In this post, we will be looking at the laptop buying guide this year. I will be covering how much you should spend on a new best laptop in the laptop buying guide. There are many different opinions out there, and many people make you spend more than you should spend, and many people will make you spend less than you need to pay.
So I’m going to try and cover everything you need to know about how much you should spend. There are many options, some options cost 300 dollars, and some options cost 3000 dollars. I understand how overwhelming a laptop buying guide can be for you to decide how much you need to spend when you buy a new best laptop.
I’m going to try my best to cover everybody’s needs and put it all in the laptop buying guide You will come to know how much you need to spend on your new laptop.
Some people say you need to always go for the Intel Core i7 other people say you need to spend 2000 dollars, but none is true. I’m going to cover how much you need to spend depending on what you need. I will give you every single budget range that exists.
I’m going to try and tell you who should go for each budget range. I’m going to try my best to explain and simplify the process of picking a new laptop. So I’m going to tell you why you want an i3 or i5 or Intel Core i7 and who needs more RAM and who needs less RAM. What storage options there are, and what do you need to look out for when buying the best laptop.
This laptop buying guide will help you to pick up an incredibly unique type of laptop for you.
Based on thickness, size, and weight, manufacturers of laptops give three convenient names to laptops.
- Netbooks – usually 9 or 10 inches in size.
- Ultrabooks – thin and stylish best laptops.
- Notebooks – usually thick and heavy.
Key Points
Thick and best laptops are convenient for upgrades, repairs, and replacement of parts. Ultrabooks are stylish and meant for outdoor use, but processors are usually slower to reduce overheating.
Select the one that is best as per your use. You need to find answers to so many questions to buy one laptop that is best suited for you! We need to find the best laptop that response fast.
Laptop Buying Guide to choose your dream laptop
1. CPU
The 1st important thing in the Laptop Buying Guide is the CPU. So with CPUs, you have two leading brands you’ve got Intel and AMD. There are some others, but those aren’t very popular, so we’ll be focusing on these. So far, Intel has got a Core i3, Core i5, Core i7, and Core i9.
The i3 is an entry-level performance CPU, Core i5 is mid-level performance, Intel Core i7 is high-level performance, and i9 is ultra high-level performance. So what do you need to know about the CPUs is a Core i3 typically has two Cores, Core i5 has four or six Cores, Core i7 has four, six, or eight Cores, and Core i9 has tons of Cores.
What is a Core in the CPU
You need to know about that, so a Core is like how many brains are in the CPU., So let’s say I’m going to throw you a math equation, and it’s going to be something very complicated. If you have six different Cores or six brains solving the math equation, then they can solve it faster because you’ve got six other people trying to solve one challenging task.
However, if I ask you something like one plus one, you don’t need six brains for that. So if you have a two-Core CPU and you handle simple tasks like 1 plus 1 equals 2, that will be easy for this you don’t need too many Cores.
You don’t always need the highest Cores because, for simple tasks, you will never need six or eight or more Cores. Because 1 or 2 Core CPUs are usually more than enough for simple tasks.
CPU Types
The Core i3, Core i5, Core i7, and Core i9 are split up into three tiers, so the i3 usually has different tiers. You’ve got some entry-level options in the i3 like i3-8109U, you’ve got some mid-option like i3-8130U, you’ve got some high-end options like i3-8145U.
To know which one will be better than the other one, make sure to look at the last three digits on the CPU. The last three digits are usually the model number of the CPU, and the higher those digits are generally, the better the CPU is going to be.
CPU Generations
Then we have generations, so CPUs also have different generations. So the generations almost like saying what year the CPU came out. The first CPUs that came out were first-generation CPUs. The latest CPUs now, as in 2023, are eleventh-generation CPUs.
To know if you are getting a first or an eleventh generations CPU, look at the first digit or first two digits after the i7 as shown here i7-8750U, i7-9750U, or i7-10750U. You’ve got i7- and you’ve got a digit, so look at the first digit or look at the first two digits if it’s a 10.
So if it’s an 8750, look at the first digit, and if it’s a 10750, you look at the first two digits, and you get a number. That number tells you what generation the CPU is. So if you go for an old first-generation CPU, you’re going to get the worst performance in the world.
