Best Laptops to buy in Kenya for 2023

Looking at specs is just the start: Whether you favor an easy price range PC, a productivity workhorse, or a screamer of a gaming notebook PC, our deep-dive guide has the advice you want to locate the first-rate laptop for you.

A laptop won’t revolutionize the minutiae of your lifestyle the way a smartphone can. You can’t effortlessly whip one out to kill time in the elevator, capture a breathtaking sunset, or pay for a cup of coffee.

But in the years for the reason that android and iOS smartphones took on all these jobs, laptops have honed their own talents. Amazing battery lifestyles and breathtaking displays are now common if you seem to be in the proper region for them. The photos muscle to play video games at full HD is affordable. And these simple old-guard elements that you won’t discover on any cell device, such as touchpads and considerable keyboards, tend to get better with nearly each and every generation.

With high-quality features, though, has come top-notch fragmentation. Here at Rapidtech Digital Solutions, we have a dizzying array of cheap laptops, gaming laptops, 2-in-1 laptops, Chromebooks, and ultraportables to buy. Here, we review as many laptops as we can—hundreds every year—so we’ve viewed rather a great deal each remix of laptop you can buy from us.

Buying one with the aid of looking at specs and speed feeds by myself can be maddening, though. Which particular features, and which laptop computer class, are exceptional for you depends on your price range and how you design to use your laptop. It’s better to take a systematic strategy when shopping for a laptop PC. Let’s run via how to make a smart pick.

Assess Your Budget: How Much Do I Need to Spend on a Laptop?

Don’t care about modern-day layout and effective components? You may be relaxed with a less costly laptop. Today’s market is flooded with basic but full-featured models with the best prices.

With a budget a reasonable budget of KES 50,000 to 150,000 you will get admission to nearly all of the brand-new features cutting-edge laptops offer. These encompass slim, sturdy aluminum chassis, amazing touch-enabled 4K displays, effective processors and graphics chips, and batteries that will remain all day and well into the night. The predominant caveat in this price range is that you’ll have to choose and choose which features are most important. You would possibly be in a position to land a laptop with a lovely 4K display or a cavernous terabyte of solid-state storage (SSD Storage) at this price, however possibly now not one with both.

If your budget allows, you can select nearly any combination of aspects you want. Even the most powerful laptop computer, though, should nevertheless obey the legal guidelines of physics. Powerful hardware generates heat, and the cooling mechanisms that such aspects require take up space. Hardcore game enthusiasts who want a 17-inch display and a screaming-fast images processor that requires cumbersome cooling pipes and followers can’t assume to discover it in a thin, light laptop.

IT-manageable, security-conscious commercial enterprise laptops—models made particularly by Dell, HP, and Lenovo—have their very own pricing dynamic, and they tend to fee a bit more, all else being equal. That’s due to the fact of their premium guarantee or support plans, enterprise-specific silicon focused on manageability or security, fingerprint or face-recognition login features, and extra rugged build quality.

Which Operating System to Get in My Laptop PC?

Most laptops you’ll run throughout our online store run Windows 10 and Mac OS however Microsoft’s best-known product isn’t always the great operating system for everyone. Thanks to the ascendance in current years of Google’s Chrome OS up the ranks of price range laptops, there’s now a choice to Windows at each and every fee level. The tipping point for non-Windows laptops is slightly higher which might not work for most Kenyan consumers. The main alternative to a Windows 10 machine is a MacBook; under it, it’s a Chromebook.

Apple Macbook Laptops in Kenya

Today, laptops based totally on Chrome OS are the fundamental choices to budget-priced Windows 10 laptops. A Chromebook should be a fine, value-minded choice for anybody who wants a laptop just to watch movies, create text documents, write emails, and putter round in basic spreadsheets. With a Chromebook, the major points you will certainly want from your laptop are a decent display screen and an easy keyboard, due to the fact that cloud services like Google Drive can manage most of your storage and processing needs. And, if you nevertheless insist on key creature comforts, you can locate midrange Chromebooks with full-HD (1080p) displays and cozy keyboards just as easily as you can find bargain-basement ones these days.

For people with similar wishes but large budgets, an Apple MacBook may be the way to go, assuming you’re cool with walking your everyday computing life on macOS. You won’t locate a “cheap” MacBook anywhere in the Apple family, however, you will locate strong industrial design, universally terrific battery life, and a ton of built-in apps to control your multimedia collection and sync with your iCloud account and the rest of your Apple devices.

