As someone who knows a thing or two about laptops and computers, one of the most common questions I get asked is which brand I recommend so I thought that it will be a good idea to write an article about it.

We all have our preferences when it comes to buying expensive things such as cars, TVs and even smartphones. Laptops and computers are no different and it’s most likely down to the good experience you’ve had with that particular brand.

This article will mainly talk about laptops, however, if you are in the market for a pre-built desktop PC, you may find some of this information useful. If you are unsure whether to go with a laptop or desktop, check out this article where I explain the differences.

As someone who works in IT and builds, refurbishes and fixes laptop and desktop computers I want to share my knowledge and expertise on whether I think brand matters or not.

When someone asks the question, I always respond with two counter questions…

What is your intended use?

When going out to buy a laptop, you obviously are purchasing it for a purpose. I struggled to say a specific purpose here as some people tend to buy laptops for general and multipurpose use. Nevertheless, laptops come at different price ranges and it’s usually for a reason such as the task it’s designed to perform.

Whenever someone asks me what brand of laptops or computers I recommend, the first thing I say or rather ask is what is the main task you’re planning to use the laptop for. There are a few reasons for that, the main one being that some manufacturers target their laptops for specific tasks and audiences. For example, MacBook Pro’s are great for video and photo editing. I wouldn’t necessarily recommend them for gaming.

What’s your budget?

The second question I usually ask is how much are you planning to spend? Obviously, the budget is the ultimate deciding factor as your final decision will always be based on your budget.

Now you may be wondering what this has to do with the brand – remember what I said about some brands targeting specific tasks and audiences? Well, there are brands that don’t target specific markets. 

So Does Brand Matter?

No, the brand doesn’t matter. Laptop manufacturers tend to target laptops for various markets, budgets and use cases. 

There are however things that do matter and we will get to these further along in the article because first, I want to tell you a little unplanned side story…

I recently decided to buy a laptop so that I can edit videos, and do IT-related projects on the go. I didn’t specifically look for a brand, although, I must admit I wanted something different, a brand I didn’t have before. But this didn’t stop me from looking at brands that I have had before and that’s because the main thing I looked at was the specs, then the features, reviews and eventually price.

I finally made the decision to go with the Huawei Matebook D15. It was a very reasonable choice that didn’t break the bank but at the same time had a very decent processor, decent storage and a reasonable amount of RAM. Stay tuned for the first impressions video coming soon to my YouTube channel!

I decided to tell you about my experience picking a laptop because I feel it’s important to talk about my true experience and opinions so that you, the reader get a better understanding.

So What Matters?

The decision should not be based on brand but on other factors such as specs, operating system, the warranty and whether it has any additional features that you may find useful.

Specs

One of the most important, factors is specs. The specs determine how the laptop will perform. Essentially, the higher the specs the better it will perform. It’s always good to research the components if you are unsure. The main thing you should be looking at is the processor (CPU), Memory (RAM) and storage space and whether the storage type is solid-state (SSD) or not.

As I mentioned before, laptop manufacturers target different markets and user needs. Take the Asus CX1100 Chromebook, it’s a budget laptop designed for browsing the internet and light use whereas the Razer Blade 15 is a high spec laptop designed for gaming. The list of device type goes on.

Customer Reviews

It’s worth reading customer reviews too to gain a better understanding of the quality of the item, but the main things you should be looking at are the keyboard, screen, touchpad and any additional features it may come with.

It’s important to know that reviews can be very biased. As someone who used to work at a tech superstore, I can tell you that people are not always up to date with the latest trends and technology in general. That’s why people like me are here to help! But the reason I’m mentioning this is that people will leave bad reviews about products because they don’t really understand the purpose or the fact that things can change. For example, when I was looking for my new laptop, I read some very unexpected bad reviews about it such as the fact that it doesn’t have a CD drive, one read that they returned it because it wasn’t running on Windows 7.

CD drives aren’t really a thing anymore and if you need one you can always buy an external CD drive. Windows 7 is not supported anymore by Microsoft. However, if you don’t really follow technology, you may not realise that these changes have taken place, and that may lead someone to write a poor review not knowing that that’s the way things are.

That’s why, when I look at customer reviews, I read these types as well, but I mainly look at the build quality of the case, the keyboard, touchpad and overall quality of the product. I don’t look at performance when I can see from the specs that it’s a high spec device.

To summarise this article, I would mainly look at the specs and reviews when looking for a laptop, the brand is the last thing I would look at.

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