Computer Shopper - UK (2020-05)

ISSUE387|COMPUTER SHOPPER|MAY2020 49

01

Abasiclaptopcostingaround£300

willruneverydayoffice,multimedia

andeducationsoftware,butitwon’tbe

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

large15.6 or 17in screens 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 moreexpensive 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’llwant 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 least128GB.

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

DELLXPS 13 2-in-1(2019)

★★★★★

£1,319•www.dell.com

There have been no

compromises in this

latest convertible

version of the XPS 13. You’re still

gettingexcellent build quality,afast

Intel 10th-gen CPU and aresponsive

touchscreen, one that’s been slightly

heightened to amore work-friendly

16:10 aspect ratio.

PROCESSORQuad-core1.3GHzIntel Core i7-1065G7•RAM8GB•DIMENSIONS296x207x13mm•

WEIGHT1.33kg•SCREENSIZE13.4in•SCREENRESOLUTION1,920x1,200•GRAPHICS

ADAPTORIntelIris Plus Graphics•TOTALSTORAGE256GBSSD•OPERATINGSYSTEM

Windows 10 Home•PARTSANDLABOURWARRANTYOneyearRTB•DETAILSwww.dell.com•

PARTCODEcn73014•FULLREVIEWApr2020

Great design, high

performance,

wonderful display,

comfortable keyboard –there’s

almost nothing that the 13.5in

version of Microsoft’s latest laptop gets wrong. It comes with a

better selection of CPUs than the 15in variant, and you can now

choose between the fabric cover or aclean metal finish, too.

PROCESSORQuad-core1.3GHzIntel Core i7-1065G7•RAM16GB•DIMENSIONS

308x223x14.5mm•WEIGHT1.3kg•SCREENSIZE13.5in•SCREENRESOLUTION2,256x1,504•

TOTALSTORAGE256GBSSD•OPERATINGSYSTEMWindows 10 Home•PARTSANDLABOUR

WARRANTYOneyearRTB•DETAILSwww.microsoft.com•PARTCODEVEF-00064•

FULLREVIEWMar 2020

DELLLatitude3300

★★★★★

£629•www.dell.com

Dell’s

affordable

and well-built

Latitude 3300 is made for

students, but the fact that it

has strong specs forthe price

can be appreciated by anyone

looking forageneral-purpose laptop.The quad-core CPU keeps

performance up,and this particular model has asuperior 256GB SSD

to the even cheaper versions’ eMMC drives.

PROCESSORQuad-core 1.6GHz IntelCorei5-8250U•RAM8GB•DIMENSIONS330x231x22.9mm

• WEIGHT1.56kg•SCREENSIZE13.3in•SCREENRESOLUTION1,920x1,080•GRAPHICS
  ADAPTORIntelUHD Graphics620•TOTALSTORAGE256GBSSD•OPERATINGSYSTEM
  Windows10Pro•PARTSANDLABOURWARRANTYOneyearRTB•DETAILSwww.dell.com•
  PARTCODEn013l330013emea•FULLREVIEWJan2020

ASUS ROGStrixScarIII

★★★★★

£2,649•www.scan.co.uk

The ROG Strix Scar III

compromises nothing

in its pursuit of

top-quality portable gaming.

While this means ahighprice,

it also means a240Hz display,

an incredibly powerful Core i9

processor and Nvidia’s high-end

RTX2070 GPU. Despitenot being atrue thin-and-light

gaming laptop,it’s not tooheavy and unwieldy,either.

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

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


• PARTCODEG531GW-AZ055R•FULLREVIEWOct2019

MICROSOFT SurfaceLaptop3

13.5in

★★★★★

£1,549•www.microsoft.com

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