Higher-end MacBook Pros additionally suit content material creators, with the alternative for a 16-inch Retina show and for CPUs up to Intel’s Core i9. One of the most enormous Mac-laptop drawbacks is a total lack of touch-screen support, which is an option in more than a few Chrome OS and Windows 10 machines.

A Windows-based computing device affords to get entry to the widest range of software, inclusive of most AAA games; the subset of popular, first-rank recreation titles is plenty smaller on macOS, and games on Chrome OS are limited to what runs in a browser, or that you can download as an Android app or from the Chrome Web Store. A Windows computer also presents the most form-factor flexibility. A few Chromebooks have designs constructed around detachable or foldable keyboards, letting you use them as tablets, however, Windows provides a long way higher resolution of these bendy bodily designs.

In fact, the large quantity of Windows 10 devices potentially Microsoft’s OS offers you the most flexibility in deciding on a laptop, period. Most of the rest of your shopping for decisions, which we’ll tackle below, are consequently relevant mainly to Windows machines. (We’ll be sure to word when Macs or Chromebooks provide a certain function as well, however.)

What’s an Ideal laptop Size and Weight?

Most human beings searching for a general-purpose laptop ought to pick out one that measures about half an inch thick and weighs three kilos or less. In general, these are the maximum dimensions and heft a laptop can have for us to think about it as ultraportable, and for most users, portability is the key to maximizing use and enjoyment.

Aiming for that weight and thickness, in most cases, will limit the laptop’s screen dimension to thirteen or 14 inches, even though a few fashions with 15-inch or large screens are now in shape into the ultraportable category. At most of these display screen sizes, you can discover fashions in either the traditional “clamshell” laptop computer form or a 2-in-1 convertible design. The latter has a hinge that rotates the screen 360 ranges so you can use it as a makeshift tablet or prop it up like a tent for gazing at movies.

Some Windows and Chrome OS laptops do have smaller displays, such as 10 or eleven inches. Some of these are no longer technically laptops in the pure sense, however, alternatively tablets with detachable keyboards. Unless you’re mainly looking for a part-time pill or the lightest feasible laptop, avoid these designs. They’re lighter than most 13-inch ultraportables, often less than 2 pounds, however, they’re not as excellent at being pills as the Apple iPad is, and their detachable keyboards suggest they’re not much good at being laptops, either—typing on most of them tends to be subpar.

At the different quit of the measurement, spectrum is 17-inch behemoths. They are primarily attraction to hardcore gamers, but you can find the occasional 17-inch productivity desktop or computer if you happen to like a large display for different reasons. A 17-inch laptop computer can closely mimic the trip of a desktop, at the cost of measurement and weight.

What Kind of Laptop Screen Do I Need For my PC?

Laptop screens have grown denser over the previous decade, packing extra pixels into the same area. That permits crisper text, sharper onscreen images, and, often, better-looking colors. Display density is occasionally measured in pixels per inch (ppi), but the foremost specification that defines a laptop computer screen is its native resolution, which is expressed in horizontal via vertical pixels.

Most laptops have monitors with at least “full HD” resolutions. Also known as “1080p” displays, they recreation a resolution of 1,920 with the aid of 1,080 pixels (or in a few cases, 1,920 by means of 1,200) and typically rent LCD panels constructed on what’s regarded as in-plane switching (IPS) technology. IPS screens’ first-class can vary, but they are fantastically regarded for maintaining the best of the image excessive if you look at the screen from an oblique, or off-side, angle. Thin-film transistor (TFT), the different foremost display screen type in present-day laptops (and the sort often observed in gaming-geared models), tends to shift colors or seem to be faded if not viewed straight-on. That matters if you regularly share the contents of your display screen with others—say when giving impromptu presentations.

Cheap Windows- and Chrome OS-based laptops will commonly have lower-resolution thin-film transistor (TFT) shows (1,280 through 720 pixels and 1,366 through 768 are the common numbers there), which skill textual content won’t appear as crisp and hues would possibly now not be as vivid as you’ve come to assume from your smartphone or TV. If you’re now not choosy about photograph quality, though, a lower-resolution show may be an appropriate sacrifice in the quest to store money.

