Picking out a laptop in the sea of options can be tricky. Here's my tips to
limit the choices and find one:
Apple
If you're Apple, your decision is much easier.
Desktop then iMac, iMac Pro, Mac Pro, Mac mini
Laptop then Macbook Air (small/portable), Macbook Pro (as beefy/workhorse
portable as you can get)
Chromebook
You want cheap and all your need is the Chrome web browser a Chromebook is a
cheap, simple option that eliminates all the problems of full PC's/Macs.
You'll be calling me a lot less, but you can't "install xxx program".
Neither of those, you'll be going with windows
Windows recommendations in order of priority:
-
Intel processor. Bigger the i number, the faster it'll be.
-
SSD (Solid State Disk)
-
RAM 8GB minimum. If you like to keep lots of programs/browser tabs open at
once get more RAM (16+ GB). If you're not sure, open the number of
programs you usually have open and then look at Task Manager Memory usage
(or call David)
Reducing your choices to a select few
If you want something right away/see it first go to your local Electronics
Retail store and look at what they have (Microcenter/Fry's/Best
Buy/Staples/Walmart etc).
When you're limiting your choices work thru the selection in this order
-
Look for the screen size you want
-
Do you want 2 in 1 (foldable)/touch/tablet style/light and thin look for
that
-
Require SSD of size desired and bigger. If you need lots of space, you'll
probably get 2 storage drives, one for the OS and one for saving
data.
-
Do you want a full keyboard with numberpad, require that
-
Need discreet graphics (nVidia/ATI) require that
-
Battery Life
-
Look at the keyboard layout (where are your arrows/home/end/page up/down
etc)
Pick one from what's left :)
If the list reduces to nothing, start eliminating items.
You can buy cheaper at the start and upgrade to SSD, but call David in
advance to confirm you can actually upgrade it to SSD
Additional Details
SSD size
Sizes are usually 128GB, 256GB, 500GB, 1TB (keep doubling).
Once you have how much data you currently have take the total data and
double it. Make sure how much data you have will never exceed 90% total size
of SSD (SSD's work differently and if you fill them greater than 90% full
the SSD speed will reduce SIGNIFICANTLY)
SSD Types
When looking at SSD's they connect in 2 fundamental ways: SATA (slow -
400-500MB/s), or PCIe/NVMe (fast 1000-1500+MB/s). If you want fast, you'll
always see either PCIe or NVMe associated with the SSD because it'll be more
expensive but it's a selling point.
|
|
Speed
|
Drive Type
|
|
Slow but big and cheap
|
100-200MB
|
HDD or Hard Disk Drive
|
| Ok |
400-600MB
|
SATA SSD
|
|
Super Fast
|
1000-1600MB
|
PCIe or NVMe SSD
|
Understanding Intel Processor Naming Convention
i3-6700 vs i7-4570
-
the i_ is the number of cores. More cores = faster. eg. i3 is slower
than i7. Get at least i5
-
After the - the thousands means what family/generation it is. as of 2022
the latest family is 10000/11000. So a i3-3xxx is older processor than
i3-6xxx. The last 3 digits are for specific speeds/features, don't sweat
that too much.