Independent buying guides
For buyers comparing laptops and desktops who want the spec sheet translated into consequences. Each guide answers one purchase question, quotes figures with the date they were checked, and shows the formula inside every cost calculator.
Each guide answers one buying question and shows the figures behind the answer.
How to choose
Windows 11 sets a floor of 4 GB of RAM and 64 GB of storage. Here is which specs above that floor change your day and which only change the price.
Photo: PantheraLeo1359531 · CC BY 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Budget and prices
Purchase price divided by the years you keep it, plus electricity from the rated draw, plus sales tax. An example $900 laptop works out near $196 a year.
Photo: Kskhh · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Performance
Storage headroom, memory, thermals and battery, taken in order. Spending $115 to add two years to an example $900 machine beats replacing it.
Photo: Gugalcrom123 · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
How to choose
How to choose a laptop by reading the three things a spec sheet understates: what the USB-C port is actually wired to, what the panel is, and what the charger can deliver.
Photo: KK IN HK · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Each calculator shows its formula, units and assumptions. Nothing is estimated for you in secret.
What a cross-border order really costs once shipping, duty and tax are added.
landed cost = (item price + shipping) + duty + tax, where duty = item price x duty rate, and tax = (item price + shipping + duty) x tax rate
Spreads purchase price, consumables and repairs over the years you expect to keep it.
cost per year = (purchase price - expected resale value + consumables per year x years + expected repairs) / years
Annual electricity cost from rated power, hours of use and your own tariff.
annual cost = power (W) / 1000 x hours per day x days per year x price per kWh, plus standby power (W) / 1000 x standby hours x days x price per kWh
The decisions that actually change what you end up with.
2
Photo: PantheraLeo1359531 · CC BY 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Like-for-like comparisons on the specifications that matter.
0
Photo: KK IN HK · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
What the total comes to once everything is counted.
1
Photo: Kskhh · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Getting it working properly the first time.
0
Photo: Igvir Ramirez · CC BY-SA 2.0 · Wikimedia Commons
What the numbers mean in day-to-day use.
1
Photo: André Karwath aka Aka · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
The expensive errors that are easy to avoid.
0
Photo: Bruce Turner from AustinTX · CC BY 2.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Every figure in a guide is taken from a named source, with the date it was checked. Where a number is an assumption or an example, it says so in the same sentence.
We do not run paid product tests, we do not publish reader reviews, and we do not claim to have handled every product mentioned. Where a claim needs a lab or a long-term test we do not have, the guide says that plainly.
Photographs are free-licence images from Wikimedia Commons or Openverse, credited to the photographer with the licence named. Charts are drawn from the figures printed in the same guide.
This site earns money from advertising and, where disclosed, from affiliate links. That does not change the order of a comparison or the conclusion of a guide.
Some links on this site can earn us a commission. That does not change which product a guide recommends, and it adds nothing to your price. Advertising is not enabled on this site yet. When it is, ads will be labelled and kept visually separate from the guides.