don't go for thinnest thing ever, you wanna be able to plug in usbs and stuff. bonus if it has a disc drive but not required. beyond that I'm not sure what to look for in a laptop

well, okay what are you planning to use it for mostly

interneting? writing? making videos? photoshop and art? audio recording?

gaming>

?

mostly internet and writing (which i... do on the internet, but), and i'm trying to do digital art more

would be nice to be able to play games but that's not high priority

I'm actually doing this for myself right now. this is the one I'm seriously considering.

cheaper ones tend to have less that 16gb RAM, which idk but Logos says is important?

also I want more than one usb port, and an HDMI port, because I attach it to a screen/mouse when I'm working. so if you are doing that consider the ports.

also Costco generally has good deals so if you want to come visit your welcome to use my membership if you don't have one and want to check their selection out

^seconding what's been said about paying attention to ports and the chance of a disc drive. We got an external disc drive for work, since the district issues us work laptops without them

Give a considering eye to the keyboard as well. Some manufacturers skimp on things like arrows or numberpads to make the laptop smaller, and between writing and gaming you'll want a keyboard sized and equipped for your hands

for just internet, writing, and digital art, i'd almost want to recommend a chromebook... but those are super bad for games

and tend to have a low amount of storage space to boot

but they are inexpensive and lightweight and pretty good for most low-profile Computer Functions

i havent bought a real laptop in more than a decade though so i am useless on that front

oh yeah if you are thinking about a Chromebook I can get Logos in the thread, he uses one for work so definitely has opinions.

not a good choice for me because I want to play Among Us and Minecraft, but that's the only thing stopping me really.

Are you a human?

After shopping around this is what I'm going with. Newegg is a great place to look, and everything I've gotten from there in the past has been solid.

yeah i'm crowdsourcing between here and my ttrpg group and The Tech Guy of that group also rec'd newegg

update: no further advice needed, the friend from my ttrpg group was free to basically handhold me through the process and a replacement has been ordered

Success!

yay computer!

huzzah!