and screen manufacturing technology
If you plan to work on a PC for a long time, then you definitely need a laptop with a good screen, because the low quality of the matrix will quickly tire the eyes. The choice of screen diagonal depends, mainly, from your needs. If the laptop most of the time will be used as a desktop PC, then you can afford to take a device with a 17.3-inch diagonal. But for regular travel, even the classic models are not suitable 15,6 inches, and it is better to dwell on more compact options.
Currently, the two most popular technologies for the production of displays for mobile PCs are TN and IPS. And due to a significant reduction in production prices of the latter, they appear regularly even in low-cost laptops for easy operation. The advantages of the IPS matrix are excellent color reproduction, perfect white display, good viewing angles. The disadvantages include only the high cost of devices on which this type of matrix is installed. TN panels are more common and have a low cost, but their main drawback is ??very bad viewing angles.
processor
The CPU is a key component of any computer. Today, the buyer can choose between chips from AMD and Intel. The first attracts attention with low cost. If you want to buy an inexpensive laptop, then for the minimum price you can find a solution based on AMD processors. Intel, in turn, differs in the best productivity and economy, but the price is a little higher.
- Manufacturers of Celeron and E series chips are used for budget laptops.
- Office solutions are already equipped with Pentium and A4-A6, respectively, a
- In the middle class of devices are Intel Core i3-i5 or A8 from AMD.
- The gaming segment is fully occupied by Intel products, so far AMD has nothing to oppose the high-performance mobile chips Intel Core i7 families Skylake and Kaby Lake.
For a more detailed picture, we compare the advantages and disadvantages of Intel and AMD processors:
| AMD | Intel |
| advantages | advantages |
| affordable price | Fast work in applications |
| Good value for money | low energy consumption |
| multiplatform | More optimized
applications and games |
| Easy adjustment to the motherboard | The latest generation with the index "K" has good overclocking potential |
| Enable overclocking on 10-20% | Perfectly set ??that HP is one of the best notebook manufacturers combining design and high speed
with RAM |
| Stable work | |
| durability | |
| shortcomings | shortcomings |
| Higher energy consumption | With the release of a new line of processors, the platform changes |
| Short service life | High cost |
| Cache memory 2 and 3 level operates at a frequency lower than Intel | Requires good cooling |
Given the pros and cons of each manufacturer, it is better to choose of course Intel. If the laptop is not selected for complex tasks (work with office programs, watching videos and surfing the internet) and the budget is not big then AMD will be more than enough!
graphics
Video adapter, as you know, is responsible for displaying images and working with graphics applications. If you want to not just sit on the internet and watch movies, but also run advanced games, then you need a laptop with a good discrete graphics card. They are still released by the same AMD, and its competition in this field is already NVIDIA. Unfortunately, but even here the former lose to the latter in terms of productivity. But at the cost of AMD still remains the most attractive option.
Quite the opposite picture is observed in the market of integrated graphics. Here, at a lower price, AMD outperforms Intel in terms of performance. No wonder the latter recently decided to conclude an agreement under which AMD will install its graphics chips in Intel processors.
The most popular video cards:
- NVIDIA (GeForce GTX 960M, GeForce GTX 980 SLI, GeForce GTX 1060, Quadro M4000M)
- AMD (Radeon R9 M290X Crossfire, Radeon R9 M485X, FirePro W7170M)
If you are not going to run modern games, we advise you to pay attention to the following options in terms of price, quality and performance: Radeon R7 M445, GeForce 920MX, GeForce GT 940MX!
RAM
Today, when choosing a laptop, you can decide for yourself, how much RAM you need, after all, the same model is offered in several configurations. You will need no more for normal office work 4-8 gigabytes of RAM, but more complex tasks, as editing or rendering, use much more RAM. As for her class, then it is best to pay attention to DDR4, although LPDDR3 models are still doing well.
built-in memory
In addition to the volume, the user can also select the type of drive. Again, to ensure the maximum speed of the laptop, you should prefer an SSD, instead of the hard drive. However, this option significantly raises the price of the device, therefore, in the budget segment it can be found only in small quantities (32-64 GB). In this case, there will be no other options, how to pay attention to the spindle speed. It can be in laptops 5400 or 7200 rpm, and a higher rate will provide high reading speed / record. As for expensive models (professional or gaming purposes), then you can buy them without an SSD only if, if you install the solid state drive yourself.
