A laptop can be designed for different purposes. It may have a different design. Even the operating system on laptops is completely different! How to understand all this diversity? It's very simple: check out our material.
The best laptop manufacturers
First of all, many people pay attention to the company that made the laptop. Agree, some little-known Chinese manufacturer does not inspire much respect - it is likely that his creation will quickly fail.
- Apple - it produces expensive "Macbooks" running Mac OS X.
- Lenovo is the largest and most respected Chinese manufacturer of laptops, most often sold at a low price.
- Toshiba is a Japanese company that tries to integrate screens of its own production into its equipment.
- DELL is an American giant that has been producing laptops for decades.
- Acer - laptops of various price categories are created under this brand, including expensive gaming models.
- ASUS - most often this company produces laptops that are optimal in terms of price to performance ratio.
Principle of operation and device
Any portable computer consists of many different components. For example, this is a case, which can be plastic or aluminum, a display, a keyboard (you won’t believe it, but not every keyboard is comfortable), a battery, a processor, RAM, and much more. It is pointless to list all the components - it will take too much time, and it is unlikely that you need to know the names of all the components.
And yet, let's at least try to figure out how the laptop works. After all, this will give you an idea of which components are the most important. In short, information is processed by a computer using a processor. It also uses RAM - the more it is, the more applications can be launched (and more tabs can be opened in the browser).
User files (music, documents, videos and everything else) are stored in permanent memory - it can be a hard disk drive (HDD), a solid state drive (SSD) or even a bunch of both of these devices. In games and during installation, the video card becomes an important component of the laptop. Although now more and more often a graphics accelerator built into the processor is used instead. The picture is displayed on the screen, although if there is an appropriate port, it can also be displayed on a monitor or TV. It is proposed to enter text and manage programs using the keyboard and touchpad.
The laptop is powered by a battery. But the time of this very work for the most part does not depend on the battery capacity, but on the optimization of the operating system, the type of display installed, and many other factors.
Types of laptops
In terms of internals, almost all laptops are very similar to each other. However, experts still divide portable computers into different categories. How do they do it. Everything is very simple.
Screen size
Most often, laptops are distinguished by the diagonal of their screen, measured in inches. If the diagonal does not exceed 11 inches, then you have a so-called netbook. It is primarily intended for study, short-term work with documents and opening Internet pages. For more of its power, most likely, it will not be enough.
The most common are laptops with a display, the diagonal of which varies from 13 to 15 inches. These are already good “working machines”, the transportation of which does not cause serious problems.
Well, professionals prefer to buy laptops with a 17-inch screen. They are bulky, but information from such a display is perceived much easier. And to watch a movie, you will not need to connect a laptop to a TV - 17 inches is enough for comfortable viewing.
Design
Also, laptops differ in their design. For example, a few years ago, the word "ultrabook" came into use. This is the name of a portable computer, the weight of which does not exceed 1.5-1.7 kg. Also, such a laptop must be very thin, which is why you will not find a hard drive inside it - information is stored only on an SSD drive.
Even now, laptops with a swivel display are very popular - their screen also has a touch layer, which greatly simplifies management.
The third category includes the so-called "Chromebooks". These devices are popular in the US and some other countries. They are equipped with a minimum set of components, and they use Chrome OS as an operating system. It turns out that the work takes place in the browser, and all files are stored in the "cloud". Of course, without access to the Internet, such a laptop becomes practically useless.
A separate class of devices is gaming laptops. They are very expensive, very heavy, very thick - but this does not deter gamers at all.
Selection Options
When choosing a laptop, be sure to check out its full technical specifications. Pay attention to the processor - the number of its cores, clock speed and manufacturer. The best chips are produced by Intel, but the products of this company significantly increase the cost of the laptop - so sometimes it makes sense to look in the direction of AMD.
RAM
Another important parameter is RAM. 4 GB will suit you only if you choose a netbook. In other cases, you should look for a model endowed with at least twice as much volume. And for modern video editing, this may not be enough. By the way, you can first buy a laptop with a minimum amount of RAM, and in the future, when free money appears, buy the same amount. But then it should be clarified how many slots for RAM are built into the laptop, and how many "RAM" bars have already been inserted.
Hard drive and/or SSD
You definitely need to ask how many gigabytes of data you can store on a laptop. For example, if you are an avid gamer, then you will need a laptop with a 1TB hard drive. If you are not going to install games, or are able to limit yourself to only one, then 500 GB will be enough for you.
Also now you can consider buying a laptop with an SSD drive. Such a laptop will be expensive, but it will please you with almost instantaneous loading of the operating system and various programs.
You can also consider a device with a combination of HDD and SSD. In such models, the operating system is installed on a solid state drive, and ordinary files and, often, all programs are stored on a hard drive.
