Overspecced Laptops Are a Waste of Money

The average retail price for a Windows laptop is about $450, but PC manufacturers are building laptops that cost even thousands of dollars more than that—hoping you’ll fall for the premium features.

Laptop Magazine reminds us to buy a laptop based on our needs, not on what the laptop can do.

Most PC vendors seem to think that, if they just pop a faster CPU or discrete graphics card into the same cheap chassis, they can jack up the price and consumers will gladly pay it. However, a plastic laptop with a stiff keyboard that starts at $400 still looks and feels cheap after you add a Core i7 CPU and increase the price to $800.

I like White Castle as much as anyone, but I’m not going to pay $25 for a slider with Kobe beef inside. I don’t care if the meat costs $300 a pound.

Reconsider if you really need a discrete graphics card (if you’re only playing casual games, a laptop with an integrated graphics card will be just fine) or a touchscreen (if the laptop isn’t a 2-in-1, you probably don’t). And don’t pay a premium for an ultrathin laptop if you’ll have to trade performance or usability as a result:

Laptops like Lenovo’s LaVie Z and the LG Gram 14 make you pay a hefty premium for their lightweight chassis, but both suffer from poor battery life and uncomfortable keyboards. Other ultraportables are so thin that they don’t have room for a full-size USB port, like the MacBook, or trade a full-size SD Card slot for a microSD slot.

If you do plan on spending more than the average $450, go for the features that will really make your computing experience better, things like an SSD or high-resolution display.

Check out the article below for more laptop buying advice.

Splurge or Purge: What Laptop Features Are Worth the Money | Laptop

Photo by terrenceistheman.

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