Best XL Laptop Buying Guide

It’s August again and that means back to school is in full swing: the time of year when many buy a new laptop for school or study. Enough reason for us to offer an additional condensed version of our Best Buying Guide, just as in previous years. We will look for the best Chromebook, the best Windows laptop with a price of no more than 500 euros, a mid-range laptop that can cost 700 euros, the best Apple Macbooks, a luxury Windows power station with a large screen and a separate video card.

At the beginning of this year, both AMD and Intel released new laptop processors. Laptops with new Ryzen 6000 and Intel 12th Gen CPUs are now very few in stores, but the bulk of the hardware still has an older chip. This certainly applies to the best-selling models that we also emphasize at BBG, whose price ranges from 400 to 1000 euros. Back to school is a great opportunity for manufacturers to get rid of that old stock. This means it is time to make a good deal. The somewhat older Ryzen processors are certainly not slow at all compared to the newer series, as you can get eight cores up front for just seven hundred euros. A few years ago, I paid thousands of euros to buy a laptop with this computing power. The 11th generation of Intel can keep up with the individual performance especially, where there is also a good igpu presence.

Even if you want a fast and luxurious laptop, it might be interesting to buy one now. In this category, we already see the necessary hardware with a 12th generation Intel processor. These processors – or AMD’s Ryzen variant – are tied to slightly older video cards, but the newer generations from Nvidia and AMD will likely take some time. So your brand new device won’t be overrun by faster gear in no time.

If you don’t want a Windows laptop but an Apple Macbook, some new options have been added recently. Apple has updated its lineup with new 13-inch laptops, the Macbook Air and Macbook Pro with an M2 processor, both of which we reviewed. The Macbook Air in particular is greatly improved, but it’s also much more expensive than its predecessor based on the M1 chip, which is still available today, and like last year’s Macbook Pros with M1 Pro and Max CPUs, its price still makes it attractive.