4 Tips for Buying a New Laptop

Sometimes buying a laptop is like buying insurance. When you mention that you are looking for one and seeking advice, many people say that it depends on what you want to do with it."

After many exploration questions, here are four best tips when you want to buy a new laptop.

1. Determine which type of laptop user you are

There are three main types of laptop users:

1. Gamers and hardware geeks.

2. People who do design and creative work, such as video editing, photoshop, music creation.

3. None of (1) and (2).

Gamers and hardware enthusiasts are often technicians who know what they need. The game player said, "I need a computer with a G3260 LGA1150, 120GB SSD, GTX1070 Gaming X 8GB GDDR5. I must have a 17.3-inch 1920 x 1080 G-Sync IPS HD screen."

On the other hand, creative people tend to buy Apple MacBook. It's like a cult organization. But seriously these are good machines - many people use their MacBook for more than five years. In the long run, this is quite cost-effective.

But what about the third category? We mainly use laptops to access the Internet and process files (movies/music/light games/e-books, etc.).

If you are neither a gamer nor a creative person, please buy and try different laptop brands everywhere. Try to narrow it down to two or three competitors and buy the one that you think is worth the money.

2. Specifications: Buy at least i5 / 8GB RAM / 256GB hard drive

You get a laptop with better specifications, but this combination is fast and reliable, so buy it even if you don't like design or colour.

Lenovo Flex 14 has i5 / 8GB RAM / 256GB hard drive specifications, if you buy at the time of sale, the price is RM2,111.77.

In general, laptops with i5 / 8GB RAM / 256GB are cheap but cheap (RM 2,000 or more), but expensive (RM 5,000 or more) if it is lightweight and portable.

As a guide, the Lenovo Flex 14 is only 2 kg, while the Surface Pro 4 is only half.

3. Fixing laptops for cheap

You will encounter issues with your laptop from time to time and must attend to the repairs. Accidentally dropping your laptop can crack its screen, and sometimes certain alphabets on the keyboard will refuse to work.

If you don’t want to spend RM500 to replace the broken screen, you will still however have to fork out about RM180 to get the keyboard fixed.

4. Warranty

Consider providing a four-year warranty on your laptop, including the manufacturer's warranty - for a total of five years.

The reasons are as follows:

• The laptop failure rate (within three years) or its likelihood of occurrence ranges from 15.6% to 25.6%. ASUS has the lowest, and HP has the highest (source: Statistical Brain Institute). Microsoft Surface's failure rate in two years is as high as 25% (Source: Reuters)

• Smaller laptops = more portability = more wear = more possibility of faster damage.

• If you like the idea of ​​selling a laptop when you are ready to buy a new laptop, then getting a warranty can help the buyer. The warranty period is increased by approximately RM350-RM500+ per year, depending on the coverage. For example, Harvey Norman has a warranty plan. If you need to repair your laptop more than twice, they will replace it with a brand-new machine (or equivalent).

If your laptop is cheap, or comes from a brand with a low replacement rate, you don't worry about the warranty.