It has been a year now since the first case of COVID-19 was identified in China. In the initial months, it was largely confined to China and Southeast Asia. Then it rapidly progressed throughout the entire world, causing a devastating effect on millions of people and destroying economies. The virus has had a serious and everlasting effect on our lives. Millions of people lost their jobs, and many more have faced the prospect of taking salary cuts due to enforced lockdowns.
Forced to stay at home, people have been looking at newer ways to kill time, and to augment their depleting incomes. They’ve taken part in many new activities, from doing online courses to online gambling and searching for the best esports betting sites to place wagers and make a quick buck.
Companies have been forced to ask their employees to work from home, initially due to the lockdown, and later in order to limit people from gathering in confined office spaces. But on a positive note, it has proved to be a win-win for both the companies and the employees. Companies can save money due to decreased maintenance and rent of offices, while employees save the time and cost of their daily commutes, and work more comfortably from their homes.
Many companies have made working from home compulsory for at least a year. This has required the employees to scout for a permanent working space within their homes, as well as look for better computers or laptops in order to work more efficiently. Let’s have a look at three laptops that can fit into every budget and make work-from-home life a better experience.
Asus Vivobook 14
In spite of being a year-old model, this laptop offers excellent value for the money. The company claims that it is the “world’s smallest and most colorful laptop”. The laptop comes in multiple bright color options and has slim bezels around its 14-inch LCD display. The chassis of the laptop is made of plastic but is extremely sturdy and resistant to flexes.
The display has a 16:9 aspect ratio, 60 Hz refresh rate, and full-HD resolution. The colors are a bit muted, due to a narrow coverage of the NTSC spectrum and the viewing angles are not that great. However, the screen does get an anti glare coating, which makes it easier to work on, even in a brightly lit environment.
The keyboard is backlit, with well-spaced keys having a fair amount of travel, making for a good typing experience. The same goes for the touchpad, which is generous in size, and smooth tracking, with a fingerprint sensor on the top righthand corner.
It has good connectivity options with 2 full-sized USB connections, a USB type C, an HDMI port, headphone/microphone jack, and a micro SD card slot. Wireless connectivity includes Wi-Fi 802.11ac and Bluetooth 4.2
As for the internals, it ships with a 10th generation i3 Intel processor, with 4 GB of RAM and 256 GB of SSD storage, as well as an i5 processor with 8 GB RAM and 512 GB storage. The battery lasts for around 5 hours on a medium workload. The laptop is currently priced at around INR 50,000.
HP 14q
Priced at around the INR 30,000 mark, this is a great laptop for those looking for a budget-friendly laptop. The laptop has a 14-inch LED display, with a resolution of 1366*768 pixels.
For connectivity, it has a 3-in-1 card reader, Wi-Fi 802.11b/g/n, and Bluetooth 4.2. The laptop also has an HDMI port, headphone/microphone jack, a USB 2.0 port, 2 USB 3.1, and an RJ-45.
The laptop is powered by a Dual Core i3 processor clocked at 2.3 GHz, with 4 GB of DDR4 RAM and 1 TB of storage.
For input, it has a full-sized island-style keyboard and a multi-touch touchpad.
It is pretty lightweight, weighing in at just under 1.5 kg.
MacBook Pro 16
For those looking to buy the best that money has to offer, look no further than the MacBook Pro. It has an all-new 16-inch display, offering a resolution of 3072*1092 and has excellent and vivid colors, with great viewing angles and usability even in bright sunlight.
You can choose to buy either an i7 or i9 processor, clocking speeds of up to 5 GHz. It has an AMD Radeon Pro 5500M graphics card with 4 GB of GDDR6.
Buyers can configure their MacBook for up to 16 GB of DDR4 RAM and 1TB of internal storage.
The previous complaints about the butterfly keyboards seem to have been addressed and the keys now have a slightly longer travel. Wireless connectivity includes Wi-Fi 802.11ac and Bluetooth 5.0 and the laptop has 4 Thunderbolt ports.
The battery is now a 100 WH unit, which is the maximum allowed by the FAA on flights, and allows an entire day of browsing and editing documents on the go.
