In the mobile technology market, finding an inexpensive laptop for gaming is quite simple; you just need to find out what affects system performance and become familiar with the internal elements of the device. In this article, the reader will learn about the features of mobile technology and the subtleties that you need to know before making a purchase. Naturally, the user will be offered laptop models in different price classes that are capable of handling resource-intensive games.
“Recommend an inexpensive laptop for gaming” - it is this phrase that brings a potential buyer to the segment of expensive mobile devices, the cost of which starts at 60,000 rubles and has no limit. There are often cases when a seller offers products in the budget segment, which has many interesting solutions that can demonstrate to the buyer the launch of a gaming application. However, the performance of such devices is often not enough even for comfortable spending time with your favorite toy at minimum settings. The conclusion here is obvious - you can’t trust anyone, and the questions themselves need to be asked to sellers correctly. And for this you need the following knowledge:
Any potential buyer looking for an inexpensive gaming laptop on the market should know that the mobile platform has some differences from a personal computer. We are talking about three main components: a processor, a video adapter and a motherboard - they are soldered together at the factory and are not removable. Accordingly, there can be no talk of any improvement of the laptop by replacing these elements. This means that the user must initially focus on the performance of these three components.
As for RAM, the laptop must have at least two slots for its installation (ideally 4 slots). But there are no special requirements for the hard drive, because SSD drives are rarely installed in inexpensive devices. In any case, the magnetic disk must be removed, as it will slow down the operation of the entire system.
A powerful, inexpensive laptop for gaming must have an appropriate crystal that will be able to process game data. Accordingly, you need to focus on For half of the current toys on the market, two physical cores on one platform are enough, but experts in the field of IT technology recommend setting the minimum requirements for a laptop at 4 cores. This step will later (in a few years) turn out to be correct, because every day new games appear on the market that require more and more resources.
In the media you can find reviews from users who assure others that it is possible to install a more powerful processor in a laptop by soldering it into the motherboard. This scenario is possible, but new problems arise: who will do this and where to get the crystal (only used such processors are sold at retail).
An inexpensive laptop for entertainment and gaming can be built on an affordable AMD platform. A10, A8 crystals and the new FX-88x line will cope with any task. There are negative opinions in the media regarding the high heating of the AMD processor, but this problem arises more from the fault of laptop manufacturers who do not provide the crystal with decent cooling.
But to run resource-intensive applications related to 3D modeling, video processing and complex mathematical calculations, you will need a more powerful Intel processor. Representatives of the Core I5 and I7 line will perform any task, and in gaming applications they will not even heat up. True, for such pleasure the user will have to pay about 3-5 thousand rubles.
Users who are interested in how to choose a laptop for gaming will also have to deal with studying the video adapter market. It is unlikely that you will be able to buy the most productive device inexpensively, but it is quite possible to get closer to perfection. First of all, you need to discard all models that do not have The second criterion is the modification of the graphics accelerator.
Experts recommend that Nvidia fans focus on at least the seventh generation of GTX series video adapters. Here it is important to pay attention to the second digit in the marking, which determines the positioning of the video adapter on the market. This figure should correspond to six or be higher (GTX x6x). For example, models such as 960M and 980M are suitable for games.
It's a little more difficult for AMD Radeon fans, since the manufacturer has created a “zoo” of video cards that have the same chipset. In order not to get confused by the markings, experts recommend focusing on the R7 and R9 modifications. If the video card has a four-digit marking, then you should strive to ensure that the second digit in the designation is greater than seven (for example, 7950M, 6990M, 6800M).
For games, you can buy it inexpensively only if you give up extensive functionality, amenities and decorations in favor of high performance. First of all, this concerns the operating system - licensed Windows costs about 10,000 rubles, and for many buyers this is a third of the price of a laptop.
The second criterion is the diagonal. It is clear that 12-inch devices are easier to transport, and 17-inch laptops are more convenient, but choosing non-standard sizes leads to higher prices. It is better to focus on the golden mean - 15-inch devices.
You can save a lot of money by choosing a laptop with an outdated display. A mobile device with a TN+Film matrix and a resolution of 1366x768 dpi will cost several thousand less than a gadget with IPS and FullHD. However, in this case, the quality of color rendering in games will not be the best.
The cheapest on the domestic market in the price category of 30,000 rubles are presented by HP. The user is invited to purchase a device on the AMD platform with an A10 processor with four physical cores. In addition, the buyer receives a gaming video adapter from the Radeon R7 line and 4 gigabytes of RAM with a terabyte magnetic disk.
There are quite a lot of variations in this price range - the manufacturer balances between the amount of RAM and the modification of the video card. Experts recommend focusing on the power of the graphics accelerator, because memory can always be purchased, but the video adapter cannot be replaced.
