Whoever wrote the lines you are reading recently decided to go buy a new laptop for work because my old PC was starting to show signs of failing. So the adventure of going for a surrogate presented itself to me and I found myself in the middle of the experience with a series of bitter tasting surprises. Among which I would highlight above all configurations that are less limited and not worth buying.
What should a cheap laptop carry?
As it is often said that cheap is expensive and you want to save a lot on a computer, this can mean not only having PC components with technical specifications, but also the difference in performance compared to spending a little more is quite considerable.
the processor
The first and most important point is processor versus CPU, where the best options will be:
- If you go for the blue brand, an 11th, 12th, or 13th Gen Intel Core, the newer the better with the letters ending in P or U at the end of the processor model.
- In case you are doing this for AMD, then the models to consider are the 5000, 6000 or 7000 series. Also against the professor ending in U or P.
In both brands, processors ending in H are usually reserved for high-end gaming laptops, which usually come with a dedicated graphics card and usually cost twice as much as those other laptops. So if you’re not using the laptop for gaming today, you can save a lot of money and have the same performance in other tasks.
Another important point is the number of cores, do not choose any PC below four cores and a configuration with six will always be preferable. Obviously, if you see a model that meets the specs we said, and that’s eight cores, then that should become your first option.
RAM
Most of these laptops use LPDDR memory, which is the same memory used by mobile phones, but it is no worse than conventional DDR in terms of performance, i.e. bandwidth and latency. However, the problem is that it is directly soldered to the laptop board and cannot be extended.
Therefore, in those cases where new modules cannot be placed because there are no expansion sockets, a choice of a good amount of RAM from the start, which can never be less than 8 GB and a configuration of more memory
Storage
Today, of course, today and because a hard disk at its lowest price can be much more expensive than a solid disk, manufacturers are gradually adopting the use of SSDs to use them as basic storage units on their cheap laptops. At the same time, we have reached the point where, in terms of cost, a half-tera HDD is still the same as a one-tera SSD.
So that’s how much storage and what kind of storage unit our cheap laptop should have, so boot times are fleeting and we don’t want short memory capacity either. In any case, we recommend good storage management since in many models the SSD disk is usually soldered to the motherboard of the computer.
Make sure your cheap laptop has the necessary ports
These types of computers usually lack ports, so we recommend purchasing a hub meter or multiport extender to add more USB connections. Today, they usually come with two or three SuperSpeed USB ports. It is therefore important to sacrifice one of the USB 3.0 ports to install a USB 2.0 hub that allows us to install peripherals that do not require so much bandwidth. We recommend leaving at least 1 free USB port to place an external hard drive for backups and to store long term information.
Other ports we recommend there is at least one USB Type-C port, as well as an SD card reader and an HDMI output for a second screen, which you will miss at some point. Be especially careful not to run out of necessary ports on your cheap laptop.
Keyboard and screen
Although it may sound silly to you, the two are related, too small a screen means too small a keyboard despite its extremely portable size and looking great in photos, the reality is that 13 inch laptops aren’t very practical at the time of writing.
15 or 14 inch laptops have long since ceased to be those bricks that weighed so heavy and are now relatively light, moreover, they weigh just over 1 kg. Therefore, they are easily portable, you can well write with them and generally have enough screens to work with. Regarding the resolution, try to choose 1 whose horizontal resolution is 1920 pixels, at least don’t choose any with lower resolution.
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