The industry standard for computing changes quite quickly, considering back in the early 90s, having 32MB of RAM (Random Access Memory) and a 100MHz processor was once considered a great computer. These days, processors can reach 4GHz in Turbo/Boost mode, that is 4000MHz, FORTY times quicker than the PCs of the early 90s. These days, you want at least 8GB of RAM as a minimum, but should push for at least 16GB of RAM, especially if you are using the computer for gaming. You should aim for DDR4 RAM at the least when purchasing a new computer, this is the type of RAM your potential computer has, and the state-of-the-art has changed quite regularly as time progresses, as engineers find new ways of speeding up access to the memory. DDR stand for Double Data Rate.

If you are not gaming, which is fine, you still want a quick computer that doesn’t take ages to start, open pictures, write documents, or load a web page. There are two major CPU (Central Processing Unit) manufacturers that you can choose from for a PC, and that is Intel and AMD. You want at least an Intel i5 or an AMD Ryzen 5 processor, these are mid-range PC CPUs. This is excluding the new Macs, which use that M processor, which is relatively new. You also want an SSD (Solid State Drive), as this is an industry standard at the moment, which are quicker than disk drives. Sometimes computers come with both an SSD and a HDD (Hard Disk Drive), this is okay, but make sure you have at least 256GB of SSD capacity (the number of files and apps you can place on the disk), so you can install some essential apps apart from Windows on the faster SSD drive.

If you are serious about gaming, you want a discrete, dedicated, GPU (Graphical Processing Unit). This is different from an integrated GPU, which are not as powerful as a dedicated Graphics Processing Unit. You would want at least a mid-range GPU, such as an NVidia GTX 1650 or even better, an RTX GPU. The RTX supports newer features such as ray-tracing, and a newer design.

All in all, a good price for a new laptop that has pretty solid specs is around $1,000 and should remain current for six to twelve months.