There's no such thing as having it all, no matter what you're willing to pay for it. Good speakers and screens are hard to come by so are great keyboards and trackpads. You want long battery life and a slim build, gaming's all but out the window. You want power, you're going to need a big, expensive, probably ugly machine. Do I play games? Will I want to play games sometime in the next four years? How much do I travel? How much will I travel? Am I going to be using Office much, or at all, or ever again? I have cable now, but am I going to become a cord-cutting Netflix aficionado sometime before I'm back here shopping for another new laptop?Įverything's a choice with laptops, everything a tradeoff. More so than with any other product category, buying a laptop forces you to make all manner of decisions and prognostications about yourself. Yet it's an almost certain occurrence, at least when you're there shopping for a laptop. Standing in a Best Buy is an odd time for an existential crisis.
