Independent buying guides
Written for Canadian buyers weighing a laptop or desktop against a budget in dollars. Every guide answers one purchase question, shows the figures it used and the date each was checked, and runs its calculators in the open.
Each guide answers one buying question and shows the figures behind the answer.
How to choose
Memory, storage, screen and battery decide how a laptop feels in year three. The processor tier rarely does. Here is the order that survives, with the arithmetic.
Photo: PantheraLeo1359531 · CC BY 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Budget and prices
Shelf price, GST/HST added at the till, duty on anything shipped in, and electricity. The four lines that turn a $1,200 sticker into a yearly figure.
Photo: Kskhh · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Setting up
Charger certification marks, battery habits that decide year three, the bilingual keyboard question, power settings, and a backup set up on day one.
Photo: Carissa Rogers · CC BY 2.0 · 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: Carissa Rogers · CC BY 2.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Like-for-like comparisons on the specifications that matter.
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Photo: Gre123gr · CC0 · Wikimedia Commons
What the total comes to once everything is counted.
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Photo: Gugalcrom123 · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Getting it working properly the first time.
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Photo: PantheraLeo1359531 · CC BY 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
What the numbers mean in day-to-day use.
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Photo: KK IN HK · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
The expensive errors that are easy to avoid.
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Photo: Kskhh · CC BY-SA 4.0 · 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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