For the crispest text and most gorgeous colors, you can go higher than full HD. Many high-end laptops now have shows with 4K native decision (generally 3,840 by 2,160 pixels) as widespread or non-compulsory extras. These monitors on the whole use the identical IPS technology as full HD panels, but a few use OLED technology, similar to what you’ll locate in trendy smartphones. OLED monitors command a premium, and their inky blacks and luxurious colors are fine perfect for movie buffs.

Whether the screen is OLED, IPS, or TFT, human beings who sketch to use their laptops in brightly lit rooms or outside will desire to make positive that the panel has a maximum brightness degree of at least 500 nits.

Should I Buy a Touch Screen Laptop?

To take advantage of the touch-screen support present for the duration of Windows 10 and Chrome OS, you’ll want to are seeking out a touch-enabled laptop, and possibly even a digital stylus to write or draw on it. Some Windows 10 laptops come in both touch- and non-touch versions, so test the specs on what you’re buying carefully. Glossy screens generally have characteristic touch support, whilst most matte screens designed to filter out glare from ambient lighting do not.

Since many gaming laptops have matte displays, contact aid is plenty tougher to locate amongst their ranks. Many gaming laptops above budget-level do provide high-refresh-rate screens, though. Hardcore game enthusiasts or esports hounds who are looking for silky-smooth visuals to supply them an aggressive side will favor maximizing the wide variety of frames per 2d that their screen can display, and can do so through opting for a screen with a 120Hz or increased refresh rate.

However, earlier than you pay a predominant top rate for a high-refresh screen, you’ll favor being sure that the images chip, or GPU, is muscular ample to push the kinds of video games you play at a high ample body rate to make a difference. Standard laptop screens have 60Hz refresh rates, and if you’ll be enjoying video games at 60 frames per second or lower, in most instances a high-refresh display won’t confer many benefits.

Which Laptop CPU Do I Need to Consider?

Most ultra-portable PCs use Intel’s Core i5 or Core i7 CPUs, or, less commonly, AMD’s Ryzen 5 or Ryzen 7 CPUs. All of these give masses of power for everyday computing tasks, however, preserve in thinking that higher CPU model numbers usually indicate more processor cores, higher most clock speeds, and sometimes even multithreading. With multithreading, every CPU core can run two sets of software program instructions simultaneously, instead of simply one. The modern software program is designed to take gain of as many CPU cores as possible, so it can run faster on multithreaded chips.

Meanwhile, budget laptops generally use AMD’s A-series or Ryzen 3 processors, or Intel’s Celeron, Core i3, or Pentium silicon. These generally have just two or four character cores. At the different cease of the spectrum, high-end powerhouse laptops have Intel’s Core i9 or workstation-class Xeon CPUs, with as many as eight cores.

Regardless of which CPU a laptop has, it’s normally designed to use much less electricity and generate much less warmth than its desktop counterpart. Intel laptop computer CPUs in the modern-day mainstream, light-weight laptops typically consume 15 watts of strength or less, in contrast with 45 watts or more for their computing device equivalents.

Do I Need a Dedicated Graphics Card?

A graphics processor that’s built into the CPU (also recognized as an “integrated photographs processor,” or IGP) is perfectly ample for most everyday laptop use. You’ll be aware of you’re searching at an IGP if you see a reference to Intel’s HD Graphics, UHD Graphics, or Iris as the graphics solution on an Intel-CPU laptop computer (or Radeon Graphics on an AMD-based laptop). An IGP shares the CPU’s processor cores, memory, or both. The quantity of memory on hand to the built-in images chip is generally fixed, so growing the quantity of gadget memory won’t result in higher photos performance.

Most gamers will want to reflect on consideration on a discrete GPU with its personal devoted computing resources. Even a price range gaming GPU will offer a substantial gain over an integrated portraits processor when it comes to playing 3D games. (Note that some laptops will come with low-end devoted portraits options like the GeForce MX sequence that are a notch up from IGPs but not supposed for serious gaming.) At the high end, hardcore game enthusiasts have to seem to be for Nvidia’s today’s GeForce RTX GPUs.

With gaming laptops, the degree of GPU you want is very an awful lot tied to the frame price you prefer to run at the laptop’s native display screen resolution, and the form of video games you play. That’s the place our reviews come in handy. We test with countless stressful gaming and industry-standard benchmarks to supply you a relative feel of a laptop’s images performance. Check out our roundup of favorite late-model gaming machines and best finances gaming laptops for tons more.

