Sales data for 2019 shows that average laptop buyers spend around $700 on their new machines. This means that some people spend more, but it also means that a significant number spend less.
Seven Benjamins isn’t a lot of money for a laptop, even though it may seem like it when you’re in the store. For that money, you’re limited to Chromebooks, multimedia laptops, and a handful of cheaper Ultrabooks. Many laptops available at this price are adequate, but they are just that. Appropriate. ALRIGHT. Usable. They are computers and they will do computer things.
But going cheap forces you to give up a lot of tangible benefits, which means cheap laptops are often poor value. You can’t get what you don’t pay for. Here’s why you should pay more.
durable products
One of the first concepts you will learn in any basic economics or business class is durable goods. A durable good is an item that provides utility over a long period of time, such as a laptop. Paying more for premium durable goods ends up rewarding you over and over again, every time you use them. A better, faster, and more useful laptop can, for example, reduce the time you spend waiting for video encoding, increase typing accuracy, and make entertainment that much more enjoyable.
Spending less money on a laptop might be tempting, but consider how often you use it.
This argument comes first because it is the most important. Spending less money on a laptop might be tempting, but consider how often you use it. The American Time Use Survey found that in 2018, the average computer owner used their computer for leisure for about 86 minutes each day. If this average user kept the laptop for just three years, he would use it for a total of 1,565 hours. And that’s just leisure time: time spent at work is not part of these statistics.
That’s more time than the average American spends reading, relaxing or exercising. Suddenly, sacrificing laptop quality to save a few hundred bucks seems like a raw deal.
entertainment value
Your laptop screen serves as a window to all of this content, but cheap laptops offer the worst screens of any modern consumer electronic device. The resolution on cheaper laptops is usually 1366 x 768 (although Full HD or 1920 x 1080 is becoming more common), which is less than some modern tablets with much smaller screens. Contrast and viewing angles also suffer.
You can do better by spending more. Some budget laptops offer a better screen as an upgrade, but only premium laptops tend to come with high-quality screens as standard. 1080p should be considered the minimum resolution you choose, unless you have a lot of money.
Dell XPS 13 Greg Mombert/Digital Trends
Some laptops go a step further and offer 1440p or even 4K. While we don’t think it’s significant, the improvement in image quality is noticeable and can make using small windows and thin fonts easier to handle, though the difference is less pronounced with 4K, especially on smaller screens.
When it comes to panel type, gamers may prefer a TN or “Twisted Nematic” panel, as it can often offer the fastest response times and refresh rates for high-speed gaming. But if you’re more interested in quality, an IPS or “In-Plane Switching” panel offers wide viewing angles and (usually) better color than the cheaper TN type.
good on the move
Companies often reduce battery life to ensure that they can sell a laptop for a low price. Batteries are expensive and there are no standards to validate battery life claims. This means that a manufacturer can sell a laptop with a small battery and still advertise durability that seems reasonable.
We rarely found a sub-$700 laptop that offered more than six hours of real-world battery life.
We have told this story over and over again. Almost all of the laptops we got that seemed like great hardware value achieved this goal by reducing battery life. Keep in mind, though, that this is changing: in the past, we’ve rarely found a sub-$730 laptop that offered more than six hours of real-world battery life. Now some cheap laptops can last all day.
You don’t have to spend a lot for a better battery, either. The highlight is the Asus ZenBook 13 UX333, which managed over 10 hours of battery life in our latest review. The basic version can be bought for around $800, which probably means even better durability. Most laptops that are close to $1000 easily exceed all-day battery life, unless they are specifically designed for high-end gaming.
Consumption for solid state
Solid State Drives (SSDs) remain the single largest contributor to the everyday “feel” of computer performance. This is mainly due to the almost instant access time. The disk doesn’t have to spin and the read/write head doesn’t have to move, so data starts flowing milliseconds after it’s requested.
Although no longer a new technology, SSDs are still more expensive per gigabyte of storage than mechanical drives, which means they’re less commonly found in budget laptops. But there is good news. The lower price means the SSD can be found in systems that cost a hair more than a typical budget laptop.
Acer Aspire V15 Nitro Edition Bill Roberson/Digital Trends
Indulging in solid-state storage should be considered a must, but if you can’t afford it right away, at least do yourself a favor by buying an upgradeable system. Most laptops use a standard 2.5-inch SATA drive, so you should be able to replace it at home as long as the internal parts are easily accessible. A new laptop that can’t be upgraded to an SSD will go out of date very, very quickly.
The number of cores matters
There was a time when budget laptops were universally equipped with budget Pentium and Celeron processors with max dual-core designs. This is not so true today, as many budget laptops use Intel Core CPUs and AMD Ryzen 3000 quad, and even hexa-core CPUs in some cases. A modern 10th generation Intel CPU, like the one in the Acer Swift 3, for example, offers excellent performance across the board, both in single-threaded and multi-threaded tasks.
Even so, you’re more likely to get a faster quad-core (or even six- or eight-core) CPU if you spend a few hundred bucks more. You can even find Qualcomm ARM-based laptops with fantastic battery life and connectivity for a little more bang for your buck.
A significant increase in performance means a longer lifespan.
This advice does not apply to everyone. If your budget is extremely tight, you may have to settle for Intel Pentium or Celeron processors. But you can certainly find Intel Core i3 and i5 and AMD Ryzen 3000 processors that don’t cost much more than the $700 average, if at all.
Conclusion
Our laptop reviews tell a cohesive story. Expensive laptops often get high marks. Only a handful of budget laptops have earned a rating of 9/10 or higher, and most laptops from such a respected company sell for $800 or more.
We consider value when we review premium laptops. Our results show that expensive laptops give you more for your money. For example, Dell’s XPS 13 costs around $900. For that little bit of extra money, you’ll get a much better built, faster, and more durable laptop.
The $800-$1000 range is where you’ll find the best value laptop. This amount of money can’t buy everything, but it can buy you a laptop that excels in the areas that matter. You just have to spend more if you want a gaming laptop. In that case, we recommend a budget of at least $1,500.
I don’t recommend buying something you can’t afford, but for most people the difference between a great laptop and a good laptop is only a few hundred dollars. That’s a few nice dinners, a holiday weekend, or a few months of going to Starbucks every day.
If you need perspective, open your calculator and multiply your daily computer time by 1095 (the number of days in three years). The result should remind you why spending more on a laptop is worth it.
editor’s recommendations
Categories: GAMING
Source: newstars.edu.vn