Buying a new laptop for your business can be a tricky decision to make! If you dive in and start looking at the available models without first thinking about what you need, it’s very easy to overspend and still end up with something that isn’t quite fit for purpose.
Whether you’re buying a laptop for yourself or outfitting an entire department, there are a few things that you should think about before you start shopping.
Set your budget
It’s really important that you do this before you start looking; otherwise, it’s easy to get convinced that you need to buy something more expensive than necessary.
How much you need to spend will depend on what you need the laptop to do. If you are buying for multiple people, it’s important that you think about what each of them is actually doing when making your choice, rather than buying everyone the same thing. If you’re buying multiple laptops, it’s also a good idea to buy them from the same manufacturer, as this makes dealing with maintenance much simpler.
As a general rule, cost ranges for laptops are:
- $300 and under. You will find budget laptop models in this price range, which can have slow performance and limited storage. They probably aren’t powerful enough for business users, even if you are only a light user.
- $350 to $599. This price range should be adequate for business users carrying out light tasks like creating documents on Microsoft Word and posting to social media.
- $600 to $999. Laptops in this range will perform well for people who are carrying out multiple different tasks and who require a decent amount of memory. Most business users use laptops in this price bracket.
- $1,000 and up. You’ll find extremely high-performance machines in this price bracket, suitable for web developers, designers, and executives.
Choose your operating system
Once you have your price range, it’s time to think about operating systems. Your three main choices are Windows, MacOS, or Chrome.
Chrome is designed to be entirely web-based, so Chromebooks don’t generally come with a lot of storage or capability to run applications. If a lot of your work is web-based, then Chromebooks can be a great choice because they don’t have the storage Chromebooks will tend to be cheaper, which means you can get better performance for the same price as a lower-performing Mac or Windows machine.
If you want something slightly more powerful, then MacOS or Windows is probably your best bet. Both systems are similar in terms of quality, so for a lot of people, this choice comes down to personal preference. Generally, windows machines will have more hardware options, and historically macs have been better for heavy design work.
Design
The next thing to think about is how you will use your laptop. If you are someone who is likely to travel a lot, then lenovo laptop offers a great option with their IdeaPad. It’s slim enough to travel easily, plus durable enough to cope with airport checks. And of course, they come with a wide range of features to meet your business needs.
CPU and Memory
Finally, you need to choose your CPU, which is essentially your computer’s brains, and decide on how much memory you need. It’s important that you choose a CPU powerful enough to meet your needs but not so powerful that you end up overspending.
Likewise, you should ensure you have enough memory but that you aren’t paying for more than you need.