Quite good products on the domestic market are presented under the Lenovo brand. The Chinese manufacturer offers an inexpensive gaming laptop with a modern display that supports FullHD format. A processor with four AMD A10 cores, 8 gigabytes of RAM, a capacious magnetic storage and great functionality for multimedia and entertainment. The only confusing thing about an inexpensive device (35,000 rubles) is the discrete video adapter. The manufacturer equipped all its products with a graphics accelerator based on Radeon R5.
This video card can handle most resource-intensive games, but it is unlikely to achieve high frame rates at maximum settings. There are few options here: reduce the quality in games or look for a more productive device on the domestic market.
The best gaming laptops can be purchased inexpensively in the middle price segment (up to 50,000 rubles) under the Dell, Asus and MSI logos. True, all of them will be equipped with four cores, have 4 gigabytes of RAM and have a mid-level gaming video card Radeon R7 (or 960M). You can play on such mobile devices at maximum settings and with a large number of FPS (40-60).
But fans of Intel processors will have to add about 5-10 thousand rubles to the indicated cost in order to contemplate a Core I5 crystal in the system. But it's worth it, because the laptop's performance increases significantly. A powerful processor makes the gaming video adapter reveal its full potential, and this is a completely different performance in games.
You can choose an inexpensive laptop for gaming on the domestic market, but first it is better to determine the requirements for resource-intensive games that need to be run on a mobile device. At the very least, this approach will allow you to come to a compromise between the cost and performance of the laptop. In any case, to achieve your goal (purchase of an inexpensive device for gaming), large financial costs can be avoided at first. In the future, the user will still have to purchase an additional solid-state hard drive SSD and increase the amount of RAM, because all resource-intensive dynamic games are limited by the speed of data transfer between the storage (disk) and the processor.
Gaming laptops have a large number of components installed: advanced hardware, a video card, a powerful cooling system, connection ports, a battery and other parts that ensure full operation of the laptop. Often there is a separate DVD or BluRay drive.
Recently, there have been two trends: manufacturers are releasing light, neat and moderately thin gaming laptops, as well as truly advanced machines filled with productive hardware. Laptops from the first category weigh about 2 - 3 kg, the weight of the second can reach 4 - 6 kg. The cooling system of a gaming laptop alone can weigh more than a standard laptop.
Laptops can be equipped with an additional slot for installing a RAM module. If it is not there, you can replace the modules with versions with more memory. You just need to take into account the manufacturer’s limitation on the maximum installed amount of RAM and the limitation on the maximum memory frequency.
Modern gaming laptops often have both a solid-state drive (SSD) and a hard drive (HDD). The operating system is installed on an SSD - the volume of such a disk is usually 128 - 256 GB, and the file storage is an HDD, the size of which ranges from 1 to 2 TB. Since some games can take up 40–50 GB, and Full HD movies can take up 8–10 GB in size, you should think about laptop storage in advance. A reasonable option would be to use an external hard drive that can hold another 1 – 2 TB of information.
Pay attention to the type and frequency of the processor in the laptop
The main component in any laptop or computer is the processor; the speed of operation, as well as energy consumption, will directly depend on it (more powerful processors require more energy for stable operation). The leaders in the processor market are two well-known companies (we think you are also familiar with them): Intel and AMD. In principle, there is not much difference between them; each processor from one manufacturer or another has its own advantages and disadvantages. Processors from Intel are a little more expensive, while processors from AMD are a little cheaper. However, our personal experience shows that Intel processors work a little faster, and in an experiment that lasted for 5 years, they also showed that they are capable of ensuring proper operation of the computer after such a period of time. The same cannot be said about laptops that had AMD processors.
If your choice falls on laptops with Intel processors, we recommend choosing new types of processors, such as Core i7, Core i5 or Core i3. If the manufacturer attracts AMD, then choose the types: Phenom II, Turion II, A6, A8 or A10. Of course, such laptops will be a little more expensive, but you should take into account the fact that computer technology is developing very quickly, so the old model will become obsolete in a year, not only in the moral sense, but also in the physical sense - it will not be able to quickly perform new, more complex tasks.
RAM
Many buyers are mistaken when they believe that RAM is the main characteristic of computer performance. In a sense, this is true, however, RAM (random access memory) will do nothing to improve the performance of the computer if all other parameters are at the lowest level. In addition, you should take into account that RAM can always be added to the computer, because RAM is a small board that is easily inserted into a special connector located under the bottom cover of the laptop.
Hence, choose the laptop that has the least amount of RAM but still has the most potential. For example, only 2 Gigabytes will be inserted, but the motherboard allows you to increase the RAM to 16 Gigabytes. Thus, you will significantly save money when purchasing, or choose a laptop with a more powerful processor, which, by the way, cannot be replaced (at least not as simple as RAM).
If you are purchasing a laptop for work, then it must have at least 2 Gigabytes of RAM. If you are interested in a gaming laptop, then you will need at least 4 Gigabytes, since modern games are very demanding in terms of the technical characteristics of the computer (in our case, a laptop).
By the way, if you have problems installing RAM on your laptop, you can always!
Choose a larger hard drive size!
