Today it is difficult to imagine our lives without computers. Almost everything is done through laptops, gadgets, and PCs. Laptops have the upper hand because they are easy to use, and it is possible to take them anywhere.
Technologies develop rapidly, so a lot of people have to replace their laptops quickly with newer versions. They think that a good laptop is expensive. However, quite decent laptops at an affordable price increasingly appear on the shelves. In this article, we will give some recommendations on how to choose a budget laptop and tell you what to look for when buying.
What is a Budget Laptop?
The budget laptop is designed to work with e-mail and surf the Internet and is suitable for most office tasks. Among inexpensive laptops, there are those that are suitable for simple photo editing, video and music files, and even simple games. If you want a gaming laptop that will launch modern games in ultra-resolution, then, of course, you should pay more.
What Should I Pay Attention to When Buying?
The choice of a laptop depends on the goals and tasks that are supposed to be solved with its help. You need to decide which is more important to you: a large display, battery life, hard drive capacity, or CPU performance.
Display
Manufacturers most often reduce the price of laptops at the expense of the display. Most budget laptops are equipped with displays with a diagonal of 13 to 15 inches. More portable laptops with 11-inch displays are also available. Laptops with displays of 17 inches or more weigh more and have shorter battery life because the display is one of the main consumers of electricity.
In addition, the size and convenience of the keyboard, as well as the number and composition of additional interfaces, depending on the display-diagonal. Hence the factor of the display is one of the most important factors when it comes to choosing a laptop.
The display is particularly important for people who are watching high-quality videos or playing online games. If you are an enthusiastic gambler playing at Hellspin Casino, you might want your laptop to have a decent display and monitor size. This way, the slots and table games you select will be more pleasing and interesting.
Most often, the displays of budget laptops are characterized by a rather low resolution, such as 1366×768. However, models with higher-quality displays are also found in this price category. A matte display is more comfortable to work with than a glossy one. The glossy display turns into a mirror in bright light.
CPU
The CPU is one of the main parts of a computer. The performance of the laptop depends on the power of the processor and, therefore, the speed of the applications.
For simple tasks like editing text, working with spreadsheets, and surfing the Internet, Intel Celeron processors are fine. However, it is strongly recommended to choose laptops with Intel Core or AMD A processors. Broadwell (5th generation) and Skylake (6th generation) processors are considered the most powerful in the budget category. Computers with seventh-generation Kaby Lake processors are significantly more expensive.
If you have enough money, it is better to buy a laptop with a Core i5 processor. Intel Core i3 processors also have good performance. Core i7 processors also enjoy popularity among people, but gamers use them more frequently.
Hard Drive and RAM
The hard drive is designed to store user files and programs. The larger the drive, the more movies, and music you can store on your laptop. RAM is designed for the temporary storage of information, and the performance of a computer greatly depends on its volume.
For both hard drive and RAM, one simple rule works: the more, the better. Most budget laptops are equipped with a 500-gigabyte hard drive and 4 gigabytes of RAM. Of course, if you are not working with a large volume of files, then the following specifications will be totally fine for you.
You won’t find laptops with faster, bigger SSDs or more than 8GB of RAM in budget models. However, if the design of the laptop suggests the possibility of an upgrade, then the amount of RAM and hard drive can be increased independently.
Do I Need a CD and DVD Drive?
Most budget laptops do not have an optical drive for reading CDs or DVDs. If your activity involves working with CDs or DVDs, then when buying, you should make sure that this model has an optical drive. An optical drive can also be purchased as a separate external device that plugs into the USB port.
CD and DVD drives are no longer relevant because people use flash drives. They are easy to carry, move files and do everything you need.
Software
Inexpensive laptops are most often sold with the Windows 10 operating system. Among other software, you will not find Microsoft Office. This package may be presented as a demo. However, there are free alternatives to Microsoft Office, such as OpenOffice. Though, without Office, it is difficult to deal with working tasks.
Battery Life
Most budget laptops have a battery life of three to five hours. Be aware that many manufacturers report incorrect battery life. In order to get more accurate and reliable information about laptop battery life, we recommend watching video reviews and reading consumer reviews. Usually, these reviews are not biased if you see them on prominent websites. By having a look at the general picture, you will be able to draw more objective conclusions.
The Bottom Line
Before you decide to buy a laptop, first, you need to understand what is your main goal. If you are looking forward to a gaming laptop that will launch top games on high graphics, then the funds you need to allocate for purchasing will be different. As for standard laptops, it is possible to go with a moderate one. In any case, paying attention to the factors that we have mentioned above is pivotal in order not to spend money fruitlessly.
