Linux: If you don’t need MS Office and don’t mind a learning curve, you can install Linux on just about any piece of laptop hardware ever created. The catch is that popular apps like MS Office and Adobe’s Creative Suite don’t support Linux. However, there are free, open source alternatives like LibreOffice, Darktable (Adobe Lightroom replacement), and GIMP (Adobe Photoshop replacement). See our Best Linux Laptops guide for some of our favorites.
Once you know which operating system you want and have some idea of the software you’re going to run, you can figure out the minimum hardware specifications you’ll need. The first thing we suggest looking at is the processor, also referred to as the chip or the CPU. There are, for all intents and purposes, two companies that make consumer laptop processors: Intel and AMD.
You are watching: How To Buy Laptop
See more : How Much Laptop Memory Do I Need
Intel’s main processors are the Core i3, Core i5, Core i7, and Core i9. The Core i3 is the least powerful, and the Core i9 the most. We usually drop the “Core” from the name because it gets repetitive. Intel was planning to introduce a new naming scheme this year, using the word “ultra” to designate “the most advanced client processor,” but we haven’t seen this used much. If you run across a “Core Ultra” processor, in theory, it should be even faster than the plain Core.
Within each of these chip lines, Intel uses cryptic strings of numbers and letters that give you more information about that chip’s capabilities and when it came out. Learning to decipher it will help you make better buying decisions. (Here’s Intel’s guide to its model naming.)
See more : Are All Laptop Power Cords The Same
Intel Core i7-1455U is how a laptop manufacturer’s website might list the type of processor. Now that we know Core i7 means it’s one of the more powerful chips in the lineup, let’s break the rest of the numbers down. The first numbers (“14”) refer to the generation; in this case, it’s a 14th-generation chip (as of now, that’s the latest generation available for laptops). The i7-1355U would be a 13th-generation chip or one that’s probably a year or so older.
Source: https://tholansonnha.com
Category: laptop