The Problem I Have With Windows Laptops – From An IT Engineer
They’re not bad but…
I’ve been a Windows guy for most of my life and I think it’s fair to say that I’ve watched Microsoft expand the operating system and make good decisions and bad ones.
The first Windows operating system I used happened to be Windows 95, which was what we used in ICT lessons at primary school. Windows XP and Windows 7 were my learning operating systems that not only helped me get a degree in computer science but also my first IT job.
As someone who is passionate about computing, I started tinkering with computers from a young age and I eventually built my very first computer. All this experience combined, helped me secure my first IT job.
I’ve been working with Windows devices in industry for over 7 years and in that time, I’ve used and maintained several Windows-based computers and laptops.
Now you’re probably wondering why on earth am I talking about Windows and my IT career, all of this will make sense later in this article. But, the main reason I’m mentioning this is because laptops have significantly changed in those years.
But without any further ado, here are the problems I have with modern Windows laptops…
They are less upgradable
When I spend a lot of money on a product, I expect it to last for a long time and when it comes to laptops, I want to be able to upgrade them should I need to in the future.
I mean when you own a device for a while, it’s perfectly normal for your requirements to change. For example, you could have purchased a laptop to write a book, but the following year you may decide that you want to learn programming, and all of a sudden you are running a lot of virtual machines on your laptop.
Running virtual machines as well as programming can be heavy on your hardware, so you may want to upgrade the memory and storage space in your laptop.
Unfortunately, more and more manufacturers are choosing to integrate the memory in the motherboard making it impossible for users to upgrade without replacing the motherboard.
It gets worse as some manufacturers don’t tend to advertise whether laptops have integrated memory or not, turning laptop purchasing into a bit of a lottery.
So when you buy a laptop with 8GB of memory, that’s what you’re stuck with until you upgrade your laptop.
This is something that happened to me when I purchased the Huawei MateBook D15 last year, which by the way is a pretty good laptop.
Some laptops don’t even allow you to expand your storage space. This is something that I’ve mainly only seen on ultra-cheap laptops, which I guess is kind of expected.
But as a whole, I just wish laptops became more upgradable again!
Bloatware and pre-installed software
This may be an unpopular opinion, but I love it when some manufacturers include freebies with your laptop, it could be free cloud storage or an extended free trial of premium software.
But there comes a point when your machine becomes too bloated with unnecessary software and add-ons that don’t improve the user experience, but make it worse!
I was recently helping a relative set up their new laptop and it came full of unnecessary software that was preloaded by either their manufacturer or the store they brought it from. I’m sorry, but there is no reason why a Mcafee trial as well as photo and video editing software I never even heard of as well as a bunch of useless apps should be pre-installed on the laptop.
It just ruins the user experience and takes longer to set the laptop up to how we want it, as we have to spend time uninstalling useless apps.
That is one of the reasons why when I get a new laptop, I tend to create a bootable Windows USB drive and install a clean version of Windows from that, it just makes life easier starting clean. But it’s not something I should have to do.
Poor build quality and design
When it comes to laptop build quality, things have definitely gotten worse over the last couple of years.
Starting with keyboards, on many laptops they just feel cheap and uncomfortable to write on over extended periods of time, and don’t even get me started on those laptops where the power button is a key on the keyboard!
Some laptop keyboards even have the function key at the bottom left-hand side where you will usually find the Ctrl key, both of these are really bad design flaws in my opinion, and they definitely take a while to get used to them. Once again, it’s not something we should have to do.
Some laptops are just genuinely badly designed, you find all sorts of things wrong with them, from a bad hinge design to a poor cooling system. You will also find laptops that are made out of ultra-cheap materials and don’t feel nice to the touch.
Buying Windows laptops can really be hit and miss from time to time, that’s why I seriously recommend visiting your local tech store to have a look and feel of the laptop you are about to spend that hard-earned cash on.
Final Thoughts
I know that this article may sound negative, but I’m not talking about all Windows laptops in this post, I’m only talking about a small minority that are either cheaply built or the design hasn’t been fully thought of.
With that being said, you can actually pick up some really cool laptops that will last you a long time. But as an IT engineer and ex-tech store adviser, these are my main recommendations when buying a laptop:
- If possible visit a tech store to feel the laptop for yourself
- Research the model and watch YouTube reviews to see if it meets your needs and if the design is decent.
- Read customer reviews, but treat them with a pinch of salt.
- If the model you choose is not upgradable, future-proof yourself by not buying the cheapest option – you’ll thank me later!
If I were to go out to buy a Windows laptop today, those would be the 4 main things I would do.
But as a whole, I’m not against buying Windows laptops, especially as Windows tends to be an industry-standard operating system, I’m actually quite a fan of Windows 11 and I can’t wait to see what Windows 12 has in store for us!
Also Worth Checking Out…
Going to University? Why You Should Consider a Windows Laptop!