How To Buy A Long Term Laptop
By: Aj Krow
Tags: Education, Shopping, Gadgets, Writing, Technology

How To Buy A Long Term Laptop

Photo by Adam Satria on Unsplash

If you’re a writer or a student looking to buy a reliable laptop while being budget-conscious, this article is for you! This guide will introduce you to what’s inside a PC and what you need when you have a budget of around $300-$400. It will also tell you what you need when buying a laptop you want to use several years from now.

What will you store on your PC?

Depending on what you do with your laptop ultimately decides how much storage you need.

If you are the type of user who will only create documents, browse the internet, and save all your files online, you can get away with buying a computer with 128 GB of storage.

I’d recommend you stay away from laptops with 32 GB or 64 GB of storage. Computers need to be updated to protect against viruses or to fix any bugs in the coding. Buying a computer with less than 128 GB of storage will eventually be filled with operating system (OS) updates and security patches, so I recommend avoiding anything with less than 128 GB.

If you plan on downloading programs, playing a few light games, listening to music offline, or storing some photos from your smartphone as a backup on your PC, you might be better off with 256 GB of storage.

If your laptop is dedicated to using only online software, like Google Docs, there will be no problem with using 128 GB of storage. If however, you plan on downloading Microsoft Office, Scrivener, your Spotify playlists, or downloading a movie or two offline, 256 GB could be a safer bet in the long term.

If you play high graphics games or downloading multiple movies to watch offline, you’d be best off purchasing a laptop with 512 GB or more of storage. Standard Definition (SD) movies take up roughly 2 GB of storage space, while High Definition (HD) movies can consume 6–10 GB of space, depending on runtime.

Regardless of your choice of use, it’s better to have loads of free space than having to choose what to keep and what you must delete.

Of course, you can purchase a USB or external drive to save your files, like documents or movies. However, USBs and external drives should be used primarily to transfer data between different PCs, or to back up your files in the event your computer crashes. While it can be used as additional storage space for files, it’s best to purchase a computer with an appropriate amount of storage space.

How snappy do you want your computer to be?

The processor, or CPU, is the brain of the computer, as it determines how much your laptop can handle.

If you purchase a laptop with an Intel Pentium or Intel Celeron processor, it could handle playing games like Fortnite. However, it would run at an incredibly slow pace, and the game will crash. That processor is too weak to handle it.

While a writer could get away with a processor like the Intel Pentium or Intel Celeron, it’s not recommended. Those processors were in their prime in the early 2010s; don’t expect them to work long term in the 2020s.

You are better off finding a laptop with — at minimum — an i3 processor. If you can find an i5 or i7 in your price range, go for it! Long term, that laptop will be faithful to you and can handle (almost) any program you throw at it.

How many Chrome tabs do you want open?

This one is fun. While the CPU determines which applications can run on your PC, the RAM decides how many programs can run at once. Chrome can easily open on most processors available on the market today. But it does warrant the question:

How many Chrome tabs do you want open on your computer?

Nowadays, it is best to stay away from a computer with 4 GB of RAM. That worked in the 2010s, but won’t work long term in the 2020s. It’s best to purchase a laptop that has — at minimum — 8 GB of RAM.

If you are the type of writer or student who has over 50 tabs open while writing a research paper, you might want to aim for a computer with 16 GB of RAM instead. It’s not needed in 2020, but it likely will be needed in a few years as PCs become more powerful and programs demand more resources from your PC.

If you intend on opening a few tabs, you can survive with 8 GB of RAM a few years from now. For heavy Chrome users, 16 GB might be a better option in the long term.

How often do you want to plug in and charge your laptop?

This is the first question I ask myself when entering Best Buy in search of a laptop. I refuse to answer the previously mentioned questions until I’ve found a laptop with a good battery life.

When shopping for a laptop, ask the employee to guide you to laptops that have an 8-10 hour battery life. Two years from now, the battery’s health won’t be the same as when you bought it.

The people I’ve met who are not tech-savvy leave their laptop plugged in all the time, which is unhealthy for the battery. After a few years, the 8-10 hour battery life becomes 6 hours, and eventually 4 hours.

Battery life is the most important thing to look for when buying a laptop, as laptops are meant to be moved, not plugged in permanently.

I prefer a laptop I can comfortably move from my kitchen to the living room without having to worry about where the charger is.

There is no point in purchasing a laptop if you cannot be mobile with it. All the previous sections can be compromised. But a battery? This should be non-negotiable.

To make a long story short

When shopping for a laptop, always look at the reviews online. Never assume a laptop is reliable unless others have already purchased it and left reviews. This way, you can check whether people were satisfied with their purchase and decide for yourself whether it is worth buying.

Aim for a laptop with at minimum 128 GB of storage, an i3 or equivalent processor, 8 GB of RAM, and an 8–10 hour battery life. A laptop with this configuration can be found for roughly $400 on Amazon or at Best Buy, and will likely work several years from now. Anything more than that is extra.

A laptop with these specifications will keep you a happy writer or student for years to come.