Choosing a laptop without being talked into the wrong one

Most people buy the wrong laptop, and it is not their fault. The specifications are written to sell the machine rather than to inform you, and shop staff are frequently working to targets.

Here is what actually matters.

Start with what you do, not with a budget

Email, browsing, photos, video calls, documents. This is most people, and the honest answer is that almost any current laptop will do it well. Do not let anybody tell you otherwise. $600 to $900 buys something genuinely good.

The above, plus a lot of tabs, spreadsheets and multitasking. $900 to $1,400.

Photo or video editing, or serious study workload. $1,400 and up, and here the specifications genuinely start to matter.

Gaming or 3D work. A different category with different rules, and worth researching separately.

If you are in the first group, which most people are, you can stop worrying about the technical detail. Buy something reputable with the three things below and you will be happy.

The three things that matter

1. An SSD, not a mechanical hard drive

Non-negotiable. This affects how fast the machine feels more than anything else, by a wide margin.

Almost everything sold new now has one, but very cheap machines occasionally still ship with a mechanical drive. Look for “SSD” or “NVMe” in the specification. If it says “HDD” or “5400rpm”, walk away regardless of the price.

256GB is workable. 512GB is comfortable. Storage is the thing people most often under-buy and then regret.

2. Enough memory

8GB is the realistic minimum in 2026. 16GB is the sensible choice for anything you want to keep five years, and it is usually only a modest amount more.

Do not buy 4GB. It will be frustrating on the day you unbox it.

Important: on many modern laptops the memory is soldered in and cannot be upgraded later. Buy what you need at the start.

3. A screen you can actually read

The most overlooked factor, and the one that affects daily use most.

Full HD, described as 1920x1080, is the minimum. Avoid anything sold as 1366x768, which is still lurking at the cheap end and looks cramped and dated.

Matte beats glossy if you will use it near a window, which most people do.

Size is a genuine trade-off. 13 inches is portable and small to read. 15 inches suits most people at a desk. 17 inches is a desktop that folds.

If eyesight is a factor, go for 15 inches with a Full HD screen, then turn the scaling up so everything is comfortably large. This is much better than buying a low-resolution screen.

What to ignore

Processor model numbers. The difference between an i5 and an i7 is invisible for email and browsing. Any current i5, Ryzen 5, or Apple M-series chip is more than most people will ever use. Do not pay for a faster processor to fix a slowness that will actually come from insufficient memory.

“Up to” battery figures. Manufacturer claims are measured under conditions you will never reproduce. Assume roughly half.

Extended warranties. Rarely worth the price. Australian Consumer Law already gives you substantial rights beyond the manufacturer warranty, and those apply regardless of what the shop tells you.

Setup and “optimisation” services. You are being charged a hundred dollars or more for someone to remove software the manufacturer was paid to install. Ask a knowledgeable person instead, or ask me.

Bundled antivirus subscriptions. Windows already includes Defender, which is genuinely good. More on that here.

Windows or Mac?

Get whatever your family uses. Genuinely, this is the biggest factor for most people. Free help from somebody who knows the same system is worth more than any specification.

Macs last well, hold value, and the current models have excellent battery life. They cost more up front, and some specialist software does not run on them.

Windows offers far more choice at every price, and is what most workplaces use.

Chromebooks are cheap, simple and secure, and genuinely fine if everything you do is in a web browser. They are limiting if you need installed software, and worth understanding before buying rather than after.

Buying

Wait for a sale if you can. Laptop pricing in Australia moves considerably, and end-of-financial-year, Black Friday and back-to-school periods are genuinely cheaper.

Refurbished is worth considering, particularly ex-corporate business machines. They are built better than consumer models, come with a warranty from reputable sellers, and cost far less. This is the best value available if you are comfortable with it.

Buy where returns are easy. Not from an overseas marketplace seller, where Australian Consumer Law protection is difficult to enforce in practice.

The twenty minutes worth spending first

Before you buy anything, describe what you actually do to somebody who has nothing to sell you.

Roughly half the people who ask me what to buy do not need to buy anything. Their current machine needs an SSD and an hour of tidying up, which costs about a hundred dollars and produces a computer they are happy with for another three years.

The other half get told a realistic budget, which is nearly always lower than they were quoted in a shop.

I sell nothing and earn no commission on any recommendation, which is precisely why the advice is worth having. Get in touch before you spend the money, not after.