Buying laptops for your business: Step 4 Choosing the tech spec

The fourth, and probably most important, in our series of Buying new laptops for your business is all about choosing the right technical specification.

Technical specs made easy

If you don’t know your RAM from your CPU then this simple explanation of the terminology of laptop specifications and how to choose the right spec that will best serve your business is for you.

Once you’ve learned the basics of laptop specifications, you’ll be equipped with all the knowledge you need to browse the market confusion-free.

And, if you missed any of our previous articles in this series, you can check them out here.

Previous Buying laptops for your business articles:

• Step 1 – setting a budget. How to set a budget, what you’ll get for your money and what business needs to consider. 
• Step 2 – deciding on the operating system. There are only three operating systems to choose from, but this handy guide will ensure you decide on the one that’s right for your business. 
• Step 3 – choosing a design. By design, we don’t mean choosing the colour and finish, we mean shape, size, functionality and who will be using your new laptops and where.

No need to be overwhelmed by spec-speak

The tech spec is where you’ll encounter the most amount of jargon when it comes to buying laptops, which can quickly induce browse-fatigue.

Always on a mission to rid the tech world of jargon, we’re here to help with these clear, simple to understand explanations of what you need to know.

What is a CPU? (Central Processing Unit)

This is the first thing you should look at in a laptop’s spec and is the equivalent of considering the engine when buying a car. It’s an area where you can easily overspend if you don’t consider what you need the laptop for.

Budget CPUs for light use

We wouldn’t recommend budget CPUs for any business use, although if all you do is type and browse the web occasionally then maybe they would be ok. These include Intel Atom, Intel Pentium and Intel Celeron.

Midrange CPUs for secondary, travel or basic work

Basic work tasks, or if you need a second machine, midrange CPUs are usually just in hybrid laptops. They include Intel Core m3, m5 and m7 and they are not recommended if you need to run programs of any significant power.

CPUs for general business use

Intel Core i3 and i5 processors are recommended for most mainstream business use. If you’re likely to be multi-tasking away in Word with more than ten tabs running including an accounting program and powering Excel at the same time, then an i5 will be better. If you’re a standard business user who sends emails, streams, posts to socials and stores documents then an i3 will probably be ok too.

Top range CPUs

Sixth- and seventh-gen Intel Core i7 processors can now be found in more reasonably priced laptops, but most business users won’t necessarily need one. If you’re not video-editing or 3D-modeling, you likely won’t use the processing power you’ve paid for.

It’s the equivalent of buying a sports car and never going over 40mph.

The tasks you need to do won’t be done quicker, or better by a top range CPU that has capability you’ll never need. Be careful of overspending.

Luxury CPUs

Unless you’re a data scientist, running powerful business analytics or vector-processing, you will not need an Intel Xeon.

Memory

After you’ve considered the CPU spec you need to consider memory. Short-term memory is called RAM, or Random Access Memory.

For long-term memory there’s your hard drive, or hard disc drive (HDD). Some laptops have a solid-state drive (SSD) as well as the hard drive, or only have an SSD.

SSDs are popular because they help your laptop to run faster and more robustly as they don’t contain moving parts and are more durable.

Quick RAM advice

Don’t consider anything with 2GB or 4GB RAM. Preferably choose 8GB. You’ll also find laptops with 16GB, but if you’re more of a mainstream business user it’s not really necessary.

A minimum combined storage of 256GB should be fine for most business users. However, if you’re using a Chromebook, be aware you won’t have this amount of storage space on the drive as you’ll be operating primarily in the cloud.

Battery life

How often do you need to use your laptop/s without power? Battery life expectancy as stated by manufacturer is only approximate but if you do need to use your laptop away from a power source, make sure you consider the battery life stated. Or perhaps you’ll always be near a power source, in which case battery life isn’t critical for you.

All set for buying your new laptop/s

We hope this technical rundown has helped you in your decision-making process for buying your new laptops.

Need further advice? Don’t hesitate to get in touch and ask one of our tech experts.

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