Laptop for interior designers? The Asus ZenBook 15‘s colourful and lightweight style is complemented by exceptional battery life and excellent performance, thanks in part to it being powered by an Intel Core i7-8565U, an Intel processor that’s designed specifically of high-end laptops. It features a nifty ‘ErgoLift’ design, which makes for a more comfortable typing position, and also lets warm air escape from the main vent more easily. As well as that, the ZenBook 15 gives you plenty of ports – two Type-A USBs, Type-C USB, HDMI, and SD card slot. The only real downside here is the lack of an Ethernet port, but that’s mitigated by the fact that you get a USB-A-to-Ethernet adapter in the box. This means if you need a laptop primarily for writing reports, essays and articles on, you won’t have to shell out for multiple dongles in order for you to your work done, and the long lasting battery means you can work for over ten hours without having to reach for your charger. The Asus ZenBook 15 isn’t cheap, but it’s a solid investment.
AMD’s Ryzen and Radeon silicon are a popular combo in gaming desktops, but the gaming laptop market hasn’t seen much from Team Red. That changes with the MSI Alpha 15 (starts at $899; $999 as tested), which pairs a quad-core Ryzen 7 3750H processor and a 4GB Radeon RX 5500M GPU to go head to head with Intel-based rigs packing Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 1650, producing smooth and reliable 1080p gaming performance. Although it doesn’t unseat the MSI GL65 9SC as our value-gaming Editors’ Choice, you can view the Alpha 15 as a feature-rich, happy medium between that laptop and the Acer Predator Helios 300, our pick in the next (and more expensive) performance tier. The GL65 is hardly the only 15.6-inch gamer to retail for under a grand with a quad-core CPU and a 4GB GeForce GTX 1650, but it’s further under that mark than most. As a matter of fact, as I type this, the system I’m reviewing (model 9SC-004) is an unbeatable deal. A Lenovo Legion Y545 with comparable hardware rings up at $849 with only half the storage (256GB). The Dell G3 15 (3590) is in similar straits, costing $100 more than the MSI although that price buys you both a 128GB SSD and a 1TB hard drive. Another option is the Asus TUF Gaming FX505 series (a technology refresh of the TUF Gaming FX504G), but it’s also more expensive when outfitted with a comparable AMD Ryzen 7 3750H processor.
Almost all offer screen resolutions of at least full HD or 1,920 by 1,080 (often abbreviated “FHD” or “1080p”), while an increasing number feature displays with the big-screen resolution of 4K (3,840 by 2,160 pixels). Between 4K and 1080p, an emerging resolution in panels this size is QHD, or 2,560 by 1,440 pixels; QHD is showing up in a few elite-level machines, such as certain high-end configurations of the Alienware 17. But 1080p is by far the most common resolution you’ll see. Also know: Touch screens are rare at this size. Find extra information at best laptops for hacking.
Mix that all together and throw in an OLED screen for good measure and you come out with a versatile smartphone that will handle just about every task you throw its way, without stopping to take so much as a single breath. However, that’s not to mean it isn’t without its fair share of faults – the biggest of which is the lack of support for 5G. Although, that’s not as big of a deal as one would have thought. 5G is still a long way off being the nation’s standard. In fact, it’s only available in a handful of cities nationwide at the moment and even then, only in really small surface areas within. Even if the iPhone 11 Pro supported 5G, you probably wouldn’t be able to use it. And let’s not forget that 5G tariffs are about as expensive as can be, so the fact it doesn’t work with the network actually brings the price down.
When it comes to the best Chromebook laptop, you have a choice between two stark alternatives. There’s the premium Chromebook Pixel, which we list further down this page, and then there’s the excellent Asus Chromebook Flip C302, which combines premium features in a much more affordable package. For many people, Chromebooks are excellent and affordable laptops that are perfect for students, and the Asus Chromebook Flip C302 is easily one of the best Chromebooks, and one of the best laptops, money can buy. It comes with an Intel Core processor, full 1080p display, touchscreen, backlit keyboard and USB-C port.
Having a dedicated graphics card (GPU) means that a laptop has its own dedicated graphics chip inside, unlike integrated graphics which are built in to the processor and far less powerful. Dedicated graphics have their own memory (RAM) and are significantly faster, offering up to (and sometimes even more than) 20x more performance than their integrated counterparts, depending on model. You need a dedicated GPU if you intend on using your laptop for gaming, video editing, rendering or design work. Popular graphics cards include NVIDIA’s GeForce RTX and GTX ranges, as well as AMD Radeon cards such as RX560X. See extra details at this website.
