Guide

Notebook buying advice: How to find a notebook for the home office

10.8.2020

Translation: machine translated

Since Covid-19, working from home has become part of everyday life for many people. If you don't have a suitable notebook at home or your employer doesn't provide you with one, you can find your device here.

Our notebook buying guides are all about finding the right laptop for you. I give you basic tips and assessments for different areas of application and show you some examples of notebooks. My aim is to use filters so that you only have to decide between a small selection of devices in the end.

What you won't find here is an assessment of individual laptop models or recommendations for different equipment variants. The notebook market is too fast-moving for that and I refer you to the individual tests from our editorial team.

Home office: working more beautifully within your own four walls

Working from home means that you rarely have to carry your laptop around with you for long periods of time. That's why the larger the screen, the more comfortable it is to work on. That's why I opted for models from 15 inches upwards. The monitor should also be anti-glare. Otherwise, reflections can mean that you can't see anything and sit ergonomically poorly, which can lead to physical discomfort in the long term. Of course, the resolution should not be too low either. Full HD is the minimum resolution and the screen size is perfectly adequate for word processing and the like.

Since the home office laptop is usually on your desk, the weight and battery life are not so important. You don't carry it around much and the power socket is always close by. If you have to deal with numbers at work, it's worth having a number pad on the keyboard. The webcam and microphone have also become important criteria due to the rapid increase in video calls. Many manufacturers have neglected them in the past, so the differences in quality here are still significant. In addition, not every notebook has a movable cover for the camera.

Depending on whether your company works with cloud storage, the internal memory may be larger or smaller. Then it also depends on the type of data you use for work. However, I would never choose less than 256 gigabytes and recommend 512 gigabytes. An SSD should be installed because work has to be fast. The computer boots up faster and programmes start more quickly than with a conventional hard drive. In addition, the SSD causes no noise and less waste heat and has no moving parts that react to vibrations.

Your home office computer needs a minimum level of performance. Programmes for office work are not particularly computing-intensive. But if you have to wait a few minutes for a large Excel document to open, you've saved money in the wrong place. 16 gigabytes of RAM and a Core i5 of the ninth or tenth generation or a Ryzen 5 of the 4000 series are the minimum requirements. However, the processor's internal graphics chip is sufficient for normal office work and light photo editing. A dedicated graphics card is not necessary.

Feeding our filters with these criteria, these are currently the five most popular devices.

If you use a docking station on your desk at home or want to connect the notebook to a monitor, you need to make sure you have the right connections. HDMI or USB-C and at least two USB-A ports are mandatory. If you are using an external monitor, I strongly advise you to use an external keyboard and mouse. If you want to connect them via cable - and not Bluetooth - there must be enough USB ports available.

If you are not a freelancer, your company may have its own specifications for the devices that influence your choice. I'm thinking primarily of the operating system, but also security requirements such as a fingerprint sensor or a Kensington lock to be able to connect the notebook. You can find these and other details in select our filters and also make sure that the MacBooks are displayed. These are only available with a smaller (13 inch) or larger (16 inch) display.

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Jan Johannsen

Senior Editor

Jan.Johannsen@galaxus.de

When I was but a young student, I'd sit in my friend's living room with all my classmates and play on his SuperNES. Since then I've had the opportunity to test out all the newest technology for you. I've done reviews at Curved, Computer Bild and Netzwelt, and have now arrived at Galaxus.de.

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Notebook buying advice: How to find a notebook for the home office

Home office: working more beautifully within your own four walls

Notebook buying advice: How to find a notebook for surfing on the couch

Notebook buying advice: How to find a mobile office notebook

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