Computer Shopper - UK (2020-01)

ISSUE383|COMPUTER SHOPPER|JANUARY2020 49

01

Abasic laptop costing around £300

will run everydayoffice,multimedia

and education software,but it won’t be

suitable for3Dgaming or processor-intensive

tasks such as video editing. Many laptops at

this price have a15.6in screen and weigh over

2kg, so they’re best used around the house

and foroccasional journeys.

02

If you want to playmodern games,

you’ll need alaptop with adedicated

graphics chip such as the Nvidia GeForce GTX

1060M. Good gaming laptops tend to have

large15.6or17inscreens and weigh around

3kg, so they’re best suited to useathome.

03

If you want alaptopthat you can

take everywhere,look foramodel

that weighs less than 2kg. Forthe best

Choosinga... Laptop

portability,buy one that has a13.3in or 14in

screen. In general, the smaller and lighter the

laptop,the more expensive it is, especially if

it has plenty of processing power.

04

Battery lifeisextremely important

foralaptop,particularly if you’ll be

carrying it around. We’d expect all but the

biggest and heaviest to last foratleast

five hours on asingle charge,but foran

ultraportable that you carry everywhere,

eight hours and above is more desirable.

05

Laptops use mobile versions of

processors to conserve power,

and these lag behind desktop chips

when it comes to performance.For a

budget Windows laptop,anIntel Core i3

processor will do the job,but if you

want better performance,you should

look foranIntel Core i5 or Core i7

model instead. We recommend a

minimum of 4GB of RAM, although 8GB

is better formultitasking.

06

Most budget and mid-range laptops

use amechanicalhard disk for

storage.You’ll want at least 500GB, but

1TB or more is better.Solid-statedrives

(SSDs) have faster performance,making

your computer quicker to boot and more

responsive.Theyhavelower capacities,

though. You’ll need at least 128GB.

07

Convertibles and 2-in-1 laptops can

change from laptop mode to tablet

mode.We’ve listed our favouritemodels later

on in this guide in the Tablets section.

LAPTOPS

HPEnvy13

★★★★★

£749•store.hp.com

There are

plenty of gre

ultraportabl

available these days, but mos

of them cost well over £1,00 0.

The Envy 13 is an extremely attractive alternative: it’s slim and light,

weighing just 1.2kg, but it has plenty of power and high-end features

including afingerprint reader and dedicated graphics, and what’s

more,it’s relatively affordable.

PROCESSORQuad-core 1.6GHz IntelCorei5-8250U•RAM8GB•DIMENSIONS307x212x14.9mm

• WEIGHT1.2kg•SCREENSIZE13.3in•SCREENRESOLUTION1,920x1,080•GRAPHICS
  ADAPTORNvidia GeForceMX150•TOTALSTORAGE256GBSSD•OPERATINGSYSTEM
  Windows 10 Home•PARTSANDLABOURWARRANTYOneyearRTB•DETAILSwww.hp.com•
  PARTNUMBERah0001na•FULLREVIEWSep 2019

The Asp

epitome

sensible

laptop.It’s not ultra-stylis

and it doesn’t have a

professional-quality

display, but forthe

price it offers reliable per

variety of workloads, and it will last afull dayonbattery power

without much trouble.

PROCESSORQuad-core 1.6GHz IntelCorei5-8250U•RAM8GB•DIMENSIONS382x263x21mm•

WEIGHT2.2kg•SCREENSIZE15.6in•SCREENRESOLUTION1,920x1,080•TOTALSTORAGE

256GBSSD•OPERATINGSYSTEMWindows10Home•WARRANTYOneyearRTB•

DETAILSwww.acer.com•PARTCODEA515-51-50YS•FULLREVIEWOct2018

HUAWEIMateBook14

★★★★★

£1,500•consumer.huawei.com

The MateBoo

is the biggest

best of Huaw

2019 ultraportables. Like them

expensive MateBook XPro,it

can be equipped with a

Core i7 processor,but an

airier chassis means that

performance isn’t compromised to prevent heat build-up.Other

highlights include long battery lifeand Nvidia’s updated MX250 GPU.

PROCESSORQuad-core1.8GHzIntel Core i7-8565U•RAM16GB•DIMENSIONS308x224x15.9mm

• WEIGHT1.5kg•SCREENSIZE14in•SCREENRESOLUTION2,160x1,440•GRAPHICSADAPTOR
  Nvidia GeForceMX250•TOTALSTORAGE512GBSSD•OPERATINGSYSTEMWindows 10 Home•
  PARTSANDLABOURWARRANTYTwoyears RTB•DETAILSconsumer.huawei.com•PARTCODE
  KLV-W29•FULLREVIEWJun2019

ASUSROGStrixScarIII

★★★★★

£2,599•www.amzn.to/2Mxd

The ROG Stri

compromises

in its pursuit

top-quality portable gaming.

While this means ahighprice

it also means a240Hz display

an incredibly powerful Core i 9

processor and Nvidia’s high-e

RTX2070 GPU. Despitenotb

gaming laptop,it’s not tooheavyandunwie y,

PROCESSOROcta-core2.3GHzIntel Core i9-9980H•RAM32GB•DIMENSIONS360x275x24.9mm

• WEIGHT2.57kg•SCREENSIZE15.6in•SCREENRESOLUTION1,920x1,080•GRAPHICS
  ADAPTOR8GBNvidia GeForceRTX 2070•TOTALSTORAGE1TBSSD•OPERATINGSYSTEM
  Windows10Home•PARTSANDLABOURWARRANTYOneyearRTB•DETAILSwww.asus.com


• PARTCODEG531GW-AZ055R•FULLREVIEWOct2019

ACERAspire5

★★★★★

£598•www.amzn.to/2M

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