For fast and efficient work, it is better to buy a laptop with an SSD of about 128 GB, if you do not plan to store a lot of movies and photos on it, then you will have enough of this data warehouse!
autonomy of work
By and large, it depends on the class of the device. Example, at the same sizes of the case and capacity of the accumulator in budgetary and game models duration of work from the battery between them can have appreciable differences. In inexpensive and office solutions, the average figure usually ranges from 5 to 8 hours, and gaming laptops can last from half an hour to three (depending on the load). Ultrabooks can already be found on the market today, energy-efficient platform which allows you to work from the battery around the clock.
wireless interfaces
Special ??you will not get a difference in the choice of this parameter. If you are not interested in a laptop that is too old, then it must have Wi-Fi with support for all current formats (including ac), as well as Bluetooth versions 4.0 and above. The first module is required to connect to a wireless router and access the Internet, and thanks to the bluetooth module, you can easily transfer files between devices and connect all sorts of devices (mice, headphones and even printers).
But what happens in laptops is not very common, so it's 3G. With this module you can access the network from absolutely anywhere where there is coverage of the operator, even if you can't find available Wi-Fi networks there. Is it advisable to overpay for such an option? If you need it all the time, then yes. Otherwise, it will be much cheaper to buy a separate USB modem.
connectors
The number of connectors in a laptop depends largely on the class of the device. Example, due to the dimensions and features of the case in netbooks and ultrabooks, the set of ports may be minimal. Many of the latest models of compact devices from ASUS and Apple and there are several USB Type-C, and all other connectors are available with special adapters. If you are buying a laptop with full body size, then the set of ports needs special attention. Full video inputs must be present on the case (at least HDMI and VGA), minimum 3 USB Type-A, Ethernet, card reader, as well as audio (preferably not combined). Gaming and professional laptop models may need even more ports (peripheral connection, external drives and so on).
Operating Systems
Most modern laptop models are equipped with Windows operating systems, and approximately 85% of them can boast the most relevant 10 version. A small number of laptops also come with Linux, and if the user is forced to pay a slightly higher price for the installed Windows, than for a similar device without an installed system, then Linux is distributed completely free, therefore, it does not affect the cost.
The third most popular market player is OS X.. This system is present only on Apple devices. The choice of a particular OS depends, again, from your goals. So for professional work with graphics it is better to choose a laptop with a system from Apple, after all, many useful applications are written just for her. Gamers should pay attention to Windows 10, which became even more attractive to gamers after the release of the Creators Update.
Laptop care
Even the most expensive and powerful laptop will not last you long, if you don't take care of it properly. A number of standard procedures must be performed periodically for the smooth and smooth operation of the device:
- Cleaning. Dust gradually accumulates in the cooling system and other components inside the housing. Dirt also appears under the buttons on the keyboard over time, garbage and even leftover food. All this negatively affects the work of the laptop, causing the keys to stick, overheating, hangs and other problems. Timely cleaning will help avoid these problems, and provide long life for your device.
- Replacement of thermal paste. Another procedure, which must be performed to prevent overheating, spontaneous shutdown and even failure of components of your PC. Depending on the frequency of operation, replacement of thermal grease in a laptop should be carried out on average every 2-3 years. At the same time it is necessary to put it in a very thin layer, after all, your "generosity" in this case will not eliminate overheating, and will make it worse.
- Garbage removal from the OS. Reinstalling the OS greatly speeds up the operation of devices, do it once a year or use garbage cleaning programs such as: Clean master.
Useful features
Absolutely any modern model of laptops for home use or professional work has a number of additional keys, which can be used to perform such tasks:
- adjust the sound and screen brightness
- open browser and / or email client
- player control and so on
But such features of mobile computers will not surprise anyone, and therefore manufacturers often offer customers other interesting and useful features. For example, gaming laptop models often have a number of keys for writing macros, which are very useful in games, and Apple has added Touch Bar touchscreen to older models of its new MacBook instead of the usual function keys. Some laptops come with small subwoofers, that improve sound quality, others are equipped with a mechanical keyboard, and others are able to track the movement of users' eyes.
Certainly, many of these applications will not be needed by the average user, but others, vice versa, are able to become extremely useful. So to gamblers, in addition to the macro entry already mentioned above, I will like laptops with two HDMI and older cards 10 series from NVIDIA. The average user will not understand the feasibility of such a set of ports, but the game lover will immediately notice for himself a fully ready configuration for VR.
conclusion
Due to the wide variety of models, to choose a laptop for home, work or study in 2017 year today is possible without any effort. The main thing is to first set a clear purpose of the purchase and indicate the approximate budget, which you can spend on your computer. Then you need to pay attention to the important parameters of the laptop, filtering on them available on the market models.
