Independent buying guides
For buyers in Ireland weighing a mid-range laptop against a dearer one, or against a desktop. Each guide answers one buying question, uses sourced figures with check dates, and shows a cost-per-year calculator with its formula.
Each guide answers one buying question and shows the figures behind the answer.
How to choose
Start from the work, not the processor name. Memory, screen and whether a desktop suits you better, with the Irish consumer rights that outlast any warranty.
Photo: PantheraLeo1359531 · CC BY 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Budget and prices
Price divided by years kept, plus electricity at the SEAI household rate, VAT inside the shelf price and what Revenue charges on an import from outside the EU.
Photo: Bruce Turner from AustinTX · CC BY 2.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Performance
Three different kinds of slow, each with a different cause: memory pressure, thermal limits and a full drive. How to tell them apart in about 10 minutes.
Photo: KK IN HK · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Each calculator shows its formula, units and assumptions. Nothing is estimated for you in secret.
What a cross-border order really costs once shipping, duty and tax are added.
landed cost = (item price + shipping) + duty + tax, where duty = item price x duty rate, and tax = (item price + shipping + duty) x tax rate
Spreads purchase price, consumables and repairs over the years you expect to keep it.
cost per year = (purchase price - expected resale value + consumables per year x years + expected repairs) / years
Annual electricity cost from rated power, hours of use and your own tariff.
annual cost = power (W) / 1000 x hours per day x days per year x price per kWh, plus standby power (W) / 1000 x standby hours x days x price per kWh
The decisions that actually change what you end up with.
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Photo: PantheraLeo1359531 · CC BY 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Like-for-like comparisons on the specifications that matter.
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Photo: KK IN HK · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
What the total comes to once everything is counted.
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Photo: Kskhh · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Getting it working properly the first time.
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Photo: Igvir Ramirez · CC BY-SA 2.0 · Wikimedia Commons
What the numbers mean in day-to-day use.
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Photo: André Karwath aka Aka · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
The expensive errors that are easy to avoid.
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Photo: Bruce Turner from AustinTX · CC BY 2.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Every figure in a guide is taken from a named source, with the date it was checked. Where a number is an assumption or an example, it says so in the same sentence.
We do not run paid product tests, we do not publish reader reviews, and we do not claim to have handled every product mentioned. Where a claim needs a lab or a long-term test we do not have, the guide says that plainly.
Photographs are free-licence images from Wikimedia Commons or Openverse, credited to the photographer with the licence named. Charts are drawn from the figures printed in the same guide.
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