If you're using an older (3+ year) Dell XPS or Lenovo ThinkPad / Yoga model (just to quote three very popular models that we have recommended in the past along with MacBooks), the gains in build and display quality are stunning.
On the upper end of the spectrum, we are starting to see OLED screens on some laptops. For gamers, support for high refresh rates is mandatory and once again, these are making it to the mainstream pricing levels whereas before you needed to spend no less than $2,000 to get those features.
Likewise, for productivity laptops that are competitively priced, most mainstream offerings no longer suffer from poor viewing angles or poor color reproduction, with many models using IPS panels which guarantees some degree of quality.
Depending on use, some people still prefer to use a mouse tethered to their laptop, but a touchpad remains essential for portability. Touchpads have improved substantially over the years, and depending on how old your laptop is, you might find some of the newer technology of benefit.
Touchpads used to have buttons below the touch sensor to replicate the left and right buttons of a mouse. This design was clunky to use. Dragging and dropping required either the use of two hands or some funky finger contortions. Today, almost all laptops incorporate multi-touch sensors and numerous gesture controls that are well suited to the improved hardware and software in recent designs.
Apple led the way on reliable touchpads that work well and have a larger surface dedicated to it, but most other manufacturers have followed suit to bring outstanding implementations. For those who rely on the touchpad as their pointing device, the poor designs of yesteryear compared to today’s standard can make or break productivity (or lose your need for an external mouse).
Keyboards have not seen the same leaps, with manufacturers continually looking to slim things down. Chiclet keyboards are prevalent among laptop makers and have become virtually silent. They tend to be responsive and allow for thin profiles, though, this comes with a trade-off. They tend to have less key travel and tactile feedback, which is not ideal in some situations such as gaming. Although, gaming laptops have continued to evolve and have put out proper countermeasures even if the idea of true mechanical keyboards in laptops didn’t take off.
CPUs: Performance vs. Efficiency
We won’t delve deep into laptop CPUs since we have dedicated several articles to the topic, but we’d be remiss in not mentioning them if only for the fact that more current processors provide advantages that go beyond clock cycles. For an in-depth look at some of the newer laptop processors, check out some of our recent reviews, including this piece pitting Intel’s latest Core i7-9750H against the previous-gen i7-8750H -- these are two typical processors used in performance-oriented laptops.
Next-generation processors don’t provide the Moore’s Law speed jumps like they used to. Just as a comparison, let's look at the performance gap between the last three best performing laptop Core i7s.Let's compare the Core i7-6567U (Skylake), Core i7-7567U (Kaby Lake), and Core i7-8559U (Coffee Lake). Going from Skylake to Kaby Lake, i7 processors saw a 21-percent jump in performance, while the bump between Kaby Lake and Coffee Lake was a slightly better 35-percent increase. This larger jump was due in part to the transition from two to four cores. More significant, of course, is the jump from sixth to eighth generation — a 64 percent improvement.
Battery Life
Battery life improvements are also a factor to consider. While replacements for aging batteries cost less than a new laptop, you may benefit from the advanced technology used in more recent batteries. Most manufacturers switched from nickel–cadmium (NiCad) and nickel-metal hydride (NiMH) to lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries years ago. Li-ion cells provide longer life without some of the problems of older power sources such as the memory effect and overcharging issues.
Even though your current notebook probably has a Li-ion battery, the technology has also seen improvements where the cells charge faster and last longer. You no longer have to worry about the memory effect degrading your battery’s performance when partially charging.