For those who choose a laptop for home or for gaming, we recommend that you place special emphasis on the size of the hard drive, since all the information you downloaded will be on it. For gamers, a hard drive is important because good, beautiful and realistic games always take up a lot of space on the computer (a game alone weighs up to 20-30 Gigabytes), and this does not take into account the installation files, which will also take up 10-15 GB ( if we are talking about downloading games from the Internet).
At home, a laptop is a universal thing; it is a cinema, a game console, a music center, and a device for accessing the Internet. In addition, several people often use a home laptop. Now just imagine how much information one such device should hold... That's right, a lot!
If you want some innovations in your laptop, then we recommend using an SDD (solid-state drive) instead of a regular HDD. This device differs from the one we are used to in that the speed of file transfer between partitions and folders increases several times. In addition, SDD is more resistant to damage. However, the price of a laptop with such a hard drive will be slightly higher!
When choosing a laptop for gaming, pay attention to the video card
When trying to choose a good gaming laptop, you should first pay attention to the type of graphics controller (or, in simple terms, video card). There are three types of graphics controller in laptops:
However, if games are of particular importance to you, or you devote a lot of time to working in graphical environments, such as Photoshop programs, then we strongly recommend that you buy laptops with a discrete graphics controller. It is also pleasant to watch 3D movies on such laptops, as the image is of very high quality.
The third type of graphics controller is very rarely seen on laptops, but they exist. The essence of this type of work is as follows: when working with office programs, only the integrated video card is turned on, and when launching complex graphics (games, films, graphic editors), a separate video card is turned on. This operating principle helps reduce power consumption, which means increasing the battery life of the laptop.
Screen size, dimensions and weight are of great importance
Many buyers forget why they are buying a laptop and therefore choose a model that does not suit their lifestyle. For example, if you are going to use a laptop from time to time while traveling or transport it frequently, then in this case you need a model that will take up a minimum of space, and at the same time this will not affect performance. Therefore, you need a screen with a diagonal of less than 15 inches, the weight should not exceed 2 kilograms, the thinner the device, the better, the surface should not be glossy so that it does not get scratched during transportation. By the way, at this moment many people ask themselves the question: “ Should I choose a netbook or laptop?", for me the answer is obvious - laptop only, since a netbook has a lot of limitations, and if so, then it’s better to take a tablet or smartphone with a large screen, then there will certainly be a minimum of problems with weight and size.
If trips are very rare, then we, on the contrary, advise you to focus on the parameters of the laptop in terms of technical characteristics. In particular, it is better to take a laptop with a large screen - it is more convenient to work on it, play games, and watch movies. Don’t worry about the weight of the laptop; in any case, it will stand on the table, and if you decide to sit on a sofa, chair or bed, we recommend purchasing a special stand. Since holding even a light device on your lap is not very convenient, in addition, the stand will protect the laptop from dust, and your knees will not be hot from a heated computer (they get very hot during prolonged use).
Is laptop operating time important to you?!
Very often, the price of a laptop changes depending on the power of the battery, that is, it depends on how long the laptop can work without electricity. If you are going to use your laptop while traveling or in places where there is no power outlet, then we strongly recommend that you choose a model that has the maximum operating time without recharging. Believe me, this is a very important point for tourists or people working on the road. Sometimes it is better to give up processor power or hard drive capacity, but the computer will work longer. When choosing a laptop based on battery life, in addition to technical specifications, always read real reviews on the Internet. For example, there are a lot of laptops that, according to technical specifications, should work for more than 8-9 hours. In practice, we have not encountered models that managed to work more than 4 (at an average level of activity). Therefore, it will not be superfluous if you immediately purchase a second battery, which you will always have with you if you go somewhere (naturally, it must be charged).
If the laptop will be used most often at home, then we do not recommend paying extra money for a powerful battery. By the way, over time, any battery can lose its properties if the laptop is constantly kept plugged in.
Installed operating system
The operating systems that are installed on the laptop upon purchase deserve a separate discussion. Let's say right away that we recommend buying laptops without an operating system included. Even though most laptops today are sold without an OS, such cases do occur. Let's explain our position:
By the way, if you need it!
Wi-Fi wireless communication module is a very important modern feature. Previously, to access the Internet, you needed wires, but now you can connect to the Internet without them, just buy a Wi-Fi router (or router) and have a device with a Wi-Fi module (in our case, the device is a laptop). Just imagine how convenient it is - you can move around your apartment (house) with a laptop, absolutely wirelessly. Use the Internet in any room and even on the street (near the house), if your router has such a strong signal.
In addition, wireless Internet is available in some public places (airports, cafes, bars, clubs, etc.). After all, you’ve probably already seen signs that say Wi-Fi. Perhaps today all this seems unnecessary to you, but in a year or two, you yourself will no longer be able to live without such a convenient tool as Wi-Fi.
Using Wi-Fi, you can not only access the Internet, but also send documents to a printer for printing, transfer files to mobile phones or computers, and you can also connect HD receivers and HD players via Wi-Fi. And do all this absolutely wirelessly!
