Buying a new laptop, here is what you need to know.
Introduction
Buying a new laptop is going to be an exciting but overwhelming experience .With so many options available in the market, it’s important to make an informed decision that suits your needs and budget.
1. Determine Your Needs and Purpose
The first step in buying a new laptop is to determine your needs. Even though we want all the features in one laptop. Consider how you will be using the laptop and what features are essential for your tasks.
Business and Office Work Purpose
Here if you are doing only these activities then you would want your system to be responsive and have a better battery performance.
Gaming
Even though we use gaming laptops mainly for obvious gaming purpose, I do know some studying and also coding is going to be inside the area of needs.
Thus here the main focus need to be that the laptop has quality GPU.
Creative innovation and Design
In the creative section and you are Animating, Designing and 3D Modeling. In this case we need the combination of CPU and GPU .
Make a list of the features that are important to you. This may include the
By having a clear understanding of your needs, you can narrow down your options and make a more targeted purchase.
2. Research the CPU Processor
Once you have determined your needs, it’s time to research different brands and models.
Whenever you look at the model of any laptop, some numbers are written inside it like Ryzen 5, Ryzen 7 Intel i5, Intel i7. So these are the names of all the processors which is Ryzen series, it comes from AMD and the “Core i” series comes from Intel.
Now it is not that AMD’s processors are better than Intel’s, both the processors perform very well but you have to see which processor is best for you.
Intel Processors
If you look at the performance hierarchy, i3 is entry level, i5 is your mid level, i7 is your high end and i9 is your top line. Ryzen processors also have similar performance hierarchy.
Ultra Processor Series
Till 2023, mainly these two processors were in use but in 2024, Intel has launched a new series called the Ultra series. It has ultra 5, ultra 7 and ultra 9 processes. These are slightly different from your core I series processor.
What are the major changes in the Intel’s Ultra Series Processors?
The major changes in this can be seen in your performance and efficiency .
These are the most power efficient processors built by Intel giving us 40% reduction in power consumption ,30% boost in graphics.
The biggest differentiation of these processors is that you get an “NPU” ( Neural Processing Unit) in them that is 4x more powerful for running AI applications.
If you are working on deep learning, learning machine learning or you are doing some AI related work like generative AI, then this processor can be very helpful for you.
Earlier NPU was only seen in Apple processors but this is the first Windows processor in which you get to see an NPU.
What does the Intel Processors name mean in ?
.Let’s take two laptops, one has an Intel processor and the other has a Ryzen processor. If you look carefully at the names of these processes, then you will see some numbers inside it and at the end there are some letters.
This is very important because it tells how your processor will work and what is its specialization? If you look at Intel processor, then the fourth and fifth digit in it tells which generation processor it is. Like 1 and 3 in it means that it is a 13th generation processor.
Currently, the 14th generation is the latest generation. And if you select the CPU, then don’t go below the 12th generation.
What does the letter mean ?
If you look at the last digit of the number given in the above image , then there is a letter written there “H”. This basically, it tells how your processor will work.
“H” means High Performance. “HS” means High Performance but just a little below H . “HX” means H’s upgraded version.
“P” means Performance Optimized Processor for thin and light and “U” means Low Power Consumption which you get to see mostly in mid-range laptops.
If you look at performance hierarchy, HX is the most powerful and U is the lowest.
If you are buying a laptop for gaming, you can buy H, HS or HX from these three .If you want to buy for creative work, you can buy H or HX. If you want it for business or study purpose then you can also buy “U” laptops.
Ryzen Processors
What does the Ryzen Processors name Mean?
If you look at Ryzen Processors, the fourth digit inside it tells which series processor it is, like you have 7 inside it, which means it is a 7000 series processor and currently it is 8000 series that is latest.
The third digit tells you which segment the processor belongs to. As 7 is written here, it means it is Ryzen 7.
If 9 had been written here then it would have been Ryzen 9 thus the third digit is very important.
Now the Second digit colored blue in the picture, tells you on which architecture your CPU is built and basically it also indicates how the performance of your CPU will be.
If 4 was written here, it would have meant that it is built on Zen 4 architecture which is the latest.
Here it means that it is built on Zen 3 architecture. So the higher this number is, the better is the performance of your CPU and the last digit is also very simple, the higher is the better the performance, like 7735 will perform better then 7730.
The last letter “H” here also means similar to what happens in Intel processes, High Performance.
After this, two things are more important inside the processor.
Clock Speed
Higher the clock speed, higher is the processing power of that processor. For example, a 3.8GHz process would do faster processing.
If you want to buy for business purpose then you can buy from 3.5GHz to 4.6GHz.
If you are into gaming then buy from 4.5GHz to 4.5GHz and if you are into work then buy 4.2GHz as minimum and as maximum as you can get.
Cores and Threads
After this comes thread and core, so processors are divided into cores for performance and efficiency. You must have heard of octa core and hexa-core codes. So, octa means eight, hexa means six and Quad means four cores.
There is a simple rule that the more the core, the more the performance and the cores are filed in virtual threads and there is a simple rule for this as well, the more the performance.
If you are buying a business laptop, then it will be fine. If you are buying a gaming laptop, then you can buy a minimum of six or a maximum. And if you are doing creative work, then buy art for best performance.
Note-
One thing to note is that it is not that you cannot do creative work on a gaming laptop and you cannot do gaming on a creative laptop. It is just a matter of difference in orientation between the two.
