Laptop Buying Guide

If you're looking for ThinkPads, check out the ThinkPad page.

Considerations

When buying a laptop you should first look for:

• Low price
• Performance
• Build quality

Most of the time have to compromise by buying one with only two of these criteria.

Take into consideration the build quality of the product purchased. If the machine is going to be used for many years, paying extra for a build quality is probably the direction you would want to head in. Hardware manufacturers do sometimes design and create hardware in way that it becomes obsolete in a few years.

You'll also want to consider these factors when getting a new machine:

• Consumer experiences. Are there common problems that are reported by multiple people? Even doing a Google search on the brand and model will give you useful information.
• What do you want to use it for and how often will you use it? Sometimes it's better not to go overkill in price if you're just going to browse Facebook (and in fact, if you're just going to be browsing the web on your machine, you're better off getting a netbook or a Chromebook.)
• Life expectancy. Consumer feedback will give you an idea of this.
• Average operating temperature and location and number of air vents. Also consider if other parts, such as the screen, will obstruct the air flow (i.e. like the Dell Studio XPS 1647).
• Average battery duration when running Windows, the battery usually lasts for longer if your using a lightweight freeware distribution.
• Casing. Does it conduct heat well? Is it at least reliably sturdy? Check out consumer feedback for this.
• Weight, is going to be on your desk the whole day or are you running between classes with it.
• How easy it is to get access to the CPU, heat sink, RAM etc. You might need to apply new thermal paste, or swap out the RAM/hard drive/CPU one day.
• Power adapter output wattage. You can find this out by multiplying the voltage by the current (in amps). This is important because sometimes laptops can run on lower watt adapters, but have reduced performance. You also might need to replace it one day.
• Power adapter sturdiness. Will the wires in it break easily? Is the adapter long enough?
• Power socket location. Is having the cable plugged in to the back or the side of the laptop better for where you will be using it?
• Drivers. Consumer feedback will help with this.
• Webcam and microphone quality.
• Screen. IPS screens are better in pretty much every aspect compared to TNs and VAs, and your eyes will notice this no matter how you use your laptop. If you're willing to spend that little bit extra.
• Hard drive type, capacity and size. A decent capacity SSD will make a large difference in performance on even a slow machine. Make sure you get a 2.5 inch hard drive, not a 3.5 inch-otherwise it won't fit.
• RAM, number of RAM slots, and RAM type. This applies more to older machines, but more RAM can usually increase performance. Also, make sure it is whatever RAM type is most modern (DDR4 at the time of writing). Also, if you do decide to purchase extra RAM, make sure you get laptop RAM and not desktop RAM. Laptop RAM is more expensive, and smaller, and so desktop RAM won't fit.

Of course, you won't find a perfect machine, but with the right considerations, you can find one that ticks most of the boxes.

New Laptops

General Buying Advice

• Avoid laptops with A4-12xx, A6-14xx, E series by AMD, and Celeron, Atom, or Pentium from Intel. Those processors are budget processors.
• Installing a fresh copy of the OS on a new laptop is generally a good idea, to remove manufacturer provided bloatware.
• L shaped power connectors will break less than standard ones.
• If you plan on running something other than windows on your laptop, be sure to check and double check the support for your model and specific hardware configuration.

Regional Recommendations

Where it specifies not to buy from a retail store, it means that you shouldn't just go into a retail store and buy your machines (making yourself vulnerable to sales pitches and in-person marketing). Find the cheapest location to buy from, and have it shipped if it works out to be cheaper.

US New Laptops

• Go to LaptopScribes A curated list of current laptops you can try, maintained by anons.
• Select desired laptop by price.

UK New Laptops

• Avoid the likes of Cash Converters and CEX at all costs, you will be ripped off.
• Overclockers UK stocks a number of more expensive laptops, but are generally poor value.
• CCL Online stocks a number of good well specced laptops, but expect to have to sift through a fair bit of junk to find them.
• TEKshop stocks a number of new and refurbished laptops. A bit of both at reasonable prices if you'd like to buy used instead of just new.
• Consider buying your laptop straight from the manufacturer, you may get a better deal.

Canada New Laptops

• Go to Memory Express and filter your desired specs on the left.
• When CAD is near par with USD, there are often better deals in the US, even with duty and shipping considered.

AUS New Laptops

• Go to MSY or PCCaseGear for cheap laptops.
• Buying from most Retail stores (Harvey Norman, Myer, Dick Smith) aren't recommended because they're very expensive, but they do offer you an opportunity to try out a laptop.

NZ New Laptops

• Go to PriceSpy to get a good price comparison
• As with AUS, buying from most retail stores is also not recommended.

Sweden New Laptops

• There's Prisjakt

Switzerland New Laptops

• If you want to buy in Switzerland, always check for prices at Toppreise.
• It is recommended to order laptops in Germany, as the selection is much higher and the prices are much lower. If you order a laptop from the EU to your Swiss adress, you'll have to pay taxes on it. To circumvent these, ship it to a warehouse in the EU, like LAS-Burg (Northwestern CH) or Lieferadresse Konstanz (Eastern CH), which only charge a few Euros for their service.

Germany New Laptops

• Compare prices at Geizhals
• Don't bother with retail stores.
• Check special offers at McGutschein

Gaming Laptops

Gaming laptops used to have the fame of being more expensive and less powerful than regular gaming desktop, for modern gaming laptops this is not (entirely) true anymore. Today you can find gaming laptops that perform with up to a 10% difference from the equivalent desktop. Prices for gaming laptops are also comparable with desktops (taking into account that a laptop also includes a monitor and keyboard). Still, if top performance or dollar/performance is your gold you should also consider a gaming desktop. Keep in mind though that gaming laptops can't be upgraded CPU and GPU wise most of the time, and the cooling is often sub par too.

