Difference In The Type Of Processor Used
The Processor, commonly referred to as the CPU , serves as the brain of the computer. It sends instructions to all other components and tells them what to do based on the input it receives from the user and programs running on the computer.
Intel and AMD are the two largest processor manufacturers, but youll find Intel processors in most laptops.
Normal laptops are built to handle less demanding tasks such as running Microsoft applications and web browsing and therefore dont need extremely powerful processors. They come with less expensive, slower processors that have fewer cores.
High-end gaming and other processor-intensive tasks such as video editing and software compiling include lots of arithmetical and logical operations that need to be calculated at blazing speed. This is where high-performance processors come in.
It is easy and very common to look at the processor specifications of both gaming and regular laptops and assume that Intel or AMD processors on both laptops are the same. However, that is not the case.
An Intel Core i5 or i7 processor in a regular laptop is not built the same as a Core i5 or i7 processor in a gaming laptop, their internal architecture is a bit different.
The video below explains the meaning behind these letters:
Take Intel core i7 10510Y vs Intel core i7 9700K for example. This is what Intel processor suffixes mean:
Processor suffixes for regular laptops
- U Ultra-low power
Reasons To Buy Your Next Laptop Online Not In A Store
ByAvram Piltchpublished 20 February 17
At first blush, it might seem like a good idea to buy your laptop at a brick-and-mortar store. After all, if you can visit the store, you can personally look at the screen, type on the keyboard and swipe on the touchpad to make sure all of those features all meet your needs. Still, in most cases, you’re better off shopping for and buying your computer online.
Here are five reasons why you should buy your next laptop from a website.
Shop Around For Reviews
Reviews are still the best way to ascertain quality. While bots and automated comments might corrupt the information source a bit, its still easy to tell when a good review is written by a human. Make sure that the part has both a sufficient number reviews and a high enough rating. Not all of the reviews have to be on the site where you make your purchase, but they do have to be for the specific part.
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Everything Is So Slow
One of the telltale signs your laptop is getting on in years is when everything starts to feel slow. Applications dont open instantly, they keep you waiting. It seems to take forever to boot. Switching between open windows or tabs causes a pause. You learn to go get a coffee while waiting for files to copy.
There are ways you can upgrade your laptop to help deal with these issues , but eventually you reach the point where there are no more fixes.
Lowering The Risk Of Cts
The worst enemy of people who type a lot is Carpal Tunnel Syndrome or for short, CTS. There are different ways to avoid this illness, but being careful when typing is the most important thing to remember. For people who are experiencing wrist and finger pain, an external keyboard could relieve the aches. You can easily position the external keyboard, while the laptop is less flexible.
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Signs You Need A New Laptop
Laptops are great, at least until theyre not. And that not phase has a habit of sneaking up on you. Ive been there, many times. I get a new laptop and spend days getting it set up just the way I want it. Over the next few months I start to get accustomed to its idiosyncrasies and the differences between it and my previous laptop. Soon, Im totally accustomed to using the new laptop and cant imagine switching to anything else. Why should, I? This one is absolutely perfect!
After a few years, I still cant imagine giving it up, but Im starting to compensate for some of its shortcomings. Another year or two and the situation has degenerated. The laptop is really not up to what Im asking it to do any more, so Im babying it through tasks. Its costing me in terms of productivity, but Im just too comfortable with it to consider upgrading to a new one. A few times, Ive waited too long and the decision to buy a new laptop has been made for mein the form of a catastrophic failure. And having to go from a dead laptop to a new one is much more stressful that transitioning at a comfortable pace.
The key is to recognize that your current laptop is nearing the end of its useful life so you can take action before you start wasting too much time coaxing more life out of it, and before disaster strikes. To help, Ive put together a list of five signs you need a new laptop.
What Do Those Laptop Specs Mean
Sometimes, it’s easier to shop with your eyes than with your brain. That’s especially true if you have no clue what the heck RAM is, why CPU matters, or which features to focus on for your intended purposes. After all, if a gamer, a graphic designer, and a programmer walked into a Best Buy, they might all leave with a different laptop.
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So What’s A Good Laptop To Buy
First, figure out what kind of laptop user you are. An artist who wants to be able to use a touchscreen? A student that only really needs web-based tools to create Google Docs? Maybe an e-sports wannabe? To help guide your decision-making, here are eight of our favorite laptop models, plus what makes each one so useful.