Creative work is CPU oriented which means that the main focus is CPU so you should try to get the best CPU in it.
In gaming laptops you need more GPU, so the focus is on getting the best GPU in it.
All about GPUs
There is an integrated one which is integrated with your CPU and then comes dedicated which means a separate integrated graphics card.
Integrated graphic cards are mostly seen in low to mid range laptops. If you look at the entry level, you get to see the Intel UHD graphics card there. After that comes your Intel Iris Xe which is mid range.
Recently Intel has launched Intel Arc Pro which you get to see only in the ultra processors series.
If you are looking for a laptop for business ,study purpose then Iris Xe is a good option and if you want to go a little high end in which you can do AI-related work, deep learning, machine learning coding specific, then for that I would suggest that you go with Intel Arc Pro.
If you want to do gaming or creative work, then for that you will have to buy a laptop with a dedicated GPU.
If you see RX written on the graphics card, it’s an AMD card. If you see RTX, GTX or Quadro, it’s a NVIDIA card.
Our advice would be to select graphics card of NVIDIA because the DLSS and rate racing technology in NVIDIA graphics card is very superior to AMD’s graphics card. Both these technologies help you in building realistic images in gaming or training.
Apart from this, a very big point in NVIDIA is that it has CUDA cores. CUDA cores are very important because it helps your processors for handling, high intensive graphics cards.
And if you are doing related work or doing deep learning or machine learning, it is also very helpful in that. Now how to find out which Graphic card is more powerful. It is simple, the higher its number, the more powerful it is.
For example a 3060 graphic card is more powerful than 3050 graphic card .
How to Check GPU’s performance?
If you want, you can also check the performance of GPUs. Simply go to Google and search” GPU benchmark list laptop Media” and click on the laptop media’s website .
You will get the complete GPU list according to their performance . Also Look at the TGP value because many people miss out on this. The higher the TGP value more power your graphic card consumes power but also give a better performance too.
What is TGP value on Graphic Cards?
The TGP value is represented with “W” , which show how much wattage of power your graphic card consumes.
TGP value may differ on the same version of NVIDIA’s Graphic card, so be sure to check that out.
Which RAM is Better?
I would suggest you go with 16 GB RAM and one thing which is very important is that you should not forget to check how many RAMs are in your laptop and what is the maximum expandable RAM in your laptop.
Mostly you do not get to see this information in the specs. For this you must read the reviews of the laptop, you can easily get this information there.
Another thing is about RAM is DDR 4 or DDR 5. DDR5 is the latest generation on the market and you get a better read and write speed with it.
Yet if you are getting a good deal in DDR 4 RAM then you can also choose DDR 4. You wont see that big difference in performance between these two.
SSD
The higher the version, the faster your SSD. Currently, the latest version is Gen 5 which you get in most of the high end laptops.
If you a Gen3 that is also great but you must make sure that your laptop has a slot for SSD which supports Gen 4, so that you can go and upgrade it in the future. After that, it is very important to have three types of laptop screens if you want to play games and the most important thing is your refresh rate.
3. Consider Your Budget
Now, you’re probably wondering how you can choose a laptop that fits your budget. Well this is made simple by google too. Before making a final decision, it’s important to consider your budget. Laptops come in a wide range of prices, from budget-friendly options to high-end models.
Just go to Google and type – NANOREVIEW.NET CINEBENCH R23 SCORE and you will be directed to a webpage where you can find a list o processors with their respective Cores, Threads and Clock speed.
Step wise Process–
Here we have to focus only on the laptop processor. Now select any processor from this list, go to Google, write the name of the processor and write laptop in front of it.
From here you will get an idea of the range of laptops with this processor. If it is above your budget then go to the same list and search for the processors a little lower.
If it is below your budget then search for the ones a little higher in the same list.
Here you will get the main score in a column.
The higher the score, the better is the performance of that laptop. Meaning it will work very well for creative work. If you are specifically buying a business laptop, then you must have seen in some laptops, Intel Evo is written.
For that, the laptop has to follow some criteria. It has to be like battery life, all that and many other things.
If the laptop is found to be interactive in all those things, then it is a simple link to it. If you see the tag of the internals then understand that the laptop is very good.
You can select it without using your brain. So this is complete. Then comes our CPU. GPU means Graphic Processing Unit.
Check for Ports
Lastly, you must check how many ports your laptop has and what is their version. They must be at least version 3.2 or 3.1, which determines the data transfer speed in your laptop.
Do check whether your laptop has a thunderbolt port. With this single port, you can charge other devices at high speed and with this port, you can also connect an external display and you can also convert a single port from port to port.
So these are all the points that you should know before buying a laptop.
4. Check for Warranty and After-Sales Support
When buying a new laptop, it is going to be crucial to check for warranty and after-sales support.
Finding out what is covered under the warranty and for how long is very important and additionally, consider the after-sales support offered by the brand.
Are there authorized service centers in your area? How responsive is the customer support team?
It is a good idea to read customer reviews and experiences regarding the warranty and after-sales support, which you can easily find in Google reviews these days.
Conclusion
By determining your needs, researching different processors, considering your budget, and checking for warranty and after-sales support, you can make an informed purchase that meets your requirements and provides a satisfying user experience.
A new laptop can greatly enhance your productivity and enjoyment, so it’s worth investing the time and effort to find the perfect one for you.
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