Recommended Gaming Laptops

Note: This list doesn't get updated often, for more up to date recommendations you can try LaptopScribes or other of the above sites.

Lenovo Y700

+Great performance per dollar

-Average-at-best build quality

Gigabyte Aorus X7

+Great specs

+Great build quality

+Thin

-Expensive

Various Clevos and Sagers

+Can be found under multiple brands (Pioneer Computers in AUS, System76)

+Great to amazing specs

+Fairly nice 95% gamut displays

+highly upgradeable

+-Average build quality

+-Average to decent price

-Bad support

Asus[1] G series (currently G750JX or G750JH)

+Great specs (i7-4700HQ, up to GTX 780M)

+Good build quality

+Good support

+Best cooling system available for the moment

-Pretty expensive

-Big and heavy

-Not really serviceable

MSI GT series (currently GT83VR 7RF or GT83VR 7RE)

+Insane specs (up to i7-7820HK, 1080SLI)

+Less expensive than other prebuilt like Asus or Gigabyte

+Best laptop audio (Dynaudio)

+Can sport a 4K screen

+RAID 4 Dual NVMe SSD's

+Highly upgradeable

-Somewhat mediocre build quality on older models (GT780 and GT70 models tend to have broken hinge mounts in the screen back cover)

-Big, short battery life and heavy like most gaming notebooks

-Cost a heart and a lung

Alienware series (14, 17, 18)

+Good to amazing specs (14 up to i7-4900MQ and GTX 765M, 17 up to i7-4930MX and GTX 780M, 18 up to overclocked i7-4930MX and GTX 780M SLI

+New models have good build quality

+Accidental damage warranty available

+14 inch model is portable for a gaming laptop

+Great audio (Klipsch)

+Good deals on tablets when you buy an Alienware

+-Customizable lights (can be turned off)

-Expensive for the specs

>ALIENWARE

Other Gaming Laptops

Razer Blade (and Blade Pro)

+Super high resolution 3200x1800 display

+Super thin

+-Razer ( good or bad )

-Super expensive

-Hilariously bad build quality for the price

-Lacks many ports a normal gaming PC would have

ThinkPads

See ThinkPad

Dell

Dell has generally shit customer service but has a decent lineup of Linux friendly laptops.

XPS 13 and 15, and Precision

+High quality displays

+NVMe SSDs

+Thin bezel, generally nice looking. You won't look like a complete autist in public. Not that a ThinkPad without stickers on it would make you look like one.

+Good Linux support, as Precision Developer Editions are shipped with Ubuntu.

-Keyboard is not as good as ThinkPad chiclets.

Chromebooks

See Chromebooks

Toughbooks

See Toughbooks

Apple Notebooks

Apple makes multiple high end notebooks for consumers, the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro.

• MacBooks are easy for beginner users, while having a powerful command line for power users.
• OSX contains some of the customizability and power of GNU/Linux (owing to its UNIX architecture) while having the ability to natively run applications like Photoshop, Final Cut Pro, Premiere Pro, etc.
• Drawbacks of Apple notebooks are self-upgradability, and self-repair.
• The GUI is not free, however the kernel is. For power users this may make or break the purchasing decision.
• MacBooks are best when purchased new/Apple refurbished, for they have the highest resale value of any other PC manufacturer on the market, only to be beaten by Toughbooks
• retina MacBooks have some of the highest quality displays you can get on a laptop
• >Macfags

MacBook Pro (latest model)

+Great battery life (13" up to 9 hours, 15" 8 hours)

+Great build quality

+Great screen (although glossy/reflective)

+Good performance

-Expensive

-Li-Po Battery is glued down, $199US for battery replacement at the Apple Store. International Prices

MacBook Air (latest model)

+Great battery life (13" up to 12 hours, 11" 9 hours)

+Great build quality

+-Screen isn't as good as some higher end notebooks, but better than average

+-Enough performance for the average user

+Cheap when compared to other comparable ultrabooks (Vaio Pro 13, Zenbook UX301, Acer Aspire S7)

+Li-Po Battery isn't glued down, replacements available on eBay, or $129US for battery replacement at Apple Store. International Prices

When you take in your MacBook for a battery replacement at the Apple Store, you will get a new Palmrest and Keyboard.

Used Laptops

Used Business Laptops

Get a computer that’s built to last, is fast enough for basic tasks like internet browsing and word processing for as little as $100. HP EliteBooks, Dell Latitude/Precisions and ThinkPads are the recommended Business laptops when buying used. It's important to note that these notebooks are not built for gaming. It's also recommended to install a GNU/Linux distro on older used machines. ThinkPads have good support for most distros. Note that older hardware is generally better supported by GNU/Linux as drivers are maintained far longer than on Windows and other operating systems.

FOSS only distro friendly LibreBoot (Thinkpad) x60 laptops can be bought refurbished from Gluglug. If you know what you're doing, just get a used ThinkPad X60 for cheaper and mod the BIOS yourself.

Used Laptop price guides

Used Other Laptops

It's generally not recommended to buy consumer laptops second-hand. Business laptops are purchased by companies and government, usually have low wear and tear, and are sold second-hand only after a short period of time for a low price. Businesses aren't concerned with making money on sold laptops, consumers are.