Lenovo 100E Chromebook:For K-12 Students
Despite the popularity of cloud services, a majority of laptops still store most of your files locally on your computer’s hard drive. When it comes to Chromebooks of any variety, not so mucha big part of the sell is that you require less storage and processing power because your files are stored on Google’s servers. The Lenovo 100E Chromebook is just one of many options, but it stands out as a great tool for young students, especially because it’s one of the cheapest options on the market. The 11.6-inch Chromebook is not only rugged, but comes with Google Classroom, G Suite for Education, and other learning apps.
ThinkPad X1 Extreme : For the Netflix Binger
MacBook Pro 16-inch: For the Artist
Google Pixelbook Go: For the College Student
Razer Blade 15:For the Gamer
Dell XPS 13: For the Movie Buff
Still not sure what to buy? Check out some of our other expert recommendations:
How About Battery Life
The short answer is not to count on your gaming notebook being super portable.
If youre using your laptop to play games, you need to keep your laptop plugged in to get the full performance out of your GPU. And if you dont, youll be lucky if your laptop lasts an hour gaming. In our testing experience, most gaming laptops last only a few hours on a charge when performing other tasks, but never as long as ultraportables without discrete GPUs. If you need something to last 8 hours while you work, it wont be a gaming notebook.
Some do last long, but thats often at the expense of the display, and you dont want to play all your games on a dark, dim or inaccurate screen.
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When You Should Buy A New Laptop
Your timeline affects how to shop for a new laptop. Most of the best deals of the year will be available during holiday periods including Memorial Day and of course, Black Friday. Its also always worth it to check before Amazon Prime Day and around the back-to-school season.
That said, we know that life happens and you cant always wait for holidays to shop for new electronics. Whether youre thrown into the decision to buy a new laptop unexpectedly or youve just decided that its time to start looking, here are the most important things to keep in mind while shopping for the best price:
Choosing An Operating System
While you can run most programs on any of the major operating systems , some are suited to certain tasks better than others. First, check if you want to use a program thats only available for a certain OS . If so, youre locked to the OS you need for it. Otherwise, choosing the right OS for you is really about price and preference.
ChromeOS is easy, safe, and lightweight to run.
Because ChromeOS is much easier to run than Windows or MacOS, Chromebooks are often much faster for the same hardware. If you are shopping for a budget laptop, ChromeOS is usually the way to go if you want a quick, snappy experience, as long as you dont need Windows-only software.
The Google app store has many programs available for ChromeOS to replace your old favorites, but the chances are high that your favorite programs already have a browser version available. Microsoft Office, Slack, and Zoom are all available via web browser browser-based programs like can replace basic Photoshop editing, as well.
ChromeOS may not be for you if you need to do audio editing, heavy photo or video editing, any sort of modelling or engineering, or you cant bear to part with your Windows or Mac-exclusive software. In the past, we would have advised gamers to steer clear too, but nowadays cloud-based gaming with Google, Nvidia, Microsoft, and Sony are all great ways to play AAA games without Windows as long as you can tolerate a bit of lag.
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What Gpu Do You Need
While some games use the CPU, the majority of games are still GPU-bound, so this is one of the biggest decisions you make when buying a gaming notebook. At the moment, the majority of gaming notebooks come with Nvidia GeForce GTX or RTX GPUs.
The latest graphics cards on the Nvidia series are the newest RTX 30-series cards, from the RTX 3060 Max-Q through the RTX 3080. On the AMD front, there’s the Radeon RX 5000M series, which consists of the RX 5500M for budget systems, and the RX 5600M and RX 5700M for more performance. We are, however, expecting a new range of AMD discrete GPUs to hit laptops later this year.A note on Max-Q: It’s not always clear on initial RTX 30-series laptops if they’re using a Max-Q GPU until you buy it. Check how to tell if an RTX 30-series laptop uses a Max-Q GPU.
The RTX models command a premium. In the meantime, if youre looking for a deal on a current-generation gaming laptop, keep an eye on our Best Tech Deals page.
What To Do Before You Sell A Laptop
To get a good price, youll need to locate everything you want to sell with it such as manuals, charging cables, a laptop bag or other accessories.
You also should make a list of any damage to the machine or problems youve noticed with the laptop. And dont forget to back up and erase all the personal data from your laptop before you pass it off to someone else.
Once everything is stored, follow the system settings to reset your laptop to factory settings and list your laptop for sale with one of these top companies. Be sure to include multiple photos to help your machine sell faster.
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Best Places To Sell Your Used Electronics For 2021
Ready to sell some of your old tech? We’ve found the best services to use for getting you the most cash.
