During the pandemic a new student who recently entered his college will be confused in between to choose Laptop or Tablet. A solid device other than your phones serving various purposes is a must for an upcoming batch of students. We cannot emphasise enough on this need of students. As several career fields have gone digital since COVID-19 followed by the new-normal of ‘Work From Home’ and ‘Online Classes’, students should choose their electronic machine carefully for their college as it is going to be an expensive but a necessary one time investment. There are laptops from brands such as Dell, Acer, Lenovo and HP.
Buying the right laptop or tablet can be a bit pricey but totally worth the money, thus you should spend less on buying your mobile phone. Here’s why –
Students, on-average, use mobile phones for calling, messaging, social media and almost everything that laptops and tablets can perform. But because of small screens, less storage and incompatibility with keyboard, mouse and stylus, laptops and tablets have an edge over them. Also, a phone can get damaged easily in its daily usage. So, it is not recommended to splurge your entire bank balance on such devices.
Here we are listing the purpose-wise budgets and features of the right laptop and tablets for you –
1. Coding:
For Coding enthusiasts, a small sized, lightweight laptop with enormous amount of storage and a backlit keyboard is a perfect match. Understand the fact that you have to carry this laptop with you everywhere you go in the upcoming years. Choose one which has a life of 4-5 years minimum. Recommended budget is between 50k-60k.
2. Gaming:
A gamer’s need can be expressed in 4 words i.e. display, storage, graphics and processor. The display should be at least 13 to 14 inches for a better gaming experience. Because of the heavy files of games, we suggest your laptop should have 1TB of storage and an SSD of at least 256GB.
The Graphics Processors plays a huge role in Gaming PCs, most of the heavy games support high-end graphic processors with at least 4GB GDDR5 dedicated graphics memory. We recommend Nvidia GeForce GTX or AMD Radeon R9 series for best graphics performance and output. Now, coming to Processor we recommend choosing AMD Ryzen 5 Quad Core or up, Intel i5 9th Gen processor or up.
Remember laptops of a lower price range will not support you in the long run and the heavy load can worsen their efficiency. Suggested budget is between 60k-75k.
3. Personal Use:
For purposes like entertainment, making presentations and other daily use, a laptop with a price range of 20k-30k is best suited for you. You can also add a mouse and an SSD in your cart to make a perfect set. As college students, you have to make notes and diagrams all day long. So, tablets have an edge over laptops (keyboard and stylus can be bought separately according to the user). Suggested maximum budget is 30k.
4. Designing and Art:
Tablets may seem exorbitant to you at first but they are a must for you and a far better option than phones and laptops. Paired up with the stylus and portable keyboard (separately bought), you are ready to rule with your talent and the right gears. Keep the size and storage of your tablet in mind while buying. Suggested budget is in between 30k to 55k. Both Keyboard and Stylus ranges in between 8k-15k.
Note: We didn’t mention about RAM because nowadays every laptop’s coming with the ample amount of RAM, and manufacturers are providing empty slots to add extra RAM which is configurable according to the need aftermarket. Choosing DDR4 or up type of RAM is preferred for better clock rates and lower power consumption which directly affects on performance and power usage respectively.
Bonus Tip: When you use your laptop for heavy tasks like gaming or coding, please plug in the charging connector, for better performance and save your battery life from being damaged. When laptop runs on higher clock speeds, it consumes heavy battery and reduces your battery lifespan.
Remember, you are not investing your money and resources in a laptop or tablet; you are investing them in yourself, your future, which has the highest ROI (Return of Investment). Thus, there shall be no compromise with it. This investment is the best kind!