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What Features To Look For In A Laptop

Valley4Techs | EN: What Features To Look For In A Laptop


Hello dear visitor to Valley4Techs blog, Before you think about buying a laptop, you have to ask yourself first: Do you really need to buy a new laptop, because laptops do not change dramatically until after several years.


For example, if you own a laptop from last year or the year before it and its price is 500$, do not wait for this year’s laptop in the same price category to make a tangible difference from the laptop you have now.

In order to feel a big difference, you have to sacrifice and look towards a higher category such as the 750$ category, or wait 3 to 4 years to buy a new laptop at the same cost (500$) and it will then provide you with more specifications, features and performance.

Regardless of when you make the purchase decision, whether for the current year or waiting for the next year, you must keep in mind some technologies that can help increase your productivity during your work, or that achieve the element of comfort and flexibility for you or the comfort and luxury.

You may find some specifications that you can overlook, but there are some advantages that you should look carefully at and be interested in having in your next laptop.

 

Here are some of the most important specifications that you should take into account and think carefully about whether you need them in your next laptop.

 

 

1- USB Type-C / Thunderbolt 3

 

All laptops now contain one or more USB Type-C ports, so much so that there are some laptops destined for the upper class that do not contain the port for charging the laptop’s battery with power, and instead rely on the USB-C port in order to charge the battery.


In fact, you may find it a problem if you want to connect an external hard drive or charge the phone while charging the laptop, so it is better for the laptop to contain more than one USB Type-C port, or to have one USB-C port along with Laptop battery charging port.

Unfortunately, USB Type-A ports have become slow to keep pace with modern devices, but this does not prevent their presence, but the presence of USB-C ports on the laptop has become a necessity, as the USB-C port allows higher speeds in transferring data with external storage solutions, in addition to It provides an opportunity to synchronize the display of laptop screen content to larger displays, adding to this the advantage of faster charging for smartphones.

Therefore, depending on your needs, you may discover that having one or two USB-C ports is necessary for your business requirements and uses, then you may have to spend more money in order to own a laptop that contains some of them.

If the budget is large, then perhaps it is better to consider the USB-C Thunderbolt 3 port, which provides a data transfer rate of 40 Gbps or 100 watts for charging operations, and also a thunderbolt 3 port is necessary in order to synchronize the display on the 4K screen by connecting it to the laptop with the USB-C port .

Therefore, always look for the lightning bolt symbol next to the USB-C ports, and if you find this symbol, it means that this port supports the Thunderbolt 3 protocol.

Valley4Techs | EN: USB Type-C / Thunderbolt 3



2- Display resolution must not be less than 1080p

 

Unfortunately, some laptops are still launching with a display resolution of 1366×768, which is not a bad display resolution to this degree, especially as the screens of laptops are small in size, but the idea is that we are dealing with content with FHD resolution.

You don’t have to be burdened with a higher resolution, but at least don’t compromise on 1080p resolution especially if you are planning to buy a laptop with a screen of 14 inches, 15 inches or larger.

There is a big difference between 768p and 1080p resolution when we talk about resolution of details and enjoying high-quality content, so that you can deal with the content of websites better, and you can deal with editing programs and engineering designs optimally.

So whatever the cost, don’t compromise on FHD resolution, and for seasoned content makers and professional designers, it is best to plan to purchase a laptop with a higher resolution.



Notice: If you are planning to buy a laptop with a touch screen, we recommend that you buy a hybrid 2-in-1 laptop,Yes, there are some traditional laptops that also provide the feature of touch support in its screen, but it is not as practical or comfortable during use as hybrid computers.

Valley4Techs | EN: What Features To Look For In A Laptop


3- Should have one of these processors, Tiger Lake 11th Gen or Zen2 Ryzen 4000


Next generation Intel and AMD processors have higher energy efficiency, longer operating times, lower temperatures and higher levels of performance.

As for the integrated graphics processors, they are wonderful graphic solutions that suit the various needs of the current era of displaying high-quality media and dealing with montage programs better.

Valley4Techs | EN: What Features To Look For In A Laptop

 

 

4- Should contain SSD or PCIe SSD storage

 

You will find many models of laptops that only contain HDDs, which have huge storage capacities, but are slow when dealing with tasks and professional business programs.

Perhaps there is no appreciable difference in terms of gaming performance levels between them and SSDs, but SSDs are able to perform the tasks of booting Windows in quick periods of time, load the user interface with business programs faster, save the developments and changes that are made in the industry software Content in fast time intervals, load levels and in-game stages faster.

If your usage is heavy and dealing with the content industry, or even if you are only after the factor of speed and rapid response to commands and tasks, do not compromise on the solid storage unit SSD.

As for the PCIe SSD, it is three times the speed of the standard SSD storage, yes the difference is terrible, but the performance difference is intangible in reality between it and the SSD.

However, it should be noted that it is necessary to ensure the presence of the M.2 PCIe port first on the laptop, and to make sure of the supported storage units for this port from the official laptop support page.

Valley4Techs | EN: What Features To Look For In A Laptop

 

5- External GPU

 

If you plan to use the laptop in games, content creation, editing, montage and engineering designs, then you will definitely need a separate graphics card because it contains a separate video memory, but the only downside to it is its excessive energy consumption and high temperatures.

If you are planning to buy a business laptop, do not ever think of gaming laptops, because they are mostly intended for use from inside homes, and consume large amounts of battery power, and you will discover that you have to charge it every 4 hours to 5 hours as a maximum.

 

Notice: Buy one of the computers that support the Max-Q technology, as it is characterized by an elegant shape, thin thickness, low energy consumption and lower temperatures, and it works in a quiet sound.


Valley4Techs | EN: Laptop External GPU


6- The RAM is not less than 8 GB DDR4

 

The requirements of modern operating systems, programs and games have become the need for larger capacities of RAM, due to the terrible number of processes being processed.

Yes, you may be satisfied with 4 GB of RAM, but you will feel this weakness when dealing on the Internet with many tabs of browser pages or running some games or productive and engineering programs.

Without a doubt, you need a minimum of 8 GB, while less than that will clearly affect the entire laptop system, so much so that you may lose the advantage of the presence of the SSD and not feel its speed due to the delay and the apparent shortage of RAM capacity.

 

Valley4Tech | EN: Laptop Ram

 

At the end of this article, we hope that we have added new and useful information to you, and in case you have any inquiries, do not hesitate to mention them to us in the comments and we will communicate with you and answer your inquiries.

 

Mostafa Amaan
Mostafa Amaan
Technical educational content creator on my blog and YouTube channel. My goal with this content is to eradicate information technology literacy.
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