Bluetooth
Of course, Bluetooth technology has lost its former glory and relevance, but the need for this interface will never disappear, since using Bluetooth you can connect phones, smartphones, keyboards, computer mice and much more. Radio communication is carried out at a distance of 10 meters (roughly speaking, this is enough for several rooms).
If you want to purchase a wireless keyboard for your laptop, then the Bluetooth interface will be very useful - it will save you from wires and from purchasing separate adapters. For me personally, Bluetooth is convenient because I can always connect my MP3 player via it and add new tracks to my music library.
3G support
If your laptop has a built-in wireless modem that supports 3G technology, then this laptop model is clearly very fashionable, since third generation cellular networks are not yet fully developed in our country (exists only in large cities). However, the time is not far off when 3G will be in every locality, which will be able to provide you with high-speed Internet access anywhere. Therefore, if you are buying a laptop for 5-10 years or your city already has 3G, then we strongly advise you to pay attention to laptops with 3G support.
Sony VAIO VPC-F23M1R
Lenovo IdeaPad Z570
ASUS K55DR
Summing up our article today, we would like to once again focus your attention on the fact that you can’t save money on buying a laptop, because later it will no longer be possible to update its parts, or it will be very expensive, that is, absolutely unprofitable (it’s easier to buy a new one).
Buying computer equipment on the domestic market causes not only a lot of positive emotions, but also a number of problems associated with choosing a worthy product from a huge range of goods. As practice shows, about 50% of users end up getting something completely different from what they originally wanted. Some are let down by the performance of a mobile device, while others are let down by ease of use or high cost.
In this article, the reader will learn how to choose an inexpensive but good laptop that can cope with all the tasks. Tips, recommendations, feedback and reviews of worthy products will help a potential buyer quickly navigate the computer market and avoid becoming a victim of scammers and unscrupulous sellers.
Before proceeding to the technical part of the question, the user needs to decide on the diagonal of the mobile device. The fact is that it is the size of the laptop that affects the final cost of the product. Before choosing an inexpensive but good laptop, read expert reviews. They will clarify this issue:
The cheapest devices on the mobile market that have a physical keyboard are netbooks with a diagonal of 8-11 inches. When choosing, it is better to focus not on performance, but on battery life on a single battery charge. Ideally, such a device should work on a single charge for about 6-8 hours.
Those who are interested in how to choose a good inexpensive netbook can be advised to pay attention to the display of their mobile device. It must be of high quality (IPS matrix), have a high resolution (at least 1366x768 dpi) and have decent brightness. The bonus here is the presence of a sensor with multi-touch function. Netbooks from Asus Transformer, Acer One, Lenovo IdeaPad and HP Stream have performed well in the domestic market.
Before choosing an inexpensive but good laptop in the segment of 12-13 inch devices, you need to decide on the list of tasks that will be assigned to the mobile device. The recommendations of experts in this matter are quite clear - all requirements need to be divided into two components:
Then everything is simple - having chosen the desired category, the buyer focuses on cost, appearance and ease of use. If the user wants to combine business with pleasure, then it is better to give preference to a more expensive device.
Focusing on the segment of mobile devices with a diagonal of 12-13 inches, many users do not know how to choose a good and inexpensive laptop for working with office applications. After all, for equipment in this category it’s difficult to call the price low (20-25 thousand rubles). If the user does not plan to play resource-intensive games, then it is better to focus on the amount of RAM that is used when working with programs. The second selection criterion is the processor. It is better to give preference to a device with two cores and an operating frequency of more than 2 GHz.
You should not overpay extra money for increased hard drive capacity and a discrete video adapter. All modern laptops have components installed that will not cause inconvenience to the owner during operation. In this segment, the following are considered worthy: HP ProBook 430, Acer Aspire V3 and Asus Zenbook.
Many users are interested in how to choose a good one that can be used for work purposes. It is clear that a potential buyer wants to combine business with pleasure. Everything is simple here - you need to focus on the central processor and gaming video card. All other components (memory and hard drive) have already been selected by the manufacturer to increase the gaming power of the mobile device.
With processors everything is clear - it is better to give preference to products from the Intel Core i3/i5/i7 line, but with a video card you need to be extremely careful. It's better to focus on the gaming class. For Nvidia products, the second place in the label must be at least 4 (for example, GTX 960M). Worthy products in this segment include: Dell Alienware 13 and
Among users looking for information on how to choose an inexpensive but good laptop for gaming and work, there will certainly be fans of Apple products. On the mobile technology market, under the logo of this brand, there are devices for combining work with leisure, equipped with 11-13 inch screens. Although the manufacturer does not please potential buyers with a large assortment, there are no identical devices in the product line - finding the necessary gadget in terms of performance and price is quite simple.
In the inexpensive segment (from 80,000 rubles), you can take a closer look at MacBook and MacBook Air laptops, which can cope with any office tasks and multimedia work. But game lovers should give preference to MacBook Pro devices that are more advanced in terms of performance. Mobile technology of this class can handle any resource-intensive games, not to mention complex tasks created by the user.
The cheapest laptops with a 14-inch form factor are in the price category up to 25,000 rubles. The purpose of such devices is to provide the user with access to the Internet and the ability to work with multimedia. And before choosing an inexpensive but good laptop for home in this segment, you should get used to the idea that a mobile device will not be capable of more. You don't need to expect any resource-intensive games, convenient transportation or long battery life.
As for advice, there is simply none here. The buyer must choose the cheapest laptop that he liked in the store window. The only advice that experts give to home users is that it is better to buy mobile equipment without a pre-installed operating system. In this case, the savings will be about 20-30% of the total cost of the laptop.
Multimedia devices for work and having a great time with a diagonal of 14-15 inches occupy almost half of the market, and here the choice is made according to the specific needs of buyers. The user is naturally interested in the question of how to choose a good inexpensive laptop in this segment. There is a list of basic requirements for all laptops of this class, you should definitely familiarize yourself with them:
And then the user will have to select the two most important criteria from the four provided by the experts. Once you select the right items, finding a decent laptop will not be a problem. What you shouldn't do is claim 3 or 4 points. The fact is that it is impossible to find a device with all the requests at the same time in this class of mobile equipment.
Before looking for answers to the question “how to choose an inexpensive but good laptop for gaming,” it is worth deciding on the gaming applications themselves that the user plans to run on the mobile device. The fact is that a high-performance gadget, capable of handling resource-intensive applications at maximum settings, a priori cannot have a low cost.
You can play Dota 2 or drive a tank in World of Tanks on inexpensive devices with integrated video adapters or entry-level discrete solutions, but to run FarCry 4, FIFA 16 or Fallout 4 you will need a very powerful laptop equipped with a modern processor and a powerful video card.
Game lovers, before choosing an inexpensive but good laptop, need to pay attention to the presence of a gaming video adapter. It is this device that determines the purpose of mobile technology on the market. AMD products must have the "R9" series, and Nvidia solutions are classified by the second digit in the label, which must be at least five.
The second criterion when choosing a gaming solution is the presence of a powerful central processor with 4 physical cores: Intel Core i5/i7 or AMD A4. Platforms of a lower class are not even worth looking at - they are not suitable for resource-intensive games.
As for the RAM and hard drive, it’s worth looking at finances; naturally, the larger the volume, the better for efficient work. In the gaming segment, laptops from Asus N752 and ROG series, Acer Aspire Nitro and Predator, and Dell Precision and Alienware have proven themselves well.
Many users, wondering how to choose a laptop that is inexpensive but good for gaming, find that in the expensive segment there are not gaming solutions at all. Having a diagonal of 17-20 inches and a high cost, mobile devices are not at all intended for games due to the lack of powerful discrete video adapters. But the amount of RAM is simply amazing (8-16 gigabytes). These devices are intended for designers, programmers, editors and other creative people.
The main criterion for such a device, in addition to RAM, remains a high-performance processor that can quickly perform complex calculations. Users should not forget about the quality of the liquid crystal display, which is capable of excellent color reproduction (IPS matrix).
The weak link in all portable systems on the domestic market is the small amount of RAM, which many device manufacturers are trying to save on. Before choosing a good one, the user needs to know that for the full operation of one Windows operating system (8 or 10), 1.5-2 gigabytes of memory are needed. Accordingly, to run even office applications, the laptop must have 2 times more memory installed. For games, the multiplicity is four.
Don't forget about the possibility of increasing performance - the mobile device must have at least one slot for installing additional memory modules. By the way, the laptop motherboard must also support increasing the amount of RAM.
When wondering how to choose an inexpensive but good laptop for work, many potential buyers discover rather strange tips and recommendations in the media regarding the purchase of a mobile device with a weak processor. In the future, the user is offered to use regular overclocking using special utilities.
In fact, this is stupidity - the laptop is simply not able to work continuously at maximum. The standard cooling system will fail at any time and the mobile device will burn out. Repair and restoration are not covered under warranty.
It is better to choose a processor that is as affordable as possible, even if it comes at the cost of RAM and hard drive capacity. In fact, this is the only component in the system that cannot be replaced or duplicated.
A potential buyer should not chase the speed of the hard drive, searching for an answer to the question of how to choose an inexpensive but good laptop. Expert reviews here boil down to one thing - the hard drive still needs to be changed after purchasing a mobile device to a solid-state SSD drive. Otherwise, you can forget about the high performance of the platform forever.
Alternatively, you can initially purchase a laptop with such a disk, but the inflated cost of such devices can scare even an experienced buyer. It is better not to trust mobile equipment manufacturers with such a question, but to take the process under your own control.
