If you’re an electrician, electrical engineer or someone looking to get into the industry, it’s important that your laptop is up for the task. To help make sure you have a machine that can handle any software or engineering needs you might find yourself faced within your day-to-day work life as an experienced professional, we’ve created this handy guide on what to look for when shopping for a new laptop. Electricians need a laptop that can be easily carried around and will last the full workday without dying.
We’ve compiled this list of the 10 best laptops for electricians based on what we feel are the most important features they should look for in their new laptop purchase. These laptops all offer great power, durability, and battery life so they can withstand the demands of being on-site with clients or traveling from job to job.
If you’re an electrician who wants a portable work machine that’s powerful and offers long battery life along with good weight and mobility, these are the ten laptops we recommend for your next purchase!
How to choose the best laptop for electricians
What factors should be considered when buying a new laptop? This includes things like power, memory slots, storage speed, etc. which are all very important in determining how well it can perform as an electrician’s laptop. Here’s a list of what you need to consider for a laptop for electricians.
Battery life
Since these laptops are going to be used by electricians who work all day, it’s also important that they have the ability to recharge quickly and go for another full day on the job.
This is why we recommend a laptop with at least 50 watt-hours of battery life, which will give you the ability to recharge and work for an entire day without needing to plug in.
Weight and mobility
Another important consideration is how easy it will be to carry the laptop from job site to job site. A typical electrician’s workday can involve a lot of travel, so they need to be able to throw their lightweight machine in a bag or case without worrying that it’ll break during transport. This means you’re going to want an average weight of around three to four pounds, so it isn’t a bother carrying it on the site.
Aiming for such a weight will limit the laptop’s screen size to 13-inch to 14 inch, which is the perfect size for mobility, which fits the ultraportable category well. Having flexibility on such a laptop is great too, and as such looking for a 2-in-1 convertible design laptop is a good idea. Laptops with hinges that rotate the screen 360 degrees are handy for the electrician who needs to present their work on a flat surface without lugging around additional equipment.
Screen size and resolution
Since this is how you’ll be doing your work as an electrician, it’s important that they have access to a high-resolution screen with lots of clear space in which to do so. A large screen will also help if they need more workspace while working full time because there will be plenty of room for tools like document editors or Photoshop software.
Lightweight laptops with 14-inch screens are recommended for this type of situation due to how easy it is to carry them from site to site, though any laptop over 13 inches should suffice depending on how much space your job requires. Remember not to sacrifice too much on how powerful the machine is though because a laptop that runs like junk can be more of an inconvenience.
Storage speed
The last thing we recommend looking for is how fast the storage drive is. The more expensive laptops are usually equipped with SSD drives, which can have much faster speeds than conventional hard drives and should be a better option when it comes to speed overall.
Processor and RAM
The processor is how fast the laptop can run without bottlenecking. The more processing power a laptop has, the more things it will be able to do at once before slowing down or freezing up. This means you’ll want a powerful dual-core Intel i series platform with enough memory for multitasking so your electrician doesn’t have to wait around for apps, games, movies, and music to load every time they open them.
It’s also good if there are four slots of RAM in order to allow multiple programs to run simultaneously without losing speed due to the lack of available space on the computer’s hard drive cache.
Memory slots
Since this laptop will be used for long periods and you never know what kind of work might come up, having as many memory slots available to install additional RAM or even hard drives in case it’s needed is always good to have. It isn’t recommended for electricians who need quick access to programs due to how much slower they are than if running from an SSD drive, but overall these machines should run fairly well without them installed and so won’t cause any major issues with performance either way. Just make sure there are at least two memory card slots onboard!
Price and warranty
The price point on these laptops will vary widely depending on your budget, but most (if not all) are available under $1000 which we feel makes them affordable. It’s important to make sure the laptop has warranty coverage for accidental damage, too. You may also want to consider how long the warranty will last so you know how much time is covered under your plan. We recommend having at least two years of warranty coverage for accidental damage and five years for a power cord.
Keep in mind also that you’re an electrician, and this laptop is necessary for you to do your job efficiently. Do you see where I’m going with this? In other words, since the laptop would serve a vital role in your job as an electrician, it might qualify as a tax deduction. See for yourself—you can file your personal income tax return for free depending on which platform you use. Tax deductions can drastically reduce the amount of taxes you owe overall, so it would be worth your while to see if your new laptop qualifies as tax-deductible. If you’re unsure, ask a professional. There are many tax professionals out there that can help.
Conclusion:
We hope this has been helpful to any of our readers looking into how to choose the best laptop for electricians. Remember – it doesn’t matter if they want something light-weight or high-powered as there is something on this list that will be perfect no matter what their needs may be.
Whether you’re an electrician or not, this list of what we think are some of the best laptop choices for electricians will hopefully come in handy! With so many different factors that need to be considered before buying one, there’s no wonder why people get overwhelmed when trying to find just one good laptop for their needs- but as long as they keep these considerations in mind while shopping around then chances are they’ll land on something that suits them well!
