There are several universally important things to consider when buying any laptop:

1. Monitor Size

Unlike a desktop, you can’t buy a new monitor for a laptop. If you’re looking to game, watch movies, do graphic design, or any task that requires ample screen real estate on-the-go, you’d want to consider a 15”+ monitor. Keep in mind, however, a bigger screen means a more power-hungry laptop, thereby increasing weight and overall size and decreasing battery life.

2. Weight

If you know you’re going to be lugging your laptop bag with you all day, you may want to consider giving your shoulder or back a break. Many laptop manufacturers offer lightweight devices exactly for this reason, with laptops under 3 pounds, slimmer components and smaller screens. These laptops tend to be easier to carry and have excellent battery life, with the tradeoff being generally less horsepower due to smaller and lighter components.

3. Battery Life

Nothing’s worse than being in the middle of your work and the dreaded “battery low” alert flashes on your screen. Fortunately, it isn’t unheard of to find laptops with 15+ battery life and is increasingly commonplace. If you plan on being on-the-go with your device often and don’t like always having to be outlet hunting, you should consider a laptop with up to 6-8 hours battery life at a minimum.

4. SSD

These days, you want to buy a laptop with a solid-state drive (SSD), not a hard disk drive (HDD). SSDs are 4-5x faster and are much less likely to be damaged or corrupted. They are commonplace in modern laptops. Although slightly more expensive than HDDs, SDDs are well worth it, and they only keep getting better with developments like NVMe SSDs.

5. Operating System

Choice of OS is a can of worms in the computing world that deserves its own article, but we recommend selecting what you prefer and what you budget allows for. Also, you may want to consider your current device ecosystem such as your phone and streaming device/smart TV. The integration can be very nice if you choose compatible devices, such as the ability to cast your screen to your TV, transfer files between devices or app integration between devices.