From year to year, more and more new gaming applications are released, which force users to purchase more powerful mobile devices in the computer market. Naturally, any buyer will ask the question: “How to choose an inexpensive but good laptop?” Asus (a Taiwanese manufacturer) approached this issue quite interestingly and offered owners of portable devices the XG Station gadget, which plays the role of an external video adapter. The problem with resource-intensive games can be easily resolved:
Having studied the tips, recommendations and reviews of owners of mobile equipment, experts came to disappointing conclusions - most users, before choosing an inexpensive but good laptop, do not pay enough attention to searching for information about the necessary device in the media. This is where the negativity towards mobile technology comes from: heavy weight, slow operation, loud noise and similar problems related to the technical part.
A laptop is an ordinary personal computer, which is several times smaller in size and not so power-hungry. You should not expect that an expensive mobile device will be able to perform additional functionality. The maximum is the provision of wireless technologies (Wi-Fi and Bluetooth) and autonomous operation outside the home. All. There is no need to fantasize about how spaceships navigate the expanses of the universe using a laptop.
Before choosing an inexpensive but good laptop on the domestic market, the user simply needs to get acquainted not only with the product, but also with the technologies that the manufacturer uses when assembling a mobile device at the factory. A future owner who wants to purchase a decent gadget at an affordable price will have to give up abundant advertising in the media and study the basic components of the laptop and their purpose.
You should also trust the recommendations of experts who are not interested in sales, but provide independent advice and reviews on products on their own initiative. Otherwise, it is unlikely that you will be able to purchase a laptop based on the “price-quality” criterion.
The most important thing to know when you go shopping for a new laptop, hybrid or Windows tablet
Photo: techspiel.com
This guide is a good way to help you choose the best laptop, hybrid, or Windows tablet, but you should start by mentioning the similar devices that were most popular in 2013.
No one will tell you that you made a mistake with your choice if your choice fell on the latest version of the Apple MacBook Air. Both the 13- and 11-inch models received an updated Intel Core i5 processor and show excellent results in battery life.
Something similar for Windows is the expensive 13-inch Samsung Ativ Book 9 Plus, which displays images with higher quality than HD. The Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga 2 Pro has a similarly high resolution and, thanks to its ability to fold, easily turns into a tablet - and costs less than $1,000.
A very inexpensive option, quite suitable for surfing the Internet and communicating, is the 14-inch HP Chromebook 14 with Google's Chrome OS operating system.
Since 2012, the landscape of the mobile device market has changed significantly. Windows 8 (updated to version 8.1) has become the default operating system, and its tiled interface means that a touchscreen has become standard on almost any new laptop. In addition, after a long drought in the Windows tablet market, the Win 8 era spawned dozens of these devices, many of which are not just any simple tablets, but ambitious hybrids with flip, rotating and even detachable screens.
Many guides that explain how to choose the right computer are full of technical data. We will highlight the most important characteristics that need to be taken into account when buying a new laptop, and we will give as detailed explanations as possible for each of them. Let's start with three fundamental rules choosing a laptop.
If you remember, a few years ago a price of $1000 was considered normal for a budget laptop. Today, for this money you can buy a premium device, and only Apple (although others are also trying) with its regular price increases stands out from the general chorus.
Therefore, when people write to us “I need a laptop for school, but I only have $1500,” we usually advise slowing down and buying some regular thin laptop for $700-$800 first.
Moreover, for that kind of money it will not be a low-power plastic box. Intel Core i5 processors and touchscreens in sleek, thin cases with a 128GB SSD are what you can buy at this price. This is more than enough for most users, unless they plan to edit HD videos or play the most advanced games.
In short, people have been buying too many laptops all these years. The brief era of $300 netbooks pushed the market in the opposite direction, but now everything has stabilized in the blessed middle ground. Touchscreens and hybrids have raised the average price a little, but there are still no problems to grab a premium laptop or hybrid for $999, or even cheaper.
Photo: cnet1.cbsistatic.com
When people ask me what kind of laptop, I first answer the question: “How many days a week are you going to carry it with you?”
The answer determines what the screen size will be, which determines the size and weight of the system as a whole. For those who move around a lot, lightweight 13-inch ultrabooks (like the MacBook Air) are suitable. Ultraportable laptops with 11.6-inch monitors have made an amazing breakthrough, and on the latest 11-inch hybrids and Windows tablets, the “screen” can be detached and taken with you, leaving the fixed keyboard at home or at work.
More conventional mid-sized laptops, such as 15-inch ones, are likely in front of you right now, and carrying them around more than once a week isn't much fun.
And finally, if you are convinced that you will never need to take this laptop with you, or very, very rarely, then a solid 17-inch or larger desktop replacement is quite suitable for you. Keep in mind that most of these large laptops don't like to leave the vicinity of an outlet for long, and in this day and age of Windows 8, very few of them have a touchscreen.
Based on the results of testing and measuring the performance of hundreds of laptops, I dare to say the following: inside they are all surprisingly similar. I’ll even say this: most laptops are assembled from the same set of processors, hard drives, memory, video cards - and all of this is painfully reminiscent of consumer goods.
