Buying a gaming laptop that is suitable for you is a big decision to make as there are a lot of options to consider and you want to invest in one that will meet your needs. In the quest of making a decision, several basics can help you find the best gaming laptop for yourself and this guide highlights these key basics and walks you through the nitty gritties you need to know to be able to prioritize the features in a gaming laptop that are most important to you. Here then, is a guide on how you can buy a gaming laptop for yourself that doesn’t suck.
- GPU
The Graphics Processing Unit of a laptop plays the role of creating the pixels on your screen when gaming. It mainly contributes to smooth frame rates and high-resolution gameplay. If you intend to game in 1440P or 4K, you need a capable GPU. Make sure that your gaming laptop has a GPU that will facilitate a smooth, high frame rate and resolution.
- Display
The display of a gaming laptop can have a significant impact on your gaming experience and so consider the screen size of a gaming laptop which in most cases vary with 13,15, and 17-inch screens being the most common. You can also consider the laptop’s resolution as this will influence how clearer your images appear. The higher the resolution, the more pixels appear on the screen, which will mean that images will be clearer. Also, consider the refresh rate of the gaming laptop as this will help the actions on your screen appear smoother and easier to follow.
- CPU
This is the ‘brain’ of your gaming laptop. Your choice of CPU will have a significant impact on your gaming experience from the response times of your applications to your laptop’s battery life, and even the frame rates you see in the games you play. The CPU features that matter the most to you vary based on how you use your laptop but the basics include; CPU options, clock speed, and core count.
- Storage
Since this is a gaming laptop, you want one that has the storage capacity to store large files. Consider Solid State drives (SSDs) over mechanical drives (HDDs) as in most areas that impact gaming, SDDs outperform HDDs. Key gaming laptop storage factors you should consider include; NVMe SSDs, SATA SSDs, Intel Optane memory technology, and external storage features for additional space.
- RAM
The reason why additional random access memory (RAM) is an important factor to consider in a gaming laptop is that it enables your laptop to run more processes concurrently and enables your system to switch between programs while running other tasks in the background. The amount of RAM you will need in a gaming laptop will largely depend on how you intend to use the system. Other RAM features to consider include RAM speed, and the upgradeability of the RAM to suit your preferred experience.
Other factors
Other factors to consider in a gaming laptop include design based on your aesthetics, build quality, weight, ports, wireless connectivity, and input options such as being able to connect to a gaming mouse, mechanical keyboard, headset, and audio.
Based on the above factors, browse popular gaming laptops here and snug one that will make up the gaming experience of your dreams.
