What is the most important information you look for when buying a Laptop

QrizB

Price / value for money

I run a laptop review website and blog I have general info I wanted to know what spec to put first in the review

Thank you for the disclosure 🙂

flaneurs_lobster

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81975618#Comment_81975618

Don't know if you monetise your site and unless your site is called "laptopguy111" you don't seem to be breaking any site rules about commercial use or advertising/marketing.

Be polite if you were to put a brief biog as your Signature on your posts.

Jemma01

Performance (CPU & RAM)

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81975569#Comment_81975569

if I didn't need performance purely because my job needs it and didn't wfh, it would def be "weight and portability". So many ppl I know hardly do anything past browsing shopping websites or email.

MyRealNameToo

Performance (CPU & RAM)

Laptops I buy will be Apple so brand reputation is irrelevant and many other factors are more heavily correlated as if you want the top performance you only have one choice of device that only comes with one keyboard etc, its not like other brands where you can splurge on the top processor but stick it in a basic machine.

QrizB

Price / value for money

I voted for "value for money" but the "value" does depend on exactly what you're looking for.

I've got two laptops that I use relatively frequently. One is my desktop replacement, so I look for a 14-15" screen, a decent keyboard (ideally with a number pad) and reasonable performance (I'm not a hardcore user, and even my games are relatively undemanding).

The other is my "out and about" laptop and for that I want a 12-13" screen, light weight and reasonable battery life.

Cisco001

Price / value for money

Although I vote for Price/ value for money.

The most appropriate answer for me is not on the list, that is 'fit for purpose'

And you miss out 2 points which is upgradeability and repairability.

Cisco001

Price / value for money

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81975618#Comment_81975618

Depends on your target audience.

Notebookcheck and laptopmedia are the laptop review website I go for.

I don't really bother if the review not provide that level of technical details…

monkey-fingers

I think it's like anything, people buy what they're duped into.

Although I do have a couple of Intel laptops, I'm more bought into the Apple way now (because of what I use them for)

I keep seeing people buying Macbook Pros to do documents, presentations and mostly surf the net.
I can absolutely do all of this without a sweat on a Macbook M1 Air from 2021 with 8gb and 256gb.

There's a new Macbook Neo out. It has a processor from an iPhone in it and frankly, that's more powerful than most 5 year old Intel i5s. It'll do everything most users will ever need. It's £600, which for a Macbook, is reasonably priced.

But because people think that they want whatever their top budget is.

A Macbook Air is wasted on most people, leave alone a Macbook Pro.

I've bought a Macbook Pro m5 Pro with lots of memory and disk space for a reason: I use my laptop for Logic Pro and Mainstage. That's music recording and performance. It uses a huge amount of resource and my M1 struggles with it.

Is spending £2000 on a laptop with just a 13" screen a good buy for anyone but 1% of Macbook users? Of course not.

I used to write a LOT of reviews and give people advice on Intel / Ryzen laptops.

They'd be duped into thinking they needed an i7/Ryzen9 with 32gb of memory and a 2tb drive. OLED UHD panel. Backlit keys.

They'd then sit there using it to surf the web and Facebook.

Quite honestly, an i5/Ryzen 5 with 16gb (at most) and a 500gb drive with a TN HD panel will suit 95% of home users. In fact, that's overkill for most users, particularly as i3s these days are hitting the same kind of processing power that an i7 had 7 years ago - and I have a 10 year old i5 that does all of those things above with ease.

HillStreetBlues

Most important for me isn't on the list, OS.

lr1277

Here is what I think is my list in order of importance:

Brand (takes care of the OS; though I have not tried running my Windows only software on Apple with a Windows emulator. Won't touch Unix for the same reason. Haven't even looked into Windows emulators on Unix machines.)

screen size (bigger the better)

CPU

Memory for CPU

Permanent storage (prefer SSD) (When I last bought a laptop in 2024 both types of permanent storage were available; don't know the situation now).

Ports: numbers of each type of port

networking abilities including wifi and/or ethernet ports

trackpad (again most larger laptops have this feature)

Want a separate numeric keypad but larger laptops normally have this

Needs to offer next day on-site repair/replacement from the manufacture (I buy from the manufacturer)

Can I buy a case/bag in which to carry around this laptop.

I suppose my mantra is quality in, quality out.

Hope that helps