Display
You should also be interested in the display resolution. By modern standards, the minimum that will suit you is HD (720p or 1280x720 pixels). Fans of gaming and watching movies should focus on laptops with a screen resolution of Full HD (1080p or 1920 × 1080 pixels). Well, if you keep up with technological progress, then you can consider buying a laptop with a 4K display.
Gamers should focus not only on resolution, but also on the refresh rate. The higher it is, the smoother the picture will appear. Well, pay attention to the screen creation technology. IPS panels boast very wide viewing angles and good color reproduction. TFT screens have slightly worse figures, but they have a minimum response time, which attracts many gamers.
video card
You should consider having a video card if you like to play games or do video editing regularly. Video adapters are manufactured by AMD and NVIDIA. At the same time, the video card is most often mobile - it is actually melted on the motherboard, and the letter “M” is indicated at the end of its name. New and very expensive laptops can also have a full-fledged discrete graphics card - its power, of course, is much higher. If you are not going to play on your laptop or mount videos, then you will be fine with a model with integrated graphics.
Other accessories
The rest of the components should also interest you, but to a lesser extent. For example, it is impossible to know in advance about the convenience of the keyboard - you can only estimate the size and position of certain keys (usually Enter and Shift). Only after a week of active typing, you will be able to understand whether the keyboard is comfortable. The resolution of the webcam is also a secondary parameter, unless you are talking on Skype all day long.
Much more important is the set of connectors located at the ends of the laptop. You will definitely need HDMI, and the number of USB ports should be at least four. And it is desirable that as many of them as possible belong to the high-speed USB 3.0 standard. But Ethernet (RJ-45) is practically not needed now - it is unlikely that you will use wired Internet when there is Wi-Fi. Refuse the optical drive as well - almost no one uses discs these days.
Operating system
Finally, it is worth paying some attention to the software. Or, more precisely, on the installed operating system. Remember that installing a particular version of Windows costs a laptop manufacturer a certain amount. That is why the cheapest laptops do not have an operating system at all - they run free Linux or, more often, DOS. This means that after buying a laptop, you will have to get Windows from somewhere and install it.
If we talk about "Macbooks", then they come with their own operating system. In theory, it can be demolished by installing Windows. But we do not advise you to do this, since Mac OS X is a stable and pretty system. You just need to get used to it, after which you will no longer want to return to a Microsoft product. And the laptop under its control works noticeably longer than with Windows installed.
Which laptop to choose
When choosing a portable computer, you need to think about what tasks you will solve with it:
1. Do you need a laptop only from time to time to work with documents and solve other simple tasks? Consider buying a netbook that costs very little money.
2. Want to use a laptop instead of a desktop? Then you have to fork out by buying a device with a 15- or even 17-inch screen, a capacious hard drive and a powerful processor.
3. Do you need a laptop for work? Then look for a model that will definitely not slow down and waste your nerve cells. You need a powerful laptop with a 17-inch display. It can be either a Windows-based device or a particular MacBook. It is advisable to purchase a model with a small weight.
4. Buying a laptop for your child under 10? Look for a model that is lighter and cheaper. Although it is not recommended to buy a laptop for such children now, it is better to look towards the tablet.
5. Looking for a laptop for a child aged 10 to 16? Then you need a laptop with a powerful processor and video card, because such a child will definitely want to use a laptop for games.
6. Are you a successful gamer making a lot of money? Buy yourself a gaming laptop. It will pull absolutely all modern games, and if necessary, you can solve other tasks on it - for example, mount a video.
How much do laptops cost
The price of modern laptops can be completely different. For example, netbooks can cost less than 15 thousand rubles. But you need to understand that for this money you will receive the simplest device, which from time to time will annoy you with its slowdowns. Yes, the screen of such a netbook will have a very low resolution.
Good "cars" for use at home cost from 30 thousand rubles. Such a laptop will have a capacious hard drive, a fairly powerful processor and 8 GB of RAM. Theoretically, on such a device, you can even edit video, but the solution of such tasks to a laptop will be given with noticeable difficulty. If you are willing to pay 5-10 thousand rubles, then instead of or in addition to the HDD, you will receive a certain amount of solid-state memory, and the screen resolution will be increased to full 1080p.
A laptop with very good components will cost you 50-60 thousand rubles. It will already have a powerful graphics card and a very powerful processor. Such a laptop will be used by you without any complaints for many years.
And if you want to get a full-fledged workstation or gaming laptop, you will have to fork out for 80-140 thousand rubles. With such a computer, you can forget about the brakes. There are laptops with an even higher price tag, but their purchase should only be considered by successful professionals.