How Much Storage and Memory Do I Need for My PC?

Most laptops above entry-level come with solid-state drives (SSDs), which use memory cells as a substitute for a spinning platter (the classic hard drive) to keep data. Since information saved in cells is a lot quicker to access, SSDs are the fantastic and most common drive configuration. They’re additionally immune to jolts and bumps that would possibly crash a spinning platter’s heads.

Some laptops‚ especially larger-chassis ones designed for gaming, come with each sort of drive: a small SSD to preserve the running system, imperative apps, and a few games, and a large spinning one to save the bulk of your recreation files or other space-consuming media. That’s a perfectly high-quality option if you’re searching to spend some money or honestly want the maximum viable neighborhood storage amount, but you must stick with an SSD-only setup every time possible.

Note that no longer all laptop SSDs are created equal. SSDs that use the greater modern, commonly quicker PCI Express NVMe standard, as adversarial to the older, slightly slower SATA interface, are preferable. (PCI Express SSDs are slowly taking over the field, in any case.) Either of these, however, are some distance higher than a third type, which is a not-quite-SSD: there is an awful lot slower eMMC, a kind of flash storage force determined in price range machines. (If your budget laptop has 32GB, 64GB, or perhaps 128GB of local storage, it is probably the use of eMMC.) All of them are better than a standard spinning hard force until you truly want the sheer potential for the least money.

The minimum amount of storage space most laptop computer customers ought to reflect on consideration is 256GB. This will accommodate the huge necessities of working machine updates and massive apps like Microsoft Office with room left over. People who have tremendous collections of videos, photos, or tunes (or any but the most casual of PC gamers) search for out a minimum of 512GB. At the excessive-end, you’ll find laptops configurable with 1TB or even roomier SSDs, and these will sound great. But beware that the very best capacities can reason a laptop’s fee to skyrocket—a 4TB SSD can add hundreds of greenbacks to the ordinary price of a high-end laptop. It’s extra reasonably priced to get a 512GB SSD and add an external force if you want extra space.

While a laptop’s SSD shops your data, its machine memory (or RAM) works with the CPU to run apps and helps define its capability to multitask. Basic productivity apps will run simply nice with 8GB of memory, but you’ll favor configuring a midrange laptop computer with 16GB to ensure that tomorrow’s more advanced apps will have to get right of entry to adequate memory. That’s also a desirable goal amount for heavy multitaskers, PC gamers, and people who surf the web with many tabs open. Modern web browsers loading multimedia-rich websites and web apps are voracious buyers of memory.

What Kind of Connectivity Do I Need for my Laptop PC?

If you plan to use your laptop’s touchpad, contact screen, and keyboard as the main means of control, most of the time you may additionally in no way need to plug in something other than the electrical cord. In this case, you’ll be counted on the Bluetooth and Wi-Fi connections that most each and every laptop computer offers.

The trendy Wi-Fi standard is 802.11ax (also dubbed “Wi-Fi 6”) and is an appropriate feature to seem for in a top-class computer to make sure the fastest Wi-Fi connectivity in the future. The older 802.11ac, though, is simply first-rate for mainstream and price range systems. Steer clear of the older 802.11b/g/n requirements that are nonetheless accessible on some budget machines, if you can, as those can result in lower throughput speeds and much less dependable connections.

Serious gamers would possibly desire to choose for a desktop with a Killer Networks setup. It will enable extra granular control over giving wired or wi-fi gaming traffic precedence on your web connection. Business users and gamers might also choose a devoted Ethernet jack. Most gaming machines will have one, and some gamers insist wired Ethernet is still the only way to go for competitive online gaming. Some laptops put into effect Ethernet as a full-size or fold-out jack; others can also come with an adapter in the box that routes Ethernet via a USB port. And still, others come with neither, leaving wired Ethernet up to you to add by means of a dongle if you want it.

As for different physical connections, you’ll prefer to study the edges of a given laptop carefully and take count. If you have an external storage device like a thumb drive, you’ll choose to pay interest to the type and quantity of USB ports. Look for laptops that have each USB Type-A and Type-C ports. Type-A is the acquainted rectangular connector that has been around for decades, whilst Type-C is smaller, oval-shaped, and once in a while doubles as a receptacle for the laptop’s charging cable.

