Finding the Best Travel Laptop for 2021
In a travel laptop, there are certain things you must look for, otherwise, you could encounter problems if you bring your normal laptop with you on your travels.
The market is flooded with great travel laptops, but everyone has different needs, so here are some things that we think you should look, before buying a travel laptop.
Size And Weight
If the computer isn’t the right weight or size, it’ll be useless while traveling.
The best device to use on the plane is one that fits under the folding tray table and meets all carry-on requirements. It is tiring to carry such a giant, heavy laptop. Having a lightweight laptop is a blessing, especially if you’re commuting to coworking spaces everyday.
Still, you do not want a tiny device that is basically useless and can be replaced with a cell phone.
It’s good to know that good laptops to travel with come in a variety of sizes, and today there are a lot of great small travel laptops that are plenty powerful.
The best travel computer is something between 13 and 15 inches – it’s still relatively small, so it’ll fit into a backpack or carry-on, and it’s lightweight.
Build Quality
Most laptops are left parked in the same place when you use them in your home or maybe moved from one room to another.
When you travel, you will constantly be switching your laptop into and out of your bag, and using that bag in and out of trains, planes, and automobiles. That’s why you need the best laptop for traveling to have a high level of durability.
A good protective case would be ideal, preferably one that is both waterproof and dust-proof.
Which Operating System? (OS)
Nowadays, Windows still has the most market share; however, Apple isn’t far behind and Macbooks are easy to access.
Laptops running Chrome tend to be a little bit less powerful and not able to handle as many tasks.
It’s easy to learn either way but if you’re proficient in one you might want to stick with it. Though I am equally familiar with both Macs and Windows, I absolutely adore my Macbook.
The advantage of Windows, however, is that there are many different models of portable PCs manufactured by numerous manufacturers, which allows prices to be kept down, which is ideal if you’re looking for a cheap travel laptop.
Storage
Laptops usually have either hard drives or Solid State Drives. Storage ranges from 128GB to 2 TB in capacity.
SSDs, which tend to be quite expensive, are typically included in some laptops as well as the standard hard drive.
In any case, it’s great to have both, because you get a cheaper laptop with more storage while having more storage.
Cloud storage is the other option, which is fine, however, it will require a high-speed internet connection that isn’t an easy-to-access thing for most people.
A hard drive can also be connected directly to your computer and store all of your working documents and files.
Whenever you decide upon your storage strategy, make sure that you leave enough storage in either your laptop or your external hard drive. Even if you intend to rely on the cloud, be sure to have enough storage on-site.
Traveling with a laptop isn’t so difficult when you’ve got a good one that works well. It should be one that’s not too expensive.
Battery Life
Business travelers and travel bloggers who are looking for the best laptop must consider the battery life.
During times such as on long-haul flights when you don’t have access to power, this is especially important.
At the cheapest end of the scale, there are many cheap laptops that will last a few hours; Macbook’s are typically the most battery efficient at around 14 hours.
In spite of the fact that laptop battery life is increasing and becoming more durable, batteries themselves diminish in their capacity to store power after a certain period of time.
Performance
One could argue that the CPU is the most critical component of your laptop, though the processor does a lot more than that. It is the brain of the computer.
So make sure you get the best one out there, which seemingly is the M1 chip present inside the currently available M1 MacBooks.
And they’re the best travel laptops we think, available right now in the market. Because these chips not only are powerful but are also very efficient and consume less power than almost any other CPU available today.
All of this means that it is a great travel laptop that features this M1 chip.
Cost
Cost or price is another factor to consider when buying a travel laptop.
M1 MacBook Air costs $999 and $899 with a student discount if you’re a student. And perhaps even lower if you get it from their refurbished store, which is what I would recommend that you do.
