How and where to find good tablets & laptops.
Tablets are great for browsing the internet, watching videos and playing games, using apps, making video calls and reading. They are portable and generally have good battery life.
Because they mirror a smartphone interface and have similar control functions - many people without strong digital skills find them easier to use than laptops.
They aren’t as useful for doing ‘productive’ work on - but you could add a detachable keyboard to make writing easier.
Tablets range in price but good budget options are available from between £65 and £150 from online retailers.
Budget tablet
Can be slow
Poor audio
Attractive design
Easy to use
Decent battery life
Can be slow
Focus on Amazon services
So-so screen
Good battery life
Fast speed
Weak audio through speakers
Compact size
Low price
Good all-rounder
Not the fastest
Sub-par speakers
Reasonable price
Can be used as voice assistant
Fast performance
Battery life not as good as rivals
Chunky design
Designed for children
Monitoring features for parents
Inexpensive
Good screen size
Can be slow
Poor battery life
Battery charges slowly
Good battery life
Strong security features
Can be slow
Struggles in noisy environments
Large display
Fingerprint scanner
Good battery life
NFC capable
Can be slow
Slow charging
Poor quick-charge battery life
Heavy and wide
No supplied headphones
Fantastic value
Great battery life
Good display
No headphones
Not powerful enough for serious users
You can buy relatively cheap laptop for between £200 - £400.
Like with most technologies, you get what you pay for.
Sometimes, the factors that might affect your decision about which laptop to purchase can be can be confusing.
It's recommended to get a well-established brand for the sake of online support and help they offer.
Examples of these brands include: HP, Acer, Lenovo, Dell, Asus, Toshiba, Sony, Apple.
Price and quality can vary significantly between each of these brands. There are a lot of models that exist, so use a comparison tool or review site to make sure you find the most suitable one.
These types of laptops use Google's operating system, which isn't Windows. Chromebooks tend to be cheaper, aimed towards students and kids. They do not come loaded with software, which means they can be relatively quick for basic tasks.
These laptops are small, lightweight and come free of the software that is automatically installed on most traditional laptops. They are also relatively inexpensive and can offer a cost-effective solution if you need a portable laptop.
ThinkPad is a line of business-oriented laptop computers and tablets designed, developed, marketed, and sold by Lenovo. They are more robust and reliable, typically used by working professionals.
The technical specification of laptops can be confusing, it can be hard to know where to start. Some guidelines to follow when purchasing laptops for clients are the following:
This is known as the 'working memory'. The more applications installed on your computer, the more of the 'RAM' is used, and the slower the computer becomes. This is one of the primary reasons that computers with a large RAM are typically faster. Most laptops have RAM that can be upgraded at a later date.
The amount of RAM you might need is roughly 4GB. Laptops will usually have an empty slot for upgrades, but laptop RAM is not cheap.
Like RAM, this is one of the primary factors that can affect the speed of your laptop, and what you can do on it. Unlike RAM, this cannot be upgraded at a later date. Establishing the 'best' processor is complicated, so here are some things to look for:
A laptop with an 'Intel i3 core', or higher
This is sometimes known as the 'hard drive'. There are a few distinctions to make when looking at storage in laptops: