The recent pandemic has resulted in:

• Acute shortage of laptop.
• High demand of laptop.
• Lower dispensable income.

There are many brands and several models that are available in the market making it difficult to choose the right one. Another challenge faced by buyers is that most of the models are priced high. So, the natural motivation is to buy what is coming under budget and reasonably matching the specifications. However, there are certain factors that we need to consider before buying a new laptop.

Did you know that in every brand, there is a consumer model as well as a commercial model??

Build Quality: The one huge difference between a Commercial Model and Consumer model is in its “Build Quality”. Commercial Models comes with a higher build quality (hardware and performance) which means – buyers can use these laptops for longer duration everyday and yet it can run without many troubles for a period of 3 to 5 years easily when compared to a consumer model. During the pre-pandemic period, average time spent on laptop (consumer) used in home environment was limited to 2 to 3 hours. Post pandemic period, the usage has multiplied 3 times minimum which warrants for a laptop with good build quality. The features and specifications might look similar in both consumer and commercial model, but their built-in quality can be entirely different.

Commercial laptops are built to provide us optimum performance. Whereas Consumer Laptops are mainly focused on personal usages. If you are looking for a highly functional, prolonged work efficient, device-optimized system, you should go for the commercial series. At the same time if your usage of laptop is for shorter duration and for meeting personal works, you can opt for consumer series.

Hardware Quality: While coming to the Hardware quality of the commercial series, many of them have gone through a series of Military-grade Testing. So it can easily overcome minor drops, miss handlings, strenuous usages. Some of the models are even Spill and dust resistant too. 40 – 60 hrs per week strenuous usages can be undertaken by these commercial series laptops. The items purchased by business houses are mainly based on the workforce, as any small damage can affect workflow thereby adversely impacting the performance of the company. Hence, companies prefer only commercial laptops.

On the other hand, consumer laptops do not undergo such rigorous testing. These can withstand a 20–30-hour usage per week beyond which the life of battery gets affected. Materials that are used to create Consumer-grade are not that much durable as OEM’s have an assumption that everyone keep their personal items carefully. Consumer models are aesthetic friendly products where the material, colour, look and feel, texture is the core focus. As a result, after 2-3 years, users will go for the next option based on trends.

Battery Life: Commercial model can come up to 8 to 12 hrs whereas
the consumer series can last only 3 to 4 hours.

Security: Commercials laptops can offer more security while compared to the consumer models. As we all know businesses will always give priority to security features. So enterprise mainly focuses on commercial laptops. For example, some brands such as HP have different security measures in the terms of certain features such as HP Biosphere, HP Sure Start, Sure Connect, Sure Click, Sure view etc.. Consumer models do have limited security features as it is meant for home use.

Warranty & After Sales Support: While considering Warranty,
Commercial laptop has a provision up to 5 years upgradable warranty.
Whereas consumer laptops have only 1 – 3 years. Also, after sales
support of commercials laptops are more dedicated and prompt.