How to buy the right laptop for school, work, and play (and common mistakes to avoid)

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Choosing the right laptop can feel overwhelming -- even for someone like me, who has lived and breathed laptops for years. You get all these options, configurations, and feature lists that it's impossible not to know which is up and which is down. To make things easier for you, I'll break down laptops and their essentials into three broad usage categories: school, work, and gaming.

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Most laptops fall into one of these categories, and while there is some overlap in terms of hardware, each type is designed with a specific purpose in mind. Below, I walk through what defines each category, highlighting key features to look out for and providing example products along the way.

Please note that this ...