CPU Speed
As technology advances, CPUs are getting much faster, so always stay within at least three generations of what is currently new. As of 2023, right now, the latest CPU is of the eleventh generation. So try to get a CPU between the eleventh generation to maybe an eighth-generation.
But don’t go for anything below that; those will be all the laptops they will be, usually much slower and much less efficient. Also, you’re going to have much lower battery life and slower processing. You must stay with the most recent generations of CPUs to run your best laptop smoothly.
Overview
So here’s a quick overview, i3 is best for simple tasks like surfing the web, writing some documents, working with Excel, or watching some YouTube or NetFlix. If you’re going for a bit more complex stuff, you try to do some photo editing or maybe some video editing, but you aren’t going to be so professional at it, then Core i5 will be fine.
Otherwise, if you are on the more extreme side, you might think of going for an i7 or i9, depending on how advanced you are.
Conclusion
Further, advanced people, you would probably know if you need an i9 that’s for people who are handling extremely heavy projects and cumbersome programs and tasks. For most users, an i7 will be best for video editing, 3D modeling, animation, gaming, and it will do anything you can think of, usually with an i7.
But that doesn’t mean you need to go for an Intel Core i7. If you aren’t going to be using that so, let’s say if you are buying the best laptop for your kid and you don’t want to waste time using all the types of things.
You want him to do is studying then i3 is more than enough. If you have an older person in the house and want to do some shopping online or Google some things, then i3 is more than enough.
To know more click: i3, i5, i7, and i9 processor
2. RAM
The 2nd important thing in the Laptop Buying Guide is RAM. RAM means how many resources your system can use straight on demand. Here is an example, let’s say you are baking cake, you’ve got a table, and you’ve got some ingredients on this table.
If you’ve got a small table and you can only fit like two components. So whenever you want to add the third ingredient, or you want to add more ingredients to your cake.
You’re going to have to go to the cupboard, fetch the thing out, put it in, and it’s going to take much longer. With the RAM, it’s like having a giant table.
Larger RAM
If you have more RAM, it’s like having a more extensive table so you can put more ingredients on your table so you can straight away grab it and pop it in your cake. So this is basically what the RAM does in your best laptop or computer.
If you are using different programs that would require having lots of things right on-demand, want to go straight ahead, and when you click it and want it to pop out fast, usually RAM is what does that. RAM also handles opening different programs at the same time.
Working of Programs
Let’s say you’ve got multiple Chrome tabs open simultaneously, and you’ve got a program available. All these programs that you aren’t currently using will be waiting in the RAM for you to click on them.
So when you click on them, they are straight there in the RAM, so they instantly get to the CPU, the CPU process it, and you see it on the screen.
But if you don’t have much RAM, you can’t do much multi-tasking, and some programs that require a lot of RAM won’t work correctly. How much RAM do you need? So you’ve got different options when it comes to RAM.
You’ve got 4 gigabytes, 8 gigabytes, 16 gigabytes, or you can go for much more. So for the average person, 8 gigabytes is going to be more than enough. Many programs these days are using a lot of RAM, so in the past, 4 gigabytes may have been enough.
But in 2023, you at least try and go for 8 gigabytes of RAM. So the other thing to know about RAM is if you are going for a Chrome OS. If you’re buying a cheap laptop and want to buy a Chrome OS laptop, then 4 gigabytes of RAM are usually enough.
Operating System
Chrome does not use as much RAM as Windows 10 laptops do. So if you’re going for Windows 10 laptop, make sure you get 8 gigabytes or more. If you go for a Chrome, usually you can get along with 4 gigabytes of RAM.
Okay, what all else you need to know is that if you go for an 8-gigabyte laptop. You don’t have to worry too much because most laptops usually have extra RAM slots. So if you ever find that you need more run, you could easily order a RAM stick online, and you stick it in the laptop.
Nowadays, you would get 16 gigabytes of RAM or more. You can try and go for 8 gigabytes of RAM and make sure the device you’re going for is upgradable if you are in doubt.
Conclusion
Suppose you are going for more intense programs, so if you’re going to do editing or 3D modeling or playing heavy games that require a lot of RAM, make sure to go for 16 gigabytes of RAM or more.