Budget laptops might also only have Type-A ports, which is a disadvantage in an increasing number of Type-C world. On the different hand, some ultra-thin designs solely have Type-C ports, which capacity you’ll need dongles to connect any Type-A peripherals you might already own

If video output matters to you, take a look at a committed port like an HDMI connector, mainly if you graph to connect your laptop computer to your TV, computing device monitor, or a lecture hall A/V system. Sometimes video outputs are applied on laptops as micro HDMI or mini DisplayPort connectors to store space. You’ll need a different cable to use these, which may additionally or may additionally now not be included in the box.

How Much Battery Life Is Enough for my PC?

Many laptops can close a complete day away from the electrical connection, even when you’re the use of them for demanding however common things to do like streaming net video. There are exceptions; a laptop computer with a 4K display and a powerful CPU likely will not run for more than eight hours or so earlier than its battery dies, and most gaming laptops die some distance sooner. When you’re taking part in worrying video games that taxing the GPU, gaming laptops tend to run out of juice even extra rapidly off the plug than they normally do. You’ll locate extra than a few exceptions, though, and even powerful laptops have become adept at sensing when their maximum electricity isn’t required and lowering various components’ consumption.

This is the place Rapidtech Digital Solutions battery testing service comes in. We consider battery existence via taking part in a regionally saved video file nonstop with no wi-fi connections energetic and 50 percent display brightness. An exquisite end result on our check suggests that the laptop is proper at adapting its power use to the project at hand, and you can use the effects to evaluate the concept of machines you are considering.

Measuring battery lifestyles is notoriously tricky, though, in view that it’s totally dependent on how you use your laptop. Your usage profile probably doesn’t healthy our test. So, you’ll desire to appear at examined battery existence in a relative, rather than absolute, sense.

Should I Consider a Refurbished Laptop?

Every manufacturer and reseller has one-of-a-kind standards for refurbishing until now used laptops. A slight cut price on a fastidiously tested MacBook Pro that Apple sells with the equal guarantee as a new one might be well worth the price savings, while a laptop computer refurbished via a third-celebration you’ve in no way heard should be chancy. It’s best to purchase any refurbished machine directly from an authorized reseller.

We’ve considered refurbished laptops being bought and rated with grades of A, B+, B, C, and so on, to reflect the relative quantity of put on and tear on the machine. There is no well-known grading device for refurbished PCs, however. It’s generally up to the reseller what the grade means, and for this reason, it can fluctuate from seller to seller. We’re wary of machines graded this way and strongly recommend insisting on an ironclad return coverage in the case of purchases like these if you figure out to roll the dice. You ought to end up pleasantly surprised, but usually, a refurbished-laptop deal that appears too correct to be true…is.

What is almost universally proper is that with a bit of tech know-how, you can use your own pre-owned laptops to your advantage. If you’re in the market for new laptops for each your yourself and your kids, you may think about tuning up your modern PC to provide to your children and buying a new one for yourself.

Should I Get a Longer Laptop Warranty?

Most laptop computer makers offer one-year warranties on parts and labor. These popular plans are limited, so they might not cover accidents that stem from spilling a drink on the keyboard or shedding the machine on the sidewalk. Fortunately, your credit-card issuer possibly covers such mishaps for a short length of time after you buy a new product, and it additionally may additionally prolong the manufacturer’s warranty.

Some laptop computer makers will happily sell you extended warranties. Apple, Dell, HP, and Lenovo all offer vast levels of extended warranties and insurance for accidental damage. Expect to spend some money on these options. Our rule of thumb is that if an assurance charges extra than 15 percent of the laptop’s buy price, you’re better off spending the money on backup drives or offerings that decrease downtime.

Of course, you cannot put a price tag on peace of mind. There are situations when the common-sense board or the display—the most high-priced components of a laptop—fail, and while rare, such a disaster can fee you half of what the laptop is worth in repair costs.

Which Option to Go From Here?

Shopping for a laptop computer is a workout in patience. An ultra-competitive market capability that even if you’ve bought unique requirements, you can nearly certainly discover a handful of remarkable models that will meet them, and any other handful of perfectly serviceable but ho-hum models that will, too. Now that you comprehend which specs to seem for, we hope that parsing the accurate from the horrific will be a great deal easier.

Also check:

Reasons Why You Should Buy Refurbished Phones Over New Phones