You’ll also need to consider what you might want to pay extra for for example, if you’ll be traveling with your laptop a lot, it will probably be worth it to spend a little more for a thin-and-light model. But before you overspend, you’ll want to make sure you know what you’re looking for - and the features you don’t need to pay extra for.įinding the just-right laptop is a matter of determining the right balance of features like screen size, processing power, and even the number of available ports you need. The laptop market is a lot more crowded than it used to be, with viable options at every price point ranging from $300 to $3,000. I don't have much experience with AMD's processors, so I can't accurately say which one will work for what type of user you are.If you’re in the market for a new laptop, it pays to do your homework ahead of time. Some computers come with AMD's line of Ryzen processors. And as for web browser tabs, I have no time to wait for slow tab switching while researching for a story. I have no time to waste for things to load and render while editing and saving photos. For example, I benefit from using a Core i7 when I run Photoshop to bring you some of the pretty photos of products I write about. I want apps to open quickly when I need them, and I want them to do the things they do as fast as possible for my work. Personally, I don't buy a computer with anything less than a Core i7. But those who use computers a lot will want to look at the Core i5 at least, and potentially Core i7 models. The reason why you'd want a mid-range Core i5 or high-end Core i7 is if you want to open and run many apps at the same time even faster.Īs it is with RAM, casual users who don't really use computers that often will be fine with Core i3 CPUs. With that in mind, a Core i3 will actually suit a lot of people for basic tasks, more so than previous generations of Core i3 CPUs that only had two cores. The more cores a CPU has, the faster it can open and run several apps at the same time. Higher-end models have six or more cores. With Intel's latest 8th generation of CPUs, almost all of its models have at least four cores, including the low-power Core i3 models. Some computers have ultra-powerful Core i9 models, but people who buy those computers already know what they're looking for. The Core i5 is mid-range, and the Core i7 is top of the line. The Core i3 line is a relatively low-powered line of CPU. Many of the computers you'll be looking at will come with CPUs from Intel, and they generally come in more-or-less easily discernible performance packages.
Once you've established how much RAM you think you need - and then doubled it - the CPU (processor) should be the next spec you look at.
Intel processors are displayed at a store in Seoul Slack office messaging app and sometimes Adobe Photoshop. I'm very impatient and need the freedom to have as many open browser tabs I want while simultaneously running the Having more RAM than you think you need has been invaluable in my experience. Personally, I won't buy a computer if it has less than 16GB of RAM. That's fine for patient, casual computer users. The standard amount of RAM is 8GB these days. Basic apps will run fine on a low-power processor, but they'll perform slowly if you don't have enough RAM. The thinking here is that the common, basic apps you're running on a computer, like a web browser or Microsoft Word, don't actually require a lot of processing power. Some might argue that the amount of RAM a computer has can actually be more important than what processor and power it has. The more stuff you do in those apps, like several open web browser tabs, the more RAM you need. RAM stands for "random access memory." It's the short term memory for your computer that stores the apps that you're using actively or have open in the background at any given time.