This is a topic I expected to see a lot of people talking about, but it is significantly low. Nearly zero whatsoever. With every passing month, the degradation of laptop hardware is stunning. Companies are more focused on making devices that are lightweight and optimized for day-to-day use, but not performance-focused. If you want a good-performing device, the only option you get is gaming laptops or those more expensive than that.
Interestingly enough, brands add one or two cool features to attract customers and then cut the cost in the components linked to performance. While buying their first product, people don’t really know what they need for long-lasting use. They just get drowned in the confusing numbers and naming codes of different brands of components. Also, there are those “trust me bro” benchmarks that push people way off while they’re searching for suited products.
Suffixes to consider while judging a processor
Let’s say you’re looking at devices that have an Intel processor. The model numbers have suffixes like U, P, H, or HX. AMD uses U, HS, and HX. Btw, these are generally used for laptop processors. If you’re building a custom PC, there are more naming variations, and significant considerations are also in order. Though I am just talking about suffixes, the model numbers matter too as they define generations. These suffixes you are considering while comparing similar generation processors.
U = Ultra low power (AMD uses the same suffix)
P = Performance thin (HS for AMD)
H = High performance graphics (HS upper generations for AMD)
HX= Highest performance (same suffix for AMD)
If you’re a student who has to learn programming or software like CAD or others that require graphics-heavy processing, you will get a smooth experience with processors with the suffix H (HS higher gens for AMD). HX is definitely better, but H does the job. The lowest you can go is P, and definitely you should avoid U. That is mainly made for basic users.
Having a laptop with processor suffix H within $600 - $700 was common 1.5 years ago. Now you have to pay nearly $1000 or more for that. It is not like it is impossible to provide them in the lower range; they just wouldn’t do it. Instead, brands are more likely to give one or two special features while robbing you of processor performance.
DDR vs LPDDR RAM
Then comes RAM. There is now a serious crisis in the RAM market. But what I am going to discuss here started a lot before that. There are two main series of RAM: DDR and LPDDR. The DDR series focuses on raw power while LPDDR ones focus on efficiency. LPDDR series try to consume less power for similar clock speed. Sounds good, doesn’t it? But the catch is what you are trading off for that efficiency. It is the raw power.
A DDR5 RAM that says it can provide 5000 MHz clock speed and an LPDDR5 RAM saying that aren't the same. It means that the LPDDR5 one can do that in the best-case scenario with some very specific conditions, while the regular clock speed of it is significantly lower. DDR5, on the other hand, will mostly maintain nearly the rated clock speed, and the magic is they can overclock their speed. This means when necessary your DDR5 RAM will give more than the rated power if your motherboard supports it. Things get interesting when you get more raw power in long-term use from 4800 MHz DDR5 RAM than 5000 MHz LPDDR5 RAM.
Though LPDDR series RAMs haven’t still dominated the laptop market, they are getting more and more used by brands as days go by. Oh, another thing: using DDR series RAM generally means you have an option to upgrade your RAM later. Though some brands don’t give extra RAM slots, you can upgrade using the single slot by replacing it with a higher storage one as long as it is not soldered. LPDDR series, on the other hand, are built as a RAM architecture that has to be soldered. So, a laptop having LPDDR series RAM means you cannot upgrade the RAM by default.
The Calculated Drama of Laptop SSD Storage
SSD configuration is another calculated drama of the laptop brands. In most cases, it is mentioned that the laptop has PCIe NVMe SSD with the storage size like 256 GB or 512 GB, etc., but the read speed and write speed are not mentioned. This is clever. Because you’ll never know what category of SSD you’re getting. NVMe SSDs have a broad spectrum of read speed and write speed. Some are even slower than high-speed SATA SSDs. But you’ll never know what your laptop is using.
The current laptop market is pushing U series processors too much. LPDDR series in RAM still not being very dominant is at great risk as the RAM crisis is no joke. Custom PC builds are already using whatever they get at their disposal. It is just a matter of time for laptop brands to go for the cheapest possible option. About SSD, you don’t know what is being used. The same goes for motherboards and many other components. Non-gaming laptops mostly use integrated graphics cards that come built-in with processors. Even if there is a dedicated GPU, it is not that powerful and we cannot really expect very much in this case.
The trade offs and marketing distractions
Peak irony is what you get with these trade-offs. Brands are racing to make laptops lighter even though they lack performance. The insane lightness requires light accessories. It becomes physically impossible to put enough capable hardware in that space. At least the fast brands are chasing lightness. The technology isn’t getting developed that fast. So, they just put components enough to run instead of really making a capable machine.
The AI race and the tech giant micro slop is pushing the brands to use processors with NPUs in laptops to call them Copilot+ PC. In easy terms, they are putting NPUs so that you can use real-time AI features that you might use once a month or every three months or maybe even never, and the budget is getting cut from the CPU performance that you literally always use. This is madness and dystopian. But what can we do but be glad in whatever shit tech giants tell us to swallow.
Then comes the screen. It is true that having OLED or AMOLED displays in your laptop isn’t bad. But having a very good screen with a dumb processing power makes it only usable to people who don’t really need much of any use from their computer.
And the touch screen. Oh, the touch screen! The most useless trade-off in my sense is the touch screen. Any sane person will never consider giving up the processing power of his laptop just to have touch screens. I mean this is quite an unnecessary feature for a computer display as it sits at a distance you have to reach out just to use the touch screen feature. Touchpads and mice are there which work just fine, and better in many cases.
By the way, apart from all these, you get a better battery life out of your laptop. It is obvious as you’re making your device weak enough to use that power. So, you get a better battery backup. I think I would be happy to carry a charger brick everywhere I go for a device that gives me good enough usability instead of the luxury of not carrying one by sacrificing what I bought the device for.
The Apple Fever
It is not uncommon for the tech landscape to try to chase Apple's product standard. This rat race is secretly contributing to laptops getting dumber day by day. It is funny how brand executives think that it makes sense to make their product more like Apple when people can simply buy products from Apple.
They probably thought people who are buying their budget products cannot just afford Apple so they’re buying them. This has just changed with the launch of MacBook Neo. So, the budget laptops getting more like Apple is just going to push users more to Apple.
And many people who can afford Apple still buy non-Apple devices because of them not being Apple. Apple’s rigid ecosystem doesn't let you do whatever you want with your machine where the non-Apple options let you. Also, it is true that MacBook have become very good now with their Apple Silicon, which is basically an ARM architecture processor. Still, heavy users want the raw power of x86 processors.
The faster laptop brands accept the fact that mimicking Apple isn’t going to let them go anywhere, the better. Otherwise, they’re going to learn it the hard way. Like Lenovo did with their ThinkPad series. The backlash from one of the most dedicated user bases of the laptop industry. And it was spectacular. If Apple just continues the MacBook Neo lineup, the whole laptop market will face this crisis. Because users no longer need a device that is trying very hard to be Apple and sucking at what it was supposed to do.
what is likely to happen with the Laptop Market?
As mentioned before, right now the best shot you’ve got is gaming laptops and paying premium prices for features that you could definitely get for less, but the brands just won’t let you have a value-for-money product. The future, however, doesn't look very promising. With RAM prices skyrocketing, in upcoming product designing, laptop brands will even stop giving the eye-wash features to hide the obvious incompetence.