You can turn your old phones and unused tablets into cash in minutes by consulting our picks for the best places to sell electronics. The most challenging part is figuring out which service will pay the most for whatever it is you want to sell — the second-hand consumer electronics market is more competitive than you’d imagine. Our recommendations can help you avoid having to meet potential buyers or deal with a back-and-forth negotiation, as you’d have to do with Facebook Marketplace or Swappa .
There are plenty of companies where you can sell electronics, places that’ll happily buy old fitness trackers, smartwatches, gaming consoles, laptops, digital cameras and other electronic equipment. In exchange, they’ll send you cold hard cash, often in the form of a gift card or PayPal transfer — not too shabby for that MacBook gathering dust in your closet. You can even sell your old electronics without having to visit a physical location such as a pawn shop, which is a bonus during the pandemic. And you won’t have to worry about paying for shipping or shouldering the cost of a fee, which is somewhat commonplace with services that sell electronics and old equipment.
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Turn those old phones into cash.
Is Refurbished Better Than Used
Both mean that someone else had and used the laptop before you got your hands on it. However, if you buy a certified used or refurbished laptop from a retailer like Apple or Best Buy, oftentimes, it will be covered by some sort of limited warranty. It might cover things like physical damage and dud components but usually don’t cover the battery make sure you get a detailed explanation of the warranty before you buy. Certified refurbished and pre-owned laptops are also covered by a return policy like their brand-new counterparts, so if for any reason you aren’t happy with your new-to-you laptop, you can bring it back to the store for an exchange or your money back.
Buying a used laptop from someone on a site like Facebook Marketplace or OfferUp comes with risks: the laptop could not turn on, the hard drive could be damaged, or the battery is bad. Make sure before you buy to carefully inspect the laptop and spend some hands-on time with it to make sure there aren’t any nasty surprises waiting for you. If a seller won’t let you test out the laptop before buying, politely decline the offer and look elsewhere.
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The Best Time To Buy A Laptop
There are several factors to take into account when shopping for a new laptop, and perhaps one of the most important things to consider is when you plan to make the purchase.
According to ClarkDeals.com Managing Editor Charis Brown, Discounts on laptops usually come around during major holidays, but warehouse stores like Costco and Sams Club are also great places to check for deals on laptops year-round.
When To Replace Or Buy A New Laptop 6 Tell
All is well in the world when you first pull that shiny new laptop out of the box, but over time the experience always starts to degrade. At some point, you will start wondering: how often should I replace my laptop?
From reduced performance to low battery power and poor screen quality, a laptop never seems to last as long as you need.
Unlike a desktop PC where lifespan can be significantly increased by the tech savvy through regular upgrades, the shelf life on a laptop is limited by design. Thats just simply the price you pay for portability.
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Aesthetics: Clean Vs Flashy
There is usually a difference in how normal and gaming laptop chassis is designed. The chassis design of normal laptops is usually kept flat and simple to give them a more clean look that is appropriate for professional environments such as offices and schools.
Gaming laptops often have more flashy and detailed chassis designs that grab attention. Their casings sometimes have striking logos, LED lighting on the body panels, large air vents that resemble race car grills, patterns, and stripes.
Gaming laptop chassis surfaces also tend to stick to a certain color theme, for example, Asus and MSI use Red highlights, and Razer uses green highlights.
In some cases, the chassis of gaming laptops do more than just protect the interior components, sometimes functionality is added. For example, when the Asus ROG Zephyrus is opened, a portion of the bottom panel flexes to create more open space for air circulation. This is not a feature youd find on normal laptops.
The Laptop Release Cycle
When shopping for a laptop, it’s also helpful to have a sense of when new models are released. Many manufacturers like Lenovo, HP, Acer, and Dell debut new laptops at the annual Consumer Electronics Show in early January.
These new releases typically start to hit the retail shelves by February through April, which means that there are some steep discounts on the previous year’s models. The Computex show in June is another time of year when laptop makers like Asus and MSI unveil new devices.
Apple, Microsoft, and Google don’t typically announce major products at these trade shows and instead hold their own events to reveal new laptops.
Apple’s MacBook launch cycle varies greatly from year to year. But in recent years, it’s launched laptops in the spring, summer, and fall. during March and May, the summer in July, and the fall in October and November. Microsoft and Google tend to announce new products, including their respective Surface and Pixelbook laptops, in October.
Buying a laptop around the time that new ones are announced has its pros and cons. For those who don’t need the latest and greatest tech, it can be a great time to score discounts on older models as retailers clear out inventory to account for new releases.
But at the same time, it’s best to at least wait to learn more about what the newest model has to offer so that you can make a more informed buying decision.
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