Tips on buying a New Computer or Tablet

[threegee]

The #1 thing to know is exactly what powers it.  If you don't find this out BEFORE you part with your money you are building for a disappointment, and could end up with something that's almost obsolete before you hit the on switch.

If the device is Intel powered this is relatively easy:

The site http://ark.intel.com/ has all the Intel products that you will ever encounter, even very old ones and ones that haven't been released yet.  Get the CPU model number from the manufacturers specification and paste it in to the search window there.

There's one thing - and really only one thing - you need to look for and that's the line that says Lithography.  As of today's date if that line doesn't say 14 nm you are buying an obsolescent product with much lower battery life than you need to.  The shop simply won't tell you this, as they need to move this product on quickly!  Here 22 nm is NOT better it is worse, and 32 nm is an antique!

There's another website (though it's not the only one here) that is good to check with, and that's https://www.cpubenchmark.net/   This site will give you a fairly good idea of how much performance you can expect from that CPU.  They quote this as a PassMark figure.  PassMarks of less than 500 are really poor these days, and even a tablet should have one going on towards 1000.  This site helps you compare prospective purchases for computing power.  Intel's own designators (e.g. i3, i5, i7, Core M, Celeron, etc.) are simply a marketing exercise, and not to be taken too seriously.

Of course the car isn't just the engine, and there are other things to consider; particularly the amount of RAM memory (and whether it is permanently soldered-in or upgradeable).  But, the above can help you rapidly weed out the stuff you shouldn't even be considering.