And then His Majesty Design enters. Since most laptops in a given class with similar components perform in much the same way, appearance is what determines why some models are preferred over others.
Think of your laptop as an extension of your personality: you can carry it with you all day, or even around the world, you use it to send emails, store personal photos and documents on it, and use it to connect with others on social networks.
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And like any personal accessory, like glasses or a piece of clothing, you should choose a laptop so that it suits your style, so that its design works for you and you feel comfortable, so that the keyboard and touchpad are comfortable.
Apple understood this perfectly. The hardware of a MacBook isn't all that different from other laptops (the operating system is a different matter), but the user interface is fantastic and the design has become the standard for how people imagine a "real" laptop.
Today's passion for ultrabooks confirms these words about design, and is confirmed by the aggressive advertising of the impeccable-looking Samsung Ativ 9 and Asus Transformer Book.
A laptop is a significant investment, the physical embodiment of which will likely be with you every day. And when it comes to choosing between a design you like and small technical differences, I would say that almost all advanced laptops are powerful enough to handle everyday tasks - so choose the design.
There are many options for categorizing laptops. There are, for example, this: multimedia, gaming, thin and light, ultrabooks, ultrathin and ultraportable. Term "ultrabook" occurs very often, but technically this is not a category at all, but simply an Intel trademark, which is awarded to laptops that meet the requirements of this corporation. Most of them resemble the 13-inch MacBook Air, but you can also find 14- and 15-inch ultrabooks. Sometimes systems, which are also very thin, but not of Intel parameters, are called “fauxtrabooks” or simply ultrabook-like.
To make sense of this menagerie, we'll use screen size as a determining parameter - which is quite consistent with the above tips for choosing a laptop based on how often you'll need to travel with it. This is the most common categorization of laptops, for example on CNET.
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Ultraportable systems with 11- and 12-inch screens have returned to the market thanks to the efforts of Sony and Apple, as well as with the advent of hybrids from Lenovo, HP and other manufacturers. They usually run low-voltage Intel Atom processors or something from the AMD E line. Prices for 11-inch Windows 8 tablets start at $499, and an additional keyboard will cost somewhere around $100.
This is the only screen size that deserves its own category. Such devices occupy their own ecological niche. 13-inch is the smallest laptop size that you can comfortably work with all day long, and at the same time, it is the largest computer that you can easily carry with you more than once or twice a week. Typical representatives are Apple MacBook Pro and Air, as well as Sony Vaio Pro 13.
As mentioned, "ultrabook" is an Intel brand that is often used to refer to lightweight 13-inch laptops that are less than 18mm thick and have SSD storage. Since almost all 13-inch laptops are the thickness of ultrabooks, the marketing term fades into the background and you can forget about formalities. In other words, if a computer resembles an ultrabook in everything, let it be called that, there is no need to invent anything.
Some hybrids and convertibles also fall into the 13-inch category, although a 13-inch tablet looks a bit monstrous.
This category is made up of traditional 15-inch laptops along with their 14- and 16-inch brothers. Although they are technically considered mobile devices, most are sedentary or move along a home-to-work trajectory.
Most mid-size laptops have dual- or quad-core processors, usually Intel Core i, along with 4 or 8 GB of memory and large hard drives of at least 320 GB. Add-ons like a separate GPU or Blu-ray drive are rare, although available. Intel allows some 14- and 15-inch laptops to be called ultrabooks if they have certain dimensions and meet a number of specific requirements. But this is rare.
The niche of prices and capabilities of mid-size models is the widest, and the cheapest of them cost about $500, and the top level is well over the $1000 mark. Typical configuration - from $800 to $1000.
These massive laptops with screens of 17 inches or more literally take up the space of a combination of a system unit, monitor and keyboard, but in case of emergency, moving them is not difficult.
Typically, it is powered by a quad-core processor and an Nvidia or AMD graphics card. The image must be at least 1080p, 1920×1080 to avoid problems with Blu-ray and other high-quality graphic content.
Although 17-inch options are most typical for this category, there are many 18-inch models, and these large desktop substitutes turn into real medical complexes for the home, for the family, where work, games, video and audio are all in one. Sometimes you can find copies with detachable 18-20-inch screens, which turn into giant tablets of dubious portability.
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Most mobile computers with flip-out, flip-out, or fold-out screens have 11.3- or 13.3-inch displays and behave much like regular folding laptops in their category. Some, like the Lenovo Yoga line, look like regular laptops most of the time, while others, like the Microsoft Surface Pro, spend their lives mostly in tablet mode.
Typical processors are Intel Atom and Core i5, which is why hybrids cost at least $499, and the price of some goes beyond $1000. Today, very few hybrids can be considered mainstream solutions, mainly because Windows 8 has not yet reached the status of a real tablet operating system. In addition, many of the detachable keyboards and touchpads on these systems are simply terrible. Still, if you're looking for a smaller mobile device, we advise you to look beyond the traditional two-door options and don't miss out on similarly sized hybrids.
