Welcome to P-Sero, we are one of the top laptop dealers in Nigeria, we sell brand new and UK Used. You can check out the available products here and place your order. We deliver to any location in Nigeria.
On this blog post, I want to show you Where to purchase a laptop around NOK University.
Laptops are incredibly resourceful in themselves, so they will allow university students to keep themselves organised in every way. From figuring out their schedule for the week to researching for and writing up their class essays or reports. Also, at university students will often have an increased amount of work.
If you are a university student and you’re looking to buy a laptop, your options can get really overwhelming. There are laptops, desktops, and Chromebooks…not to mention different brands, memory sizes, CPU speeds, and more.
Most of the techie jargon you read in the item descriptions online won’t even make sense to someone who’s not big into computers. You’ll be RAMming your head into the wall by the time you’re through your little PC shopping trip.
So it’s good to take a step back, reassess, and learn a little bit about computers before you drop close to a grand on one (or more if you give in and go with Apple).
So let’s talk about
What to consider before you buy a laptop
There are several things to take into account before you take out your wallet at the checkout and buy a laptop. You need to know what these factors are, what they mean, and how they affect your choices.
Here’s an overview of what you should consider, but check out the more detailed sections below for more information.
| Component | Details to choose between |
|---|---|
| Storage | HDD, SSD, eMMC, or a combination? |
| Memory (RAM) | How much do you need? |
| CPU | What’s the speed? |
| GU | Do you need dedicated graphics? |
| Screen size, 2-in-1, battery life | What’s important to you? |
How to buy a laptop: Consider the types of storage
The storage on your laptop determines how much space you have for everything you save. You have 2 main options for this – an HDD (hard disk drive, or just hard drive) or an SSD (solid-state drive). Another option is eMMC, but it’s less common.
HDDs
HDDs are older technology, so you can get a lot more space for a lot less money. They’re also the most common form of storage.
The cons for HDDs is that they’re slower and have more chances to fail. They physically spin disks at thousands of RPM (rotations per minute) while reading it with a spindle. Imagine a record player spinning at 3200rpm and you bump into it while it’s moving…
If it fails, you could lose everything you saved. Make sure you have a backup, folks.
Many laptop computers today come with a 1TB (terabyte) hard drive, which means 1,000 GB.
To put this in common terms, you can store about:
- 250 movies or 500 hours of HD video,
- 312,000 songs, or
- 250,000 pictures (from a 12-megapixel camera).
But please note that this is just an estimate since the quality and size of each file can vary greatly.
But how much space do I need?
For a lot of people wanting to buy a laptop, 1TB is a lot more than you’ll ever need. If you just use your computer for browsing the internet, you can get by with 250GB storage just fine – especially if you make use of online storage, like Google Drive or OneDrive.
Think of your cell phone. You probably have around 64GB of space on there and a good chunk of that is taken up by the phone’s operating system. How often do you need to move your photos from your phone to your computer? Or delete apps to free up space?
You’ll want enough space to be able to rely on your computer as the photo dumping ground, but you still don’t want to overpay. 500GB is probably a good place for most people.
SSDs
Solid state drives are much faster than HDDs, but are also more expensive – a 2TB HDD will typically cost a bit more than just a 500GB SDD. That’s 4x less storage.
Another thing to note is that SSDs have no moving parts, so they’re less likely to fail. It’s always good to have that extra peace of mind.
Because of this, many people who build their own desktop computers instead of buying a laptop tend to get a smaller SSD – maybe 125GB or 250GB – and pair it with a much larger HDD. They then put their operating system files (what your computer runs on) on the SSD so their computer boots up faster, and they have the extra space on the HDD.
But when you buy a laptop online or from the store, this might not be an option for many of them since they have more physical space restrictions in the case itself.
eMMC
Although more uncommon, you might see eMMC listed as a type of storage on prospective laptops. The acronym stands for Embedded MultiMediaCard, in that the memory and controller are integrated. The “embedded” part explains that it’s usually soldered onto the motherboard, so it’s not easy to repair or replace at all.
For our purposes, eMMC is a storage solution quite similar to SSD. The downsides are that it has limited performance and speed. So you won’t be playing any complicated video games or doing any hardcore photo editing with this.
And this makes sense as it’s found mostly in lower-end laptops, as well as smartphones.
Mix it up: SSD and an external HDD
When choosing a laptop, your other option for getting the speed of the SSD with some extra space is to get an external HDD. This is a plain old HDD, but with a protective case so it can sit outside the computer. This is a good solution for some extra laptop storage.
Just remember not to keep it plugged in at all times – it can shorten the life of the hard drive. And again, remember to backup your important files.
Consider the memory (RAM) when buying a laptop
This factor can have a noticeable impact on price and should be at the top of things to look for when buying a laptop. RAM, or Random Access Memory, is kind of similar to storage in that it remembers things, but it’s probably more accurate to think of it as short-term memory.
It’s where your computer stores what it needs to use right now or in the near future, but everything is forgotten once it’s powered off – kinda like when you forget all the info for that test you crammed for as soon as you go to sleep.
Basically, every application, program, and tab you have open on your laptop right now is taking up some RAM space. The more RAM you have, the more things your computer can handle doing at once.
If you need help with this when buying a new laptop, consider whether or not you often do intensive things, like gaming or editing huge video files. Not having enough RAM really only becomes a problem when you’re doing these things frequently.
If you just have your email client and internet browser open, 4GB of RAM will be enough for your computer to keep running smoothly. But 8GB is probably better to aim for when you choose a new laptop, so then you don’t have to worry about it.
Your new laptop needs brains too (CPU)
The CPU stands for the Central Processing Unit and it’s basically the brains of the laptop. It processes all the information you throw at it, performs calculations, stores the results in the memory, etc. It’s pretty important.
You can have more than one “core” in a CPU, which allows it to do more work at once. Having 2 cores is referred to as dual core, and 4 cores are referred to as quad-core. Generally speaking, the more cores you have, the more tasks you can perform at once.
A good number to look at when you decide to buy a laptop is GHz (gigahertz). This measures the processor’s speed, telling you how fast it can process information. If you’re comparing.
Check out laptop brands in the post below..
ALSO READ: 5 best reliable laptop brands to buy in Nigeria
Apart from knowing the kind of brands your going for, you should also be aware that laptops come in 2forms when your purchasing, either in UK used or Brand new.
Even if you do not have money for brand new the good news about laptops is UK based is often better and durable than the brand new.
For more information about choosing between a UK used or New Laptop,u can check out our post below.
ALSO READ: Should You Buy a UK Used Laptop or New? – Read Before Buying
LOCATION AND Where to purchase a laptop around NOK University
Nok University, Kachia, is the first indigenous private university in Kaduna
If you have a laptop model in mind kindly send us a message on Whatsapp via our contact and you can also click here for more UK-used HP laptops available in P-Sero.
Thanks for reading to the end, we offer free support to anyone even if you didn’t purchase your laptop from us we are open to offering you free support but you may likely get full-time dedicated support where you ask a whole lot of questions and get full attention when you buy your laptops from us. We also sell wholesale prices to retailers who want to buy to resell.