The Significance and Usefulness of Laptop Stickers
I stopped by the largest electronics stores, looked at the laptops on display and wrote out all the stickers that were on them. I tell you what stickers are and what they mean. You can open your laptops and check with me.
Intel Core, Pentium and Celeron
The sticker says that the device is powered by an Intel processor - most laptops in stores are sold with them. According to the latest data, Intel has more than 77% of the computer processor market.
Chips from Intel are categorized into three main lines, which differ in performance.
Intel Celeron. Budget solution for basic level laptops - suitable for office tasks.
Intel Pentium. Mid-range processors that most often provide an acceptable level of performance in most applications. They come in two different speeds - Gold and Silver.
Intel Core. The company's top line, which is divided into four more series:
- Core i3 - entry level, performance is slightly higher than Pentium processors.
- Core i5 - the golden mean, which will be enough for most users. Great for gaming and any other scenarios.
- Core i7 runs at higher frequencies and has a higher power reserve. It is used in top-tier devices.
- Core i9 is the top of the top. It is rare, and actual laptops with the corresponding processor are extremely expensive. For example, I recently tested Acer Predator Helios 500 with Intel Core i9, which sells for almost 400 thousand rubles.
The sticker with the name of the line and series of the processor gives a superficial idea of its power: for a complete picture you should take into account the generation of the chip, its number, version, heat package and a number of other parameters. But you can use the information from the sticker to estimate the performance at a basic level. Without diving into details, it will be roughly clear that a laptop with Intel Core i5 is noticeably faster than a model with Intel Pentium.
AMD Ryzen and Athlon
A laptop with this label runs on a processor from AMD - Intel's main competitor. Recently, the manufacturer has been actively increasing its market share due to the combination of low cost and high performance.
AMD processors are divided into two lines, which differ in speed.
AMD Athlon. Analogous to the Intel Pentium line are mid-level chips for budget computers. They do not set performance records and are suitable for undemanding users. There are two versions - Gold and Silver. The main difference is in performance: the "Gold" series is slightly faster than the "Silver" one.
AMD Ryzen. Popular mid-range and top-tier processors. Divided into four versions:
- Ryzen 3 - entry level.
- Ryzen 5 - the golden mean.
- Ryzen 7 - pre-top level.
- Ryzen 9 - top level.
The main differences between Ryzen types are the number of cores and threads, clock speed and cache memory capacity.
The AMD Ryzen sticker also often indicates the series of the processor. Laptops with 3000, 4000 and 5000 series chips are on sale now - the higher the number, the newer the chip.
New versions go on sale almost every year, on average they are 10-20% more powerful than the previous generation. In January 2022, the company introduced the 6000 series processors.
Intel Evo
Intel Evo sticker is a distinctive mark of notebooks certified by Intel.
According to the idea of the certification creators, the Intel Evo sticker should help buyers to choose a good notebook with quality stuffing. In fact, Intel Evo is not about system requirements, but about comfortable user experience.
Intel Evo branded laptops come out of sleep mode in a second, hold a charge for at least 9 hours, and their display is well calibrated. These are high quality standards that laptop manufacturers must adhere to.
Also among the requirements: body thickness not more than 15 mm, processor of the current 11th generation Core i5 or Core i7, dual-channel RAM not less than 8 GB, SSD with a minimum of 256 GB. Such devices should support high-performance Thunderbolt 4 and wi-fi 6 interface, have good speakers and microphones.
Needless to say, strict restrictions on the minimum characteristics have led to the fact that such a label from Intel gets laptops of a high price segment. As a rule, these are thin and light ultrabooks not intended for gaming. At the same time, they have enough performance margin to work comfortably in most programs.
Iris Xe Graphics
This label indicates that your notebook has integrated graphics from Intel. It is used in Intel's 11th and 12th generation processors released in the last two years.
Graphics cards can be integrated or discrete. Integrated graphics is basically a simple graphics card that helps the computer run graphics programs and undemanding games. It is processor-based.
Discrete graphics is a graphics card that functions within a separate chip. As a rule, it is much more powerful than the built-in one, but it greatly reduces the laptop's run time without charging, increases its size and weight.
Iris Xe is used as the main graphics card in ultrabooks and other laptops designed for moderate load and high autonomy. Iris graphics used to be considered very weak, but the Xe handles everyday tasks. For example, you can edit simple videos, edit massive Excel spreadsheets, process photos and even play current undemanding games like Overwatch. But for heavy tasks - rendering, demanding games - Iris Xe is not suitable.
Radeon Graphics and Radeon Graphics RX
The Radeon Graphics sticker tells you that your notebook uses a graphics card from AMD. It can be either integrated or discrete.
Built-in is a mobile solution for compact laptops, which does not increase the size of the device and is characterized by economical power consumption.
We can say that it is an analog of Iris Xe, designed for the same tasks - the use of undemanding software. You won't be able to play heavy games on such a notebook, but you won't have any problems with Internet surfing and working with documents.
If the laptop has a discrete, "full-fledged" video card, the label is labeled RX. On such laptops you can run heavy games that will not pull the device with built-in graphics. Actual laptops with external AMD video card are few on the Russian market now: we managed to find about 20 such models on "Yandex-market". The company has ceded the segment of mobile computers to more powerful variants from Nvidia.
Nvidia GeForce RTX and GeForce GTX
Nvidia GeForce is a discrete graphics card designed for powerful gamer laptops. With few exceptions, a device with a GeForce sticker is suitable for running heavy games.
The name of Nvidia graphics cards consists of four digits: the first two speak of the graphics series, and the last two - its performance. Essentially, the higher the number, the more powerful the graphics card. There are three series found in stores today: GeForce 16, GeForce 20 and GeForce 30.
Nvidia graphics cards also have two lines: GTX and RTX.
GTX. These are the standard GeForce graphics cards. They are weaker and simpler than RTX-analogs, but they are much cheaper. However, notebooks with GTX graphics are gradually being phased out of the market, replacing them with more powerful and technologically advanced variants with ray tracing support.
RTX. Video cards of this line support raytracing technology. This is a technique that helps