Buying computer equipment in the domestic market causes not only a sea of ​​positive emotions, but also a number of problems associated with choosing a decent product from a huge assortment of goods. As practice shows, about 50% of users ultimately do not get what they originally wanted. Some fail the performance of a mobile device, others - ease of use or high cost.
In this article, the reader will learn how to choose an inexpensive, but good laptop that can handle all the tasks. Advice, recommendations, reviews and reviews of decent products will help potential buyers quickly navigate the computer market and not become a victim of scammers and dishonest sellers.
Physical dimensions first
Before proceeding to the technical part of the question, the user needs to determine the diagonal of the mobile device. The fact is that it is the size of the laptop that affects the final cost of the product. Read before you choose a laptop inexpensive, but good, expert reviews. They will clarify this issue:
- devices with a diagonal of 8-11 inches are designed for entertainment on the Internet and are aimed at active people who always want to stay in touch;
- 12-13 inches diagonal occupies the corporate segment (business, business trips, conferences, trainings);
- laptops of wide consumption are given a niche of 14-16 inch devices;
- For fans of demanding games, as well as for creative personalities, a specialized niche has been created, which includes laptops with a diagonal of 17-20 inches.
From simple to complex
The cheapest devices on the mobile market with a physical keyboard are netbooks with a diagonal of 8-11 inches. When choosing, it is better to focus not on performance, but on the autonomy of working on a single battery charge. Ideally, such a device should work on a single charge of about 6-8 hours.
Those who are interested in how to choose a good inexpensive netbook can be advised to pay attention to the display of a mobile device. It must be of high quality (IPS matrix), have high resolution (at least 1366x768 dpi) and have decent brightness. The bonus here is the presence of a sensor with multi-touch function. In the domestic market, the Asus Transformer, Acer One, Lenovo IdeaPad, and HP Stream netbooks performed well.
Real businessman
Before choosing an inexpensive but good laptop in the segment of 12-13 inch devices, you need to decide on the list of tasks that will be set for the mobile device. The recommendations of the experts in this matter are quite understandable - you need to divide all the requirements into two components:
- work is the cheapest segment;
- Entertainment is an expensive class.
Then everything is simple - choosing the right category, the buyer focuses on the cost, appearance and ease of use. If the user wants to combine business with pleasure, it is better to give preference to a more expensive device.
Office kid
Staying in the segment of mobile devices with a diagonal of 12-13 inches, many users do not know how to choose a good and inexpensive laptop for working with office applications. Indeed, it is difficult to call the price low for equipment of this category (20-25 thousand rubles). If the user does not plan to play resource-intensive toys, then it is better to focus on the amount of RAM that is used when working with programs. The second selection criterion is the processor. It is better to give preference to a device with two cores and an operating frequency of more than 2 GHz.
Do not overpay extra money for the increased capacity of the hard drive and a discrete video adapter. All modern laptops are equipped with components that will not create inconvenience to the owner during operation. In this segment worthy are considered: HP ProBook 430, Asus X302, Acer Aspire V3 and Asus Zenbook.
Working time killers
Many users are interested in how to choose a cheap, but good gaming laptop that can be used for business purposes. It is clear that the potential buyer wants to combine business with pleasure. Everything is simple here - you need to focus on the central processor and game video card. All other components (memory and hard drive) are already selected by the manufacturer to increase the gaming power of the mobile device.
Everything is clear with processors - it is better to give preference to products of the Intel Core i3 / i5 / i7 line, but with a video card you need to be extremely careful. Better to focus on the game class. For Nvidia products, the marking should be at least 4 in the second place (for example, GTX 960M). Good products in this segment include: Dell Alienware 13 and Asus Zenbook UX.
Elite device segment
Among users looking for information on how to choose an inexpensive but good laptop for games and work, there will certainly be fans of Apple products. In the market of mobile equipment under the logo of this brand, there are just devices for combining work with leisure, equipped with 11-13 inch screens. Although the manufacturer does not please potential buyers with a large assortment, there are no identical devices in the product line - it is quite simple to find the necessary gadget in terms of performance and price.
In the low-cost segment (from 80,000 rubles) you can take a closer look at MacBook and MacBook Air laptops that can cope with any office tasks and multimedia work. But gamers should give preference to more advanced in terms of performance MacBook Pro devices. Mobile equipment of this class will cope with any resource-intensive games, not to mention the complex tasks invented by the user.
Inexpensive Home Solution
The cheapest laptops of the 14-inch form factor are in the price category up to 25,000 rubles. The objective of such devices is to provide user access to the Internet and the ability to work with multimedia. And before choosing a laptop that is inexpensive, but good, for a home in this segment, you should get used to the idea that a mobile device will not be able to do more. No resource-intensive games, convenient transportation or long battery life is to be expected.
As for the tips, then here they simply are not. The buyer should choose the cheapest laptop that he liked in the store window. The only advice that experts give home users is to buy mobile equipment better without a pre-installed operating system. In this case, the savings will be about 20-30% of the total cost of the laptop.
Hot sale
Multimedia devices for work and great time with a diagonal of 14-15 inches occupy almost half of the market, and here the choice is made for the specific tasks of customers. The user, of course, is interested in the question, on what grounds to choose a good inexpensive laptop in this segment. There is a list of basic requirements for all laptops of this class, you should definitely familiarize yourself with them:
- low price;
- portability and autonomy;
- high performance;
- mobility, beauty and elegance.
