@regis_lesnums) Updated 13/01/22 at 12:10 a.m. Share:
Are you considering the purchase of a laptop PC, running Microsoft Windows or Apple MacOs, but you feel lost among the dozens of references? Don't panic, take a deep breath and read the following lines.
In recent years, gloom seems to reign in the portable PC market, with many diviners announcing its decline in favor of tablets. This is largely untrue. While “old-fashioned” laptops are in fact tending to disappear, two other types of machines are experiencing a real boom: laptops for gamers and ultraportables (2-in-1). On the one hand, large PCs, quite expensive, but very powerful. On the other, little jewels of design and mobility, which rely more on great autonomy than on computing power. In short, today it is these two categories of products that most appeal to very different audiences. When making your choice, you must therefore have perfectly defined your needs, keeping in mind the criteria that are most important to you.
Are you considering the purchase of a laptop PC, running Microsoft Windows or Apple MacOs, but you feel lost among the dozens of references? Don't panic, take a deep breath and read the following lines.
In recent years, gloom seems to reign in the portable PC market, with many diviners announcing its decline in favor of tablets. This is largely untrue. While “old-fashioned” laptops are in fact tending to disappear, two other types of machines are experiencing a real boom: laptops for gamers and ultraportables (2-in-1). On the one hand, large PCs, quite expensive, but very powerful. On the other, little jewels of design and mobility, which rely more on great autonomy than on computing power. In short, today it is these two categories of products that most appeal to very different audiences. When making your choice, you must therefore have perfectly defined your needs, keeping in mind the criteria that are most important to you.
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Let yourself be guided by our experts
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↔️ Laptop: which format to choose?
From 10 to 18 inches, laptops and MacBooks are now available in many screen sizes. Often, the smaller the diagonal of the slab, the easier the machine will be to transport. But the inches are not the only criterion to be taken into account, since the weight of the assembly and its thickness when closed are also to be considered. If you want to have the lightest and most discreet machine possible, you must therefore opt for an ultraportable or even a 2-in-1 which has the ability to turn into a tablet thanks to a detachable keyboard. However, this is often done to the detriment of the connection (USB port, network, etc.).
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? A PC gamer or not?
Many brands now offer machines that are powerful enough to play. Thus, if your PC is equipped with an Nvidia or AMD graphics card, you will be able to launch recent games in good conditions. However, you have to be aware that video games are the sworn enemy of autonomy and that it will be difficult to play for more than two hours on battery power. The lesson to be learned is this: if I want to play "seriously", I plug my PC into the mains, period. We prefer in passing an SSD-type storage space rather than a conventional hard drive. More lively, SSDs can reduce game loading times. If you are looking for a configuration ready for video games, take a look at our guide to gaming PCs.
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? Power, range, or both?
The higher the computing power, the lower the battery life is likely to be. This does not mean that a laptop with a very long battery life will necessarily be slow. The latest processors - at AMD like Intel - thus benefit from a good balance between very good performance (regardless of the number of cores or the number of GHz) and reduced consumption. But the CPU is not the only important component of a laptop and the democratization of SSD-type storage has also enabled machines to gain speed. More technically, we will favor computers equipped with a minimum of 8 GB of RAM, an amount below which the memory will be too low to ensure fluidity.
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? Should you choose a good keyboard?
There is a tendency to relegate this aspect to the second, even to the third level. And yet, a comfortable keyboard that delivers precise typing can totally transform the way you relate to your laptop PC. Today, the vast majority of laptop keyboards are chiclet type, that is, with flat and spaced keys. It is a format which offers both good comfort and which makes it possible to reduce the overall size of the machine. Taking advantage of one or more backlight levels is also a real plus, especially if you regularly work in a dark environment.
