How to Read Laptop Specifications and Terms
The more technology is developing, the more diverse the number of laptops on the market. Starting from the most expensive like laptops gaming and design, to cheap laptops like Chromebooks for necessities basicall are available to meet the specific needs of their users.
Not only do they vary in terms of price, each laptop also has different specifications to make consumers more flexible in choosing the laptop they want. For example, two laptops at the same price may use different CPUs. There are clock speed-its higher,
Or if you use the same CPU, who knows, the RAM configuration and storage type are different. Nah, how can we know about the difference between these things? Easy, just look for a list of specifications on each laptop.
If looking for a laptop in marketplaceyou just need to read the list of specifications via the description on listing product. If the seller doesn’t include detailed specifications, you can ask via chat to the seller or look for it yourself on the official website of the laptop brand.
So what if you want to buy a laptop at an electronics store? Basically sih remains the same. Usually, laptops displayed in stores display not only the name and price of the laptop, but also the basic specifications. Nahthis information can be used as a reference before buying.
Usually, laptops that are displayed are affixed with some kind of paper or brochure that displays the size of the screen, the screen panel used, the type storagememory and RAM capacity, up to the GPU used.
These terms may sound familiar to those who follow the world gadget. But for beginners, it may not be possible to guess how suitable a laptop is for your needs. Here, Caris Signal explains how to read (or rather understand) the specifications of laptops in stores.
As disclaimer, this article will provide two different examples, namely the HP Mini and the ASUS VivoBook. You can refer to HP Mini as Example 1 and ASUS VivoBook as Example 2.
How to Read Laptop Specifications at an Electronics Store
The photo above is an example of a laptop on display in an electronics store window. Specifically for the example above, the seller decides not to display the selling price, but only the specifications.
In cases like this, you are allowed to ask the seller about the price of the laptop. Some things about laptop specifications that can be concluded from the explanation of the specs above include the following.
First is laptop brand namely HP or Hewlett Packard. HP itself is one brand reputable laptops you can trust for quality. I personally use HP 245 G7 and laptops so far I’ve been using it for two years now and it works fine.
Brand HP generally has a solid body construction, good overall service, and a hefty price worth it. Knowing the reputation of brand the desired laptop can also be insight which is useful when choosing a laptop.
For the case above, you are not shown the type of laptop in detail. But we can still know that the laptop is HP Mini. Some sellers in stores usually also display the laptop type code as well, for example as below.
From the example above, you can see that this laptop is ASUS VivoBook A405UO-BV307T Gold. The code in the name is a differentiator from other ASUS VivoBook laptops that have different specifications.
Just as TVs and monitors have different sizes, of course laptop screens also have various screen sizes. In Example 1, aka the HP Mini, the screen size is indeed small in numbers 10 inci just. This size is the length of the diagonal.
Just imagine a ruler that stretches diagonally measuring 25.4 cm, then that’s the size of the HP Mini laptop screen. Then on the type of screen, it only mentions using LEDs. If you want to know what type of LED is used, you can ask the seller or sales currently active in the shop.
If you look for the specifications page on the official website, it is stated that the HP Mini has a WSVGA screen type with a resolution of 1024 x 600 pixels.
You can also find out the screen size and resolution in Example 2 which shows the specifications of the ASUS VivoBook laptop. From the explanation of these specifications, it can be seen that the laptop has 14 inches in size with Full HD resolution. Full HD or 1080p screen resolution is a very decent and sharp resolution for a comfortable visual experience.
Then the next one is the processor or what is commonly referred to as the CPU. If you refer to the very first image in this article (example 1), the HP laptop uses a processor Intel Atom.
Can’t tell what kind of Intel Atom is used. You can also ask the seller about this if it is not listed. You see, there are quite a lot of types of Intel Atom, and each has a size clock speed as well as amount core different.
From the type of CPU, we can guess that this HP laptop is in an affordable price range (entry-level), could be in the range of Rp. 2-4 million. You see, the Intel Atom is a processor with simple computing capabilities, only strong enough to meet daily light needs and not for playing games or editing photos.
If you look at the picture in Example 2, the ASUS laptop has Intel Core i5 7200-U. This is a middle-class processor that has quite fast performance, but is in a fairly old generation (in 2023, the Intel Core generation is already at number 13).
- RAM and Storage (HDD/SSD)
Based on Example 1 (HP Mini), it can be seen that the RAM used has a capacity of 1 GB. Meanwhile, for storage using HDD (hard drive) SATA with a capacity of 160 GB.
