Buying Laptop in 2019 for work

We all know that there is a huge industry for gamers to look for before buying a gaming laptop and in my previous article I covered what to look for before buying a gaming laptop in 2019. But in my this article I will tell you how to choose your laptop for work. Usually laptops meant for work, productivity and professionals come in a slim body unlike bulky gaming laptops and they are known as ultrabooks. This laptops have low power CPUs for better power efficiencies and low power GPUs if have any. So let’s dive into the points.

BUILD

This something you might wanna look before buying an ultrabook. Especially laptops meant for your daily works, productivity tasks come in sleek body as it is expected you want to carry this machines everywhere wherever you need a computer. And if this laptops comes in a bulky fat build then it’ll get heavy and might give you carrying problems. Always look for a ultrabook with thinner builds and smaller screen size under 15.6 inch. The more the screen size, more it’ll take space in your backpack.

There are certain examples for thin and light ultrabooks like LG GRAM which weighs under 1KG and is world’s thinnest laptop at 0.45 to 0.66 inch. You can also look for Acer’s Swift 7 which is as much thin as LG GRAM and also weighs nearly identical. If you buy this laptops then you’ll never feel them in your backpack. Also look for aluminium chassis as it’ll give the laptop a more premium feel and it is more durable than plastic builds.

Dell XPS 15 build quality

DISPLAY

This is also an important thing to look for if you’re doing productivity work or you’re a content creator. While in gaming laptops you needed to look for many things in a display like refresh rate, response time, but in ultrabooks you need to look for only screen resolution and display size. Typically ultrabooks come in 60Hz panel and majority of them comes in 1080p resolution but if you’re a serious content creator then go for a 4K display, though it’ll impact your battery greatly. Another thing you need to see before buying and ultrabook is the display panel. In an ultrabook always go for and IPS panel as this are most colour accurate than TN panels. In 2019 CES companies also launched laptops with AMOLED displays like your latest and greatest Galaxy Note 9, as this panels also have deep blacks and vibrant colours. Dell also launched laptops with other kind of display which looks great on its XPS lineup known as IGZO panel. In this panel colours are saturated and vibrant. If you want more nitty gritty details on your display then use a colorimeter to know the % of colour gamuts like SRGB, NTSC and ADOBE RGB. The more the SRGB the more is the vibrancy and more the ADOBE RGB, more beautiful will be the screen looking.

HUAWEI MATEBOOK X PRO IPS DISPLAY

PERFORMANCE(CPU)

If your laptop can’t perform well then your machine is rubbish and all computers get their horsepower from their CPU. Though laptop CPUs are not as powerful as desktop one’s and ultrabook laptop CPUs are not even powerful as gaming laptop CPUs. There’s a reason, in your ultrabook you do not need such powerful CPUs as in an ultrabook you only need it for work and I hope you’re not as crazy as editing a video or playing battlefield V on your ultrabook. Intel specially launched low power ultrabook CPUs for better battery efficiency and they are determined by U letter at the end. This CPUs are generally 15 watt low power CPUs but the’re strong enough to take your office or general workloads. They range from dual cores to quad cores. These day majority of them are quad cores but this doesn’t mean they’re equal to the gaming quad core CPUs. and as expected you will always be wanting great battery life from your ultrabook as you need it for your whole workday and this CPUs are as efficient as to give you 10 to 12 hours batter though it depends upon the size of the battery. A high end CPU laptop always have less battery as the case with the gaming laptops which lasts only upto 2 to 3 hours.

RAM

Ram is one of the most important factors in a computer and in your work laptop I don’t think you need ram more than 8 GB ram. You might get an ultrabook with 16GB ram if you occasionally video editing and other heavy stuffs and if you do browse with lots of tabs open in a browser. But 8GB will be just fine, 4GB ram is a bit low but you can get 16 gb is getting common slowly whether its a gaming laptop or an ultrabook. 32 GB is an overkill for an ultrabook.

Touchpad and keyboard

This is another one important area in a business laptop and for many people a bad keyboard and touchpad is a dealbreaker. If you want the best touchpad then go for a glass touchpad as they’re smooth and easy to swipe. And also look for windows precision touchpad drivers as these drivers are perfectly synced with your windows 10. In keyboard department always look for chiclet style keyboards as these type of keyboards have enough travel with adequate space between the keys. And if you buy a macbook then you know the pain of butterfly keyboard with almost no travel.

Battery

Now coming to the battery area and it might become a dealbreaker for you if you use your laptop for all day of work. For those who need their laptops for all day are in need of a great battery life and these ultrabooks have great battery life as they have low power CPU. look for laptop with 8 to 10 hours of battery minimum and if you want more loke 14 to 18 hrs then you might need to ditch INTEL powered laptops and go for an always connected laptops with QUALCOMM SNAPDRAGON processors. Don’t underestimate it because of the qualcomm name as qualcomm has processors which take the workload of a windows 10, for example SNAPDRAGON 850. This processors has exceptional battery life. But again much of your laptop battery life depends upon your battery size and for minimum you should at least go with 45W battery and to get more you need 65W battery. Battery life also depends upon your laptop’s display quality. A 1080p display laptop will have good battery life while a laptop with 4K display will have lower battery life. I would suggest if you need your laptop for whole day, go with a 1080p display resolution. Battery life also gets affected by GPUs though ultrabooks do not have great GPUs but NVIDIA has low power discrete GPU options for ultrabooks(coming to that later).

WEBCAM

Though for some people this area might seem dull but for people’s who does a lot of video conferencing, a decent webcam is must have. If you’re looking for a decent webcam laptop then go with Microsoft Surface books as they have great 5mp full HD 1080p cameras.

SURFACE BOOK WEBCAM 1080P

GPU

Coming to this GPU section, it's not essential for persons using their laptops for light use and office works but its good to have one. You don’t need those RTX GPUs for daily light GPU works. Nvidia has its own low power GPUs, and the most common one now is MX150 with 2GB VRAM, with the upcoming MX250. This GPUs can handle day to day GPU intensive works, light video editing and you can also do light gaming but don’t expect FPS above 60FPS. A discrete GPU will also make your laptop’s battery life and shorten and your laptop might got hot. Some companies give gaming level GPU in ultrabooks, like GTX 1050 and 1050TI. Dell XPS have GTX 1050 TI and Microsoft’s Surface Book has GTX 1050, but these xx50 series GPUs are not as powerful as their desktop counterparts.

BIOMETRICS

In business laptops you need some kind of security for your laptop and if you do works with banks then biometrics is must have. These day most of the ultrabooks have windows hello which scans your face and unlocks your PC using webcam and most of the laptop these days has fingerprint sensors for added security.

LENOVO THINKPAD TOUCHPAD

STORAGE

If you’re a light user and have nothing crazy high files to store but want a lightning fast laptop then go only for ssd, as these drives are lot faster than HDDs and if you have many big files to store then also get a laptop with HDD. but don’t skip on SSD as these drives are must have in 2019. This SSD will make your laptop life a lot faster.

So this sums up the things you need to buy an awesome ultrabook or work laptop for you in 2019. I’ve also made a review on things to look for buying a gaming laptop in 2019. So if you need that then click here to check that out.

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