Whether you like it or not, you will have to pay some attention to some technical things. We will talk about modern Intel and AMD processors and where they live.
This company (which is also the parent company of the graphics processor manufacturer formerly known as ATI) recently released a new generation of accelerated processor devices. At AMD they are not called CPUs (Central Processing Unit, CPU), but UPU (Accelerated Processing Unit, APU) and by this they mean a combination of a CPU and a separate graphics processor - but in one “bottle”.
New AMD A4, A6, A8 and A10 chips began populating servers from Acer, HP and other manufacturers in the spring of this year, but are suitable options for budget and mid-range computers. Please note that there are significantly fewer laptops with AMD processors than with Intel processors.
A complete list of AMD processors can be found on the company's website.
If you're shopping for a laptop, tablet, hybrid, or even desktop, there's a good chance it has an Intel processor inside. The models in the latest line have the same names as the representatives of the three previous generations, which leads to some confusion. However, the chips, which were released in June 2013, are known under the code name Haswell (the previous generation was Ivy Bridge).
These fourth-generation CPUs, released in 2013, are easily identified by the number four that begins part of their code designation. For example, the new Sony Vaio Pro 13 computer has an Intel Core i5-4200U processor at 1.6 GHz. More technical details are presented on the Intel website.
The performance difference between the latest and previous generation processors is small. Haswell, however, can seriously save battery life, and the very first laptops we tested equipped with these CPUs outdid the 13-inch MacBook Air with its advertised 12 hours of battery life. For now, finding a laptop with Haswell is a real quest, but we must assume that soon any model designed for mobile work will be equipped with them.
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Your new laptop will have either a "traditional" spinning hard drive (HDD) or a solid state drive (SSD), i.e. nothing more than flash memory, similar to SD cards and what is installed in smartphones. There are also hybrid drives in which a small (20 or 32 GB) SSD works together with a large HDD. In theory, this allows the system to boot faster and makes applications run faster, but music and video files, for example, are stored on the hard drive.
At least a couple of USB ports. Most modern laptops have at least two USB 3.0 ports, which are faster than USB 2.0, but only when connecting USB 3.0-compatible devices such as hard drives. The need for an SD card slot is not even discussed. As well as HDMI video output. Every laptop today has Wi-Fi, compatible with almost all standards of this protocol and with any routers.
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Most laptops still have an old-fashioned VGA video output, but unless you plan on connecting something like a CRT monitor, it's not needed. DisplayPort for video or Thunderbolt (such high-speed interfaces) are only needed if you have compatible devices. The thinnest laptops often lack an Ethernet connector; it is believed that Wi-Fi replaces it. It’s not a fact at all, and let it be just in case. But if it's not there, it's not the end of the world. Bluetooth is great, but only if you're going to use a Bluetooth mouse, Bluetooth speakers, or Bluetooth headphones. Otherwise it is of no use, and if it is, it is useful to turn it off so as not to drain the battery in vain.
More likely no than yes, and quite a few thin and light laptops simply cannot have it. But it is useful to leave it, because there are many people who have preserved huge archives of films, music, games and other useful things on CDs and DVDs. Those. many are literally tied to optical discs - let's leave them for their sake.
Unless you are going to play very serious games on this laptop (Skyrim, Metro: Last Light, etc.), the standard capabilities of the computer will be more than enough for you. Current versions of the integrated Intel graphics processor belong to the HD 5000 family. They will not handle serious games (like those mentioned), but they will cope well with normal or recently considered “serious” games. Yes, and they can handle the new ones if you reduce the image detail.
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Windows tablets caused nothing but disappointment for a very long time, and only with the advent of Windows 8 there was some kind of revival. After all, Windows 8 can work with touchscreens like native ones (however, not always like with their closest relatives), and most tablets and hybrids under this opsystem can function in laptop mode or have the appropriate accessories. If you type a lot or use a mouse or touchpad a lot, you're better off going with a traditional laptop or a very laptop-like hybrid like the Lenovo Yoga.
Which is better: Windows or Mac OS X?
This is one of the most provocative questions. Windows fans value it for its flexibility and the ability to fine-tune and personalize the system. It runs on almost any hardware, and with the advent of the eight, it became more friendly to touchscreens and tablets and received a dashing modern interface, which was a big breakthrough.
Apple's operating system only runs on select desktops and laptops. At the same time, having a common platform of software and hardware allows you to create significantly more stable and predictable programs, and the same impression remains on the user. And this is not to mention the fact that many prefer the user-friendly design and navigation and control elements of OS X. But incomparably more programs are written for Windows, especially free ones; and, of course, games.
This is the million dollar question and it applies to almost anything related to technology. Even the new device, by the time it was brought home, was already a little outdated and every day it becomes more and more ancient, because the next new version is almost upon us. You need to realize this, and when you understand this, it will become easier for you, you will be able to relax and buy something that will give you pleasure. There's no point in pining for upgrades.