The easiest way to know how much time you need is to Google the requirements of your program, and it will tell you how much RAM you’re going to need to run the program efficiently. But for regular use, if you aren’t using cumbersome programs, 8 gigabytes of RAM is more than enough.
3. GPU
The 3rd important thing in the Laptop Buying Guide is GPU. GPUs usually process anything that you see on the laptop. The GPU generally processes everything you see on your screen. Okay, so what do you need to know about GPU.
It is usually built into your CPU. So if there is no mentioning of a separate graphics card or dedicated graphics card in the laptop, it means it has a built-in GPU.
Dedicated GPU
Sometimes you can also get a device with a dedicated GPU, so what that means is the graphics card is separate from the CPU., so you’ve got a particular processing unit other than the CPU that handles the graphical processing.
So who needs a dedicated GPU, and who needs a built-in GPU. Suppose you’re going to be doing games or using specific editing programs that are known to use a lot of GPU like DaVinci Resolve.
If you think about Adobe Premiere Pro and After Effects, they rely heavily on the CPU; they don’t care about a GPU, that’s fine.
Other things like 3D modeling programs rely heavily on having an excellent dedicated GPU. Usually, 3D modeling programs are going to be best with a Quadro GPU. So a dedicated GPU is usually best if you’re going to be using more sophisticated programs, software and games.
Conclusion
But for the average user, if you want to be productive, you will use some Google chrome or do some homework or do some shopping online; you do not need a dedicated GPU.
You don’t need a GPU; for gaming or editing, you might need a GPU for these things. For photo editing, usually, the CPU is what is used most.
4. Laptop Size
The 4th important thing in the Laptop Buying Guide is Laptop Size. To know the size of your laptop screen, you need to get a tape measure and measure it from one corner of the screen to the other corner. So that’s how to know how many inches your laptop is, and then you can get an idea with it and get an idea of what size you prefer.
Conclusion
Usually, smaller sizes are more portable, and most enormous sizes are generally better for a bigger screen. If you want to do some video and photo editing, you might want a bigger screen. So that’s why you might want to go for a more prominent option.
5. Screen Type
The 5th important thing in the Laptop Buying Guide is Screen Type. So usually, you’ve got three different main types of panels in your device. So you’ve got an IPS panel or a TN panel, or a VA panel. Usually, IPS panels are going to be the best option to go for.
Viewing Angle
They typically have much higher color accuracy on the screen, and they have much better viewing angles. So whatever angle you look at your laptop from, if you look at it from above or look at it from the side, it will always stay highly accurate.
Unlike the TN panels, where if you look at the laptop from above, it might go darker or lighter, and if you look at it from the side, it will go brighter. However, they do have advantages.
Conclusion
If you go for a TN panel, you will have faster response times that might be better for gamers. So if you play games, you might want to do that for shorter response times. However, IPS panels are also becoming extremely popular these days, and even gamers are using these because they are becoming much faster.
6. Screen Resolution
The 6th important thing in the Laptop Buying Guide is Screen Resolution. You can maybe get along with 720P, but it’s not the best, and you will feel the difference in quality between the 720P laptop and a 1080P laptop.
Resolution Types
You’ve also got the 1440P laptops, and then you’ve got the 4K laptops. The recommendation I’m going to give you will be 1080P will be the best middle option for everything. If you want to go for a 4K option, be very aware because they have four times more pixels in the screens.
You need to have four times more powerful GPU to handle processing that screen, so the GPU has to process four times more pixels. If you don’t get a laptop with a dedicated GPU and you go for a 4K screen, you are doomed.
So try and get a dedicated GPU if you want to go for a 4K screen. However, what that will also do is it will lower your battery life, so try and stay with the 1080P until in the future where the 4K laptops have higher battery life and the more powerful GPUs.
Some laptop screens have a matte screen, and some are very reflective. The reflective screen is not an issue if you’re working indoors, but if you’re working outdoors, a laptop having a matte screen is way better because this does not reflect that much.
Conclusion
Also, look at the amount of brightness it can go to the maximum. Check the brightness of the laptop in the nits; the higher is better for outdoor visibility. If you’re working indoors, then the nits between 250 to 300 does not create a problem.
