Laptop computers have become a commodity now. Desktop computers are now mostly used only in offices and it’s going to extinction with the factor of the mobility of devices. Laptops or the notebooks have become so popular among the youth and now it’s everywhere in someone’s bag. Same time, prices of the laptops in Sri Lanka have gone down significantly. People buy brand-new and used laptops depending on their budget and need. But most of them do not know how to pick the best laptop for them. This article will help in deciding the best laptop for a student.
Let’s see the basic tasks that a student needs to get done from a laptop.
- Surfing the internet
- Writing assignments and other documents
- Watching movies
- Listening to music
Let’s see the specifications of the laptops that we need for the above tasks.
Processor: Intel Quad Core – Core i3
Laptops with Intel processors are very common in any market and the only other processor brand you would come across is AMD which is not that popular among Sri Lankans. Laptops with AMD processors are comparatively cheaper than Intel. dell laptops and HP laptops are usually equipped with Intel processors but you will be able to find Lenovo and Asus laptops with AMD processors if you are a fan of not-Intel inside computers.
Quad-Core processor is more than enough
for a student who does only the above tasks, but if there are more applications like Adobe Photoshop, Corel Draw or may be some light computer games and don’t want to wait until it loads, you might have to go for Core i3 or higher processor.
A used laptop in Sri Lanka with a Quad Core processor would be available from Rs.35,000 onwards while a brand-new one costs about Rs.52,000 and onwards. A brand-new laptop with a Quad Core processor usually equips with 4GB RAM and 500GB hard disk. But there are some models with different specifications as well.
RAM: 2GB – 4GB
If you are person who opens more than 5 tabs in your internet browser while working on PowerPoint and listening to some music on WinAmp, you should go for a laptop with 4GB RAM. But if you are not a multi-tasker, then you probably can live with 2GB RAM in your laptop. Random Access Memory or the so called RAM is something that you can upgrade whenever you want unlike the processor. Therefore you do not have to worry about it.
Hard Disk: 500GB
Data storage has become a necessity for everyone. Even a bus driver has a USB drive in his pocket now. Thousands of songs, hundreds of movies and albums of photos need a huge storage than never before. Nevertheless, even the cheapest laptop now comes with a 500GB hard disk and if you feel that it is not sufficient you always can go for a bigger drive as 1 Terra Byte. Also now people keep external hard drives to store their data and they are using the internal hard drive for immediate needs.
Display: 14” – 15” LED Display
Display size is one of the major factors which decide the price and the size of a laptop. You have to be careful when you decide on this. If you need a bigger display and if you do not care about the size and the weight of it, you can always go for a bigger display like 15 inches and above. But if you need a light-weight and small laptop, you should select a laptop with a display of 14 inches or below. There are certain laptop models by each brand which are light-weight but bigger in display and other specifications. But price is comparatively high.
Almost all the laptop displays are LED backlit with HD resolution and you will not be able to find any major differences in between them apart from the display size. But if you dig deep about each display of laptop models, you will be able to find differences in brightness, contrast and clarity from various reviews online.
Integrated/Shared Graphics
There is a separate part in computers which handles all the graphics and it’s called VGA card or Graphics card. In most of the entry level laptops it comes on-board and it shares the memory with RAM. For the tasks that we have mentioned above, this integrated graphics card is more than enough and it usually have minimum 768MB memory. Only the people who do graphic designing, animation and gaming will need a laptop with a separate graphic card.
Apart from these main specifications, you can check the other specifications such as the availability of DVD ROM, Webcam, Wi-FI and Bluetooth depending on your requirement. All the brand-new laptops such as Dell, HP, Asus, Lenovo and Soft logic laptops in Sri Lanka comes with a one year comprehensive warranty.
Now it is up to you to decide which laptop you should buy!
