You’ll want to read our extensive guide on How to Choose the Right Laptop, but for the basics, you’ll want to decide what category of laptop you need. Most people should buy a 13-inch or 14-inch laptop, and spending around $750-$1,000 is a good place to start. You should expect a laptop around this price to get good battery life, have a decent screen, perform well enough for basic tasks, and have a comfortable keyboard and touchpad. You should also expect at least 16 GB of RAM and 512 GB of storage. Anything more than that gets into premium territory where you’re paying for higher specs, more performance, or extra features. If you want something with a discrete GPU for either gaming or creative workflows, you’ll need to spend more than this.
A laptop like the Dell 14 Plus is the ideal example of what you can get while shopping in this price range. You can even find laptops with OLED panels, up to one terabyte of storage, depending on how good the discounts happen to be. I would consider anything under $750 to be a cheap laptop, and it will therefore come with some significant compromises, especially around the quality of the panel and the touchpad. Fortunately, laptops that use the Qualcomm Snapdragon X chip get great battery life, despite often falling under $750 in price.
Here’s a list of important specs to consider:
CPU: For thin and light laptops, I would recommend one of the Snapdragon X, X Plus, or X Elite chips. They get the best battery life and performance for their class of laptop. As an alternative, the Intel Core Ultra 7 258V is also quite good. The next generation is coming soon though, with all eyes on Intel’s Core Ultra Series 3 (also known as Panther Lake, which is rolling out now and is really great) and Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X2 chips.
GPU: As of now, Intel’s Lunar Lake chips, such as the Core Ultra 7 258V, have the best integrated graphics. For discrete options, you’ll want to pick something with one of the latest Nvidia RTX 50-series GPUs, such as the RTX 5060. The biggest leap in performance is between the RTX 5070 and the RTX 5070 Ti, which increases VRAM to 12 GB.
RAM (or memory): Stick with at least 16 GB if you can. Since the advent of the Copilot+ designation, it has become the new standard. You’ll even find laptops as cheap as $600 that have 16 GB of memory. Gamers and content creators should upgrade to 32 GB if possible, though the ongoing memory shortage may make this more expensive in the near future.
Storage: Similar to memory, many laptops have moved to 512 GB as the new standard, and you’ll find lots of affordable laptops with 512 GB as the base configuration. Upgrading to one or two terabytes, where possible, will make your life that much easier, especially since many laptops don’t offer expandable storage.
Display: Laptops are usually categorized by screen size, with 13-inch, 14-inch, and 16-inch being the most common. You’ll want to consider size, resolution, refresh rate, and panel type here.
Portability: Outside of display size, the thickness of the chassis and weight are the primary factors here, determining how portable a laptop is to travel with. Other dimensions are important too, but more often than not, that is determined by the screen size.
Ports: Many laptops are limited to just USB-C and headphone jack these days, with some exceptions where USB-A or HDMI are included. Make sure your laptop has what you need, or else you’ll need a USB Hub or laptop docking station to get more ports or to increase external display support.
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![Hey Dave Filoni, Leslye Headland Is Still Down for ‘The Acolyte’ Season 2
No matter what you thought about The Acolyte season one, there is no denying that season two was going to be incredible. Creator Leslye Headland and her team ended that first season with the promise of exploring multiple Dark Side relationships, the reveal of potentially the ultimate Sith in Darth Plagueis, a deep dive into the corruption of the Jedi, and even Yoda’s complicity in it. But, of course, that didn’t happen. Instead, Disney decided not to move forward with more episodes of The Acolyte. A true disappointment to fans of the show, but not all that surprising. The show, of course, had invited all manner of vitriol, and it seems like viewership didn’t quite justify the cost of more episodes. However, in the years since, the show has endured. In fact, just recently, there were reports that it once again cracked the top 10 on Disney+. And, in a new interview, Headland said that she’d still be interested in returning to a galaxy far, far, away. “I would still want to do it! Absolutely,” she told Empire, via Fantha Tracks. “As more people discover it, I think people may want to see some form of the story come back. We did have a lot of stuff that we wanted to explore, including tying in lore to the sequels. Getting into who exactly Manny [Jacinto]’s character is, his connection with [Jedi Master] Vernestra, his connection with [Sith Lord] Plagueis, and then his connection with other sequel-established things.”
Headland went on to say that she’s also felt the show returning a bit in recent days. “I’m having a resurgence of The Acolyte in my real life,” she said. “I speak with people who are really big fans, and were disappointed in the cancellation. was like, I went to a play last night, and somebody ‘I just have to tell you that I loved it.’”
We loved it too and think a second season would be absolutely incredible. Who wouldn’t want to see The Stranger with his new apprentice, and how that works with his master, Plagueis? Or what lengths the Jedi will go to in order to cover it all up? Hey, Lucasfilm president Dave Filoni, take note! Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who. #Hey #Dave #Filoni #Leslye #Headland #Acolyte #SeasonDave Filoni,Leslye Headland,Star Wars,The Acolyte Hey Dave Filoni, Leslye Headland Is Still Down for ‘The Acolyte’ Season 2
No matter what you thought about The Acolyte season one, there is no denying that season two was going to be incredible. Creator Leslye Headland and her team ended that first season with the promise of exploring multiple Dark Side relationships, the reveal of potentially the ultimate Sith in Darth Plagueis, a deep dive into the corruption of the Jedi, and even Yoda’s complicity in it. But, of course, that didn’t happen. Instead, Disney decided not to move forward with more episodes of The Acolyte. A true disappointment to fans of the show, but not all that surprising. The show, of course, had invited all manner of vitriol, and it seems like viewership didn’t quite justify the cost of more episodes. However, in the years since, the show has endured. In fact, just recently, there were reports that it once again cracked the top 10 on Disney+. And, in a new interview, Headland said that she’d still be interested in returning to a galaxy far, far, away. “I would still want to do it! Absolutely,” she told Empire, via Fantha Tracks. “As more people discover it, I think people may want to see some form of the story come back. We did have a lot of stuff that we wanted to explore, including tying in lore to the sequels. Getting into who exactly Manny [Jacinto]’s character is, his connection with [Jedi Master] Vernestra, his connection with [Sith Lord] Plagueis, and then his connection with other sequel-established things.”
Headland went on to say that she’s also felt the show returning a bit in recent days. “I’m having a resurgence of The Acolyte in my real life,” she said. “I speak with people who are really big fans, and were disappointed in the cancellation. was like, I went to a play last night, and somebody ‘I just have to tell you that I loved it.’”
We loved it too and think a second season would be absolutely incredible. Who wouldn’t want to see The Stranger with his new apprentice, and how that works with his master, Plagueis? Or what lengths the Jedi will go to in order to cover it all up? Hey, Lucasfilm president Dave Filoni, take note! Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who. #Hey #Dave #Filoni #Leslye #Headland #Acolyte #SeasonDave Filoni,Leslye Headland,Star Wars,The Acolyte](https://gizmodo.com/app/uploads/2026/06/Acolyte-star-wars-lightsabers-1280x853.jpg)
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