If you’re working outdoors, then the nits higher than 400 is better. Some of you might want to have touchscreen functionality on the laptop, so check it is there.
7. Battery Life
The 7th important thing in the Laptop Buying Guide is Battery Life. When you purchase a laptop that time, your battery comes with more cells. The two cell batteries last for a maximum of 4 hours when we play an HD movie with the lowest brightness, without any background processing.
Battery Lasting Time
It means a three-cell battery lasts for 6 hours. The battery life lasts much more when we use MS Office or any such programs and much less when we play games or do any other multi-tasking. It may get reduced when the battery life remains without use for a long time.
Be aware that the manufacture might tell you their laptop lasts 11 hours; however, in reality, it lasts 6 hours or something. So never trust the manufacturers to know how much battery life a laptop has. For this, I suggest you do a quick Google search with the model of the laptop with long battery life.
Conclusion
You will find people who have tested the laptop and give you accurate battery life representations. The company will always give higher, or it will provide the absolute long battery life that could ever be possible, and that is not realistic.
8. Storage
The 8th important thing in the Laptop Buying Guide is Storage. The storage size is going to be depending on your needs. If you will put a ton of videos and always store your camera videos and photos on your laptop, you will want more storage.
But don’t worry about the storage too much because you could easily buy an external hard drive. The external hard drive can get 4000 gigabytes of storage into it. All you have to do is plug in the laptop, store things on it, and then you can unplug it. You’ve got fast and slow storage.
Storage Types
Also, you’ve got HDD’s, SSD’s, NVMe 2.0 SSDs, or eMMc flash technology. HDDs are very slow, so stay away from them, and the other three storage devices are pretty fast. So what is the matter that you go for brief storage? I mean, this is only storage.
Now, what hold does is if you have fast storage, anything you use on the computer will open much faster. You open up the game, it loads much quicker, you open up Google Chrome, it opens much faster, or you turn on the device, it boots much faster; you don’t want to wait for 2 minutes for the laptop to turn on.
With an SSD, it would quickly get a quick boot, something like 20 to 30 seconds, and your laptop will be open probably even lower than that. And why does this happen? It’s because your CPU has to wait to get information from your computer so it can process it.
Conclusion
If you have a very slow storage device like an HDD, your CPU is just sat there waiting for your hard drive to give it the information it needs so it will process something, and then you’ll have to wait. With a fast hard drive, everything gets sent out quickly, and everything loads quickly.
9. Keyboard
The 9th important thing in the Laptop Buying Guide is Keyboard. If you’re going to type a lot of essays, do home works, type some documents, or maybe you have a blog, and you want to blog, then you need a good keyboard.
Easy to Use
If you get a bad keyboard, then you’re going to curse this keyboard every day until you buy a new laptop. So you don’t fall into the mistake of looking at everything else and forgetting the keyboard if you’re going to be using the keyboard a ton.
You make sure to get a keyboard that feels nice and know how the keyboard will work before buying it. If required, you can do a quick Google search of the laptop’s name with the keyboard then you will find people that reviewed this laptop.
Conclusion
They will tell you how the keyboard feels if it has mushy keys or if they’re clicky and responsive. So for me, that is a huge thing when buying a laptop.
10. Build Quality
The 10th important thing in the Laptop Buying Guide is Build Quality. Check the flex in the laptop’s body generally; you can find it in many lower-end Windows laptops.
Also, check the hinge quality because many of the cheaper laptops don’t have good hinge quality. Is the hinge sturdy or not? How do you know this?
Conclusion
If you’re working on a laptop and just doing regular typing, the screen wobble. If the laptop screen is wobbling, that means the hinge quality is not good.
Let’s look Laptop Buying Guide budget range
1. Price range from $150 to $300
You will usually get about 4 gigabytes of RAM and 32 gigabytes to 64 gigabytes of storage in this range. That is how much storage space you have on a laptop to store your files on. If that number is worrying, you don’t worry because you could easily buy an external hard drive.
