10 Features That Differentiate Business Laptops from Consumer Ones
by Sushant Singh September 22, 2020 0 commentsOver the years, the market for business laptops has expanded in India, because businesses are slowly realizing that buying a laptop is more than specs and price. A business laptop is very different from a consumer one, and offers many features that can help increase employee productivity and security. Many of these features are neither there nor required in their consumer counterparts, as they’ve been designed keeping business users’ needs in mind.
Most of the laptops in shops or mass-market e-commerce stores are consumer-grade. They focus more on highlighting the price and machine specs because that’s what most buyers look for. They would harp on having the latest specs, like Intel’s latest 10th Gen CPU or AMD’s latest Ryzen processor, so that you could play the latest games. If it’s a low-cost machine, then they’ll focus on basic productivity tasks and throw in a free MS Office 365 Students edition. Seldom would they address more serious needs like graphics designing, animation, security, collaboration, or other serious business needs.
How Business Laptops Differ?
The focus of business laptops on the other hand goes beyond specs and price. The latest and greatest hardware gives way to offering a more stable and secure platform. Optimization is done not to run all programs well, but to perfectly run specific programs.
Here are some features that differentiate business laptops from their consumer counterparts. Not all the features would be available in all business laptops, but the idea is to understand just how much more to expect from them so that you can look out for these features next time you go hunting for a laptop.
Convertibility: Don’t you sometimes wish that you had a device that had the power of a laptop, but the flexibility of a tablet? A convertible laptop gives you just that. Keep it on the table with the screen open and it works like a laptop. Rotate the screen by 360 degrees and it functions as a tablet. Many business users would prefer to carry only one device instead of having a laptop and a tablet so that it’s easier to carry and reduces the convenience of switching between two devices.
Security: The current pandemic has forced most people to work from their homes on their traditional broadband connections, which were never meant to be as secure as an office network. Business laptops have a lot of security features built-in allowing you to work even on such insecure network environments without worrying about the machine getting compromised. Take Intel vPro for instance, a platform that allow below OS level security in the device so that security attacks don’t end up destroying your device’s firmware. It also allows your IT department to remotely manage your device even if it’s powered off.
BIOS Protection: This is again a security feature in business class laptops. Many modern-day malware programs can corrupt your laptop’s BIOS, rendering the device completely useless. The only way out is to replace the device’s motherboard, which is an expensive affair. Business laptops have features that can restore the BIOS to its original state if it gets corrupted.
Protection from Side Screen Viewing: A lot of business professionals wish that when they’re doing some serious business work like creating a confidential presentation for a client, strangers should not be able to see it even if they’re sitting right next to you. Business laptops have the feature to reduce the screen viewing angle to the extent that nobody can see anything on your screen even from the sides. This can be very handy if you’re working in a public place like an airport or inside an aircraft.
Webcam Shutter Protection: The latest security threat to hit laptops is webcam hacks, wherein a hacker can take control over your webcam and use it to see what you’re doing without your ever knowing about it. This can make anyone feel extremely insecure and uncomfortable. Business laptops have either automatic or manual webcam shutters that you can close when you’re not using them.
Build Quality: Most consumer laptops have cheap, plastic bodies, which can crack over a period of time. Some even have glossy finish, leading to unwanted fingerprints and smudges that make your device look old and worn out even if it’s brand new. If laptop manufacturers replace plastic with metal, it can make the device heavier. Nowadays, some business laptops are built with special Magnesium Alloy, which is the same material used for building aircrafts. This makes the device both light and strong. Plus, you’ll find oleophobic coating on many laptops, which prevent your laptop from becoming a fingerprint magnet.
Battery Backup: This is one thing that most business users can’t get enough of. If you travel a lot, then you don’t want to keep hunting for a power point all the time to run your laptop, because the battery gave away. Some business laptops like HP’s Elite DragonFly can give more than 24 hours of power backup on a single charge.
Rapid Charging: Besides giving longer battery backups, many business laptops also offer rapid charging, just like smartphones. So even if the battery backup is not 24 hours like that of the DragonFly, at least you can quickly juice up your laptop when near a power point.
Warranty: This is another important feature to look for in laptops. Do ask your vendor what all is covered in the warranty while buying the laptop. Many laptops offer a warranty minus consumable items like power adapter and the battery. Some laptops, like those from HP the warranty even covers these consumable items.
Security Threat Detection and Recovery: This is another important feature found in business laptops. If your laptop gets attacked by an unknown virus, like in the case of a zero-day attack, which turn off your AV. There are laptops with features that can detect such an incident and alert you to take the necessary measures to protect your device. Similarly, there are laptops that have features to restore your device to a safe image in case a virus or malware corrupts your existing system image.
There are many other features in business laptops that differentiate them from their consumer counter-parts. High-end business notebooks like HP’s Elite Dragonfly would have most of these features, while other models would have slightly lesser features.
Check out https://store.hp.com/in-en/default/hp-business-offers for some good deals by HP on laptops.
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