And then the user will have to choose the two most important criteria from the four provided by experts. Choosing the right items, finding a decent laptop will not be a problem. What should not be done is to claim 3 or 4 points. The fact is that it is impossible to find a device with all the requests at the same time in this class of mobile equipment.
The most productive devices
Before looking for answers to the question “how to choose an inexpensive, but good laptop for gaming,” it’s worth deciding on the gaming applications themselves, which the user plans to run on a mobile device. The fact is that a high-performance gadget that can handle resource-intensive applications at maximum settings, a priori, cannot have a low cost.
You can play Dota 2 or ride a tank in World of Tanks on inexpensive devices with integrated video adapters or discrete entry-level solutions, but to run FarCry 4, FIFA 16 or Fallout 4, you need a very powerful laptop equipped with a modern processor and a powerful graphics card.
Ready-made solutions for players
Game lovers, before choosing a cheap, but good laptop, need to pay attention to the presence of a gaming video adapter. It is this device that determines the purpose of mobile technology in the market. AMD products must have the "R9" series, and Nvidia solutions are classified by the second digit in the label, which should be at least five.
The second criterion for choosing a game solution is the presence of a powerful central processor with 4 physical cores: Intel Core i5 / i7 or AMD A4. It’s not even worth looking at platforms below class - they are not adapted for demanding games.
As for the RAM and the hard drive, it’s worth looking at finances here, of course, the larger the volume, the better for effective work. In the gaming segment, Asus N752 and ROG series laptops, Acer Aspire Nitro and Predator, MSI GE72 and Dell Precision and Alienware have worked well.
Computer for creativity
Many users, wondering how to choose a laptop that is inexpensive but good for gaming, do not find gaming solutions in an expensive segment. With a diagonal of 17-20 inches and a high cost, mobile devices are not at all intended for games due to the lack of powerful discrete video adapters. But the amount of RAM is simply amazing (8-16 gigabytes). These devices are intended for designers, programmers, editors and other people of creativity.
In addition to RAM, the main criterion of such a device remains a high-performance processor, which can quickly perform complex calculations. Do not forget users about the quality of the liquid crystal display, which is able to have excellent color reproduction (IPS-matrix).
Minimum RAM Requirements
The weak link in all portable systems in the domestic market is the small amount of RAM that many device manufacturers are trying to save on. Before choosing a gaming laptop inexpensive, but good, the user needs to know that for the full operation of one Windows operating system (8 or 10), 1.5-2 gigabytes of memory are needed. Accordingly, to run even office applications in a laptop, 2 times more memory must be installed. For games, the multiplicity is four.
Do not forget about the possibility of increasing productivity - in the mobile device should be provided with at least one slot for installing additional memory modules. By the way, the laptop motherboard should also support an increase in RAM.
Constant in a laptop
When wondering how to choose an inexpensive but good laptop for work, many potential buyers find in the media quite strange tips and tricks regarding the purchase of a mobile device with a weak processor. In the future, the user is offered to use the usual overclocking using special utilities.
In fact, this is nonsense - the laptop is simply not able to work continuously at maximum. The regular cooling system will fail at any time, and the mobile device will burn out. Repair and restoration are non-warranty cases.
The processor is better to choose the most affordable, albeit in damage to the amount of RAM and hard disk. In fact, this is the only component in the system that cannot be replaced or duplicated.
Improving system performance
It is not worth the potential buyer to chase the speed of the hard drive, staying in search of an answer to the question of how to choose a laptop that is inexpensive but good. Expert reviews here come down to one thing - a hard drive still needs to be changed after purchasing a mobile device to a solid-state SSD drive. Otherwise, you can forget about the platform’s high performance forever.
As an option, you can initially purchase a laptop with such a drive, however, the overpriced cost of such devices can scare even an experienced buyer. Such a question is better not to trust the manufacturers of mobile equipment, but to take the process into their own control.
The Pursuit of Happyness
From year to year, new gaming applications are released that force users to purchase more productive mobile devices in the computer market. Naturally, any buyer will ask: “How to choose a laptop that’s inexpensive but good?” Asus (a Taiwanese manufacturer) approached this issue quite interestingly and offered the owners of portable devices the XG Station gadget, which plays the role of an external video adapter. The problem with resource-intensive games is eliminated simply:
- a laptop is purchased with a powerful processor and the presence of additional slots to expand the amount of RAM;
- you will need a monitor or LCD TV with HDMI input;
- the Asus XG Station gadget and a productive video adapter in the computer market are acquired.
Casting away all fantasies
Having studied the tips, recommendations and reviews of the owners of mobile equipment, experts came to the disappointing conclusions - most users, before choosing a cheap, but good laptop, do not pay enough attention to finding information about the necessary device in the media. Hence the negative to mobile technology: a lot of weight, slow operation, loud noise and the like problems related to the technical part.
A laptop is a regular personal computer that is several times smaller and less power hungry. Do not expect that an expensive mobile device will be able to perform additional functionality. The maximum is the provision of wireless technologies (Wi-Fi and Bluetooth) and autonomous work outside the home. All. No need to fantasize about how spaceships plow the expanses of the universe with a laptop.
Finally
Before choosing a laptop that is inexpensive but good in the domestic market, the user just needs to get acquainted not only with the products, but also with the technologies that the manufacturer uses when assembling the mobile device at the factory. A future owner who wants to get a decent gadget at an affordable price will have to give up plentiful media advertising and study the basic components of a laptop and their purpose.
It is worth trusting and the recommendations of experts who are not interested in selling, but provide independent advice and product reviews on their own initiative. Otherwise, it is unlikely to be able to purchase a laptop on the basis of "price-quality".