Storage
The external hard drive got four terabytes of storage which is 4000 gigabytes of storage. So you could easily buy one of the external hard drives, and they are cheap. The other thing you could do is you can use online storage options like Google Drive or DropBox.
You can use Google Drive or DropBox, and some of them are free. Later if you want to extend your space more, you need to pay a little bit extra to get more storage. However, I would recommend sticking to an external hard drive rather than paying a monthly subscription to get more storage because that is not very cost-effective.
Performance
Okay, so who is this laptop going to work best for. This laptop is usually going to work best for kids out in the school, for older people who want to use a laptop for emails, online shopping, browse the web, or watch some YouTube.
This price range s going to be an excellent option for that. It’s also great for school kids because it’s not very expensive; if they break, it doesn’t matter too much rather than them breaking a $1000 laptop. You could do everything productive on this laptop.
Operating System
The only problem is that you’re going to have a Chrome in this budget range. It is harder to find a Windows-based laptop because Windows-based laptops usually cost more. After all, the producers who make the laptops would usually have to pay for a license from Windows to get Windows 10.
However, Chrome is free, so they don’t have to pay extra for the OS. What is the Chrome OS? It is Google’s OS and is the same thing that you would have on most phones. So Google chrome-based phone phones would usually have a Chrome.
You can’t install stuff with the Chrome OS like that you do with the Windows system. But you can download and install anything you want from the play store. You can get many apps that you need from the play store, and you could also get simple games from the play store.
Conclusion
Another downside with this thing is they don’t usually have the highest build quality. So if you’re looking for a very high build quality laptop, this won’t be the way to go.
2. Price range from $300 to $500
In this budget range, you can expect 8 gigabytes of RAM which means that you could work on more tasks simultaneously. You could open more tabs of Google Chrome, open different applications, open a game and have your documents open and it will have a lot with no problem.
Memory
But some laptops in this budget range will also have 4 gigabytes of RAM, so try your best to go for the 8 gigabytes of RAM option. This RAM will give you a little bit extra room to work smoothly. What else can you expect in this budget range? You usually get faster CPUs and a faster SSD storage drive.
Storage
SSD’s are going to make your PC boot up faster, and any programs will overall feel much more snappy, fast, and more responsive. With this budget range, you can do higher than a basic task. If you want to play some simple games or use some simple programs, maybe you want to add some clips together and make an excellent video.
This will do that with no problem, but if you’re going to do editing and add visual effects and things like that, that won’t work. But it will do the basics like chopping clips, putting them together, and adding some music; it will do that fine with no problem.
Design
Also, you usually get a better-looking laptop and over the better build quality. You’ll get a faster CPU, the extra RAM, and you would also get some extra storage. so if you’re lucky to be able to find 128 gigabytes of storage or even more, but you go for an SSD.
But I would recommend staying away from HDD storage that is very slow; it’s very outdated and is prone to break. Usually, you won’t find any dedicated graphics cards; that’s why it will not be best for any graphic intensive programs.
Gaming
But it will definitely do the basics, and you may even be able to play some older games; we won’t play more recent games. Usually, you would also get added long battery life which is going to be a beneficial thing.
If you’re going to take this thing to a coffee shop and you want to work on something all night, this is an excellent option for that.
It is perfect for studying and great for all the basics. It will give you a more comfortable speed and responsiveness than the $150 to $300 range. You cannot expect to do video editing, you cannot play advanced video games, and you cannot expect to do creative work as PhotoShop.
Operating System
You could work on small and simple projects. But for more complex projects, you’re probably going to have to go for the next budget range. So another thing you may want to try and be careful of in this budget range is to try to stay away from Windows in S mode.
Windows in S mode means that you cannot download any software or program unless it’s from the Microsoft Apps Store. Unless all your favorite things aren’t there, I’d suggest you try and stay away from Windows S mode; that way, you unlock the full potential of the laptop.
Performance
You can download any programs that you want rather than being restricted. However, if you are going to be using Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Google Chrome, these are all going to work perfectly well in Windows 10 and S mode.
If you’re going to be going for that, that is a great option, but if you want to do more things, try to stay away from S. mode. You may also run across and Google Chrome OS laptops. Chrome OS laptops will have higher performance because, as I said before, they don’t have to pay for the licensing of the Chrome OS.
Conclusion
It’s free, so they can afford to put more specs into the laptop, so they usually get a better-performing laptop. But you would have the issue that you could only download apps from the Google Play Store or the Google App Store.
3. Price range from $500 to $800
This price range is where things get more exciting. So on this laptop, you can expect to do video and photo editing, play some video games, etc. You won’t be able to do very advanced and extensive projects with that, say video editing.
Performance
You would be able to get by and do some advanced stuff. You could easily cut clips together, add some transitions, add music that would work out fine.
But if you want to add multiple layers, or you want to track some objects, or you want to do some color grading, you probably want to try and go for more than this because this will be very laggy.
It will work, and it will attempt to do those things that you want to do. If you have patience, it will work fine. You could also play modern but very low settings for this budget range. If you’re going to play modern multi-player games like Doterra, Fortnite, League of Legends, etc.
Gaming
It would be able to handle such games with no problem. But keep in mind that a regular laptop is going to be different from a gaming laptop. If you want to do gaming, you should go for a gaming laptop. For the standard slim laptops, they’re going to be able to do most things you want them to do.
There are so many things you can do in this budget range on a gaming laptop. Now I’m going to tell you what you can’t do on this gaming laptop. You can’t play AAA games, do very complex software, and can’t handle extensive 3D modeling programs.
Battery
It is going to be great in long battery life-wise and speed-wise. It’s going to have more RAM than the other laptops, so you can have more things open at the same time.
Usually, they are more efficient, they have faster CPUs, much more storage, and overall they’re going to give you faster performance.
Conclusion
So you won’t need to buy an external hard drive. You’d usually expect to get 500 gigabytes to one terabyte of storage in his price range. You could also take advantage of higher resolution screens, awesome battery life and also get better-looking laptops that suit your style.
4. Price range from $800 to $1200
The $800 to $1200 price range will be best for more than 90 percent of people out there. In this price range, you will get a very fast and responsive best laptop. In this type of laptop, you could quickly run multiple programs at the same time.
Performance
You could do photo editing, video editing, 3D programs, and anything with your device. You could easily find more lightweight options. So these are reasons you might want to go for this range because usually to make very thin best laptops it takes more money to get them to work and run fast.
If that’s one of your priorities and you want a very lightweight l best laptop, this might be a reason you want to consider this price range. The build quality is going to be higher than the previous price ranges.
This price range will be great for business use, and you could use multiple programs simultaneously without the fear of losing any work. The battery life is usually outstanding in this price range. You can easily find the best laptop with 11 hours of battery life.
Display
You can also expect a touch screen laptop where you do some artistic work. The other thing that would be amazing is the professional looks and you going to be working in a corporation. You want to look like you want to have a high-quality best laptop, which is the way to go.
Editing
The only time you would try and go higher than this price range is if you will be doing very complex video or photo editing with tons of layers or advanced 3D modeling. If you want an excellent 4K performance, you need to go for a higher budget range.
This budget range won’t be enough to go for a 4K options. You have a 4K screen; the only problem is that a 4K screen requires about four times more processing than a 1080P screen of graphical processing. So you usually want to have a good dedicated graphics card; otherwise, you will have a good performance.
Conclusion
If you have a bad graphics card, you will have some bad 4K performance. You may try and go for a higher budget range if you want a 4K screen or stick to a 1080P screen.
5. Price range above $1200
You’re usually going to know what you’re going to need. This price range is suitable for those who are doing very complex editing or complex 3D modeling or complex 3D animation, or any complex projects; then, you’re going to have to go for above $1200.
Performance
Another reason you might go for above $1200 is if you want to play the latest games, but you want to get your games to run 144 frames per second. Most people should stay away from this budget range. You don’t need this budget range unless you are very advanced and you need something better.
Conclusion
If you want to edit 4K footage, or you want to do very complex 3D Model editing. You want a high color accuracy best laptop because maybe you want to do color-sensitive projects like photoshopping things for clients or color grading footage.
Dear Reader
That’s our Laptop Buying Guide in 2023 for you; hopefully, you found it helpful. Thank you so much, guys, for reading this post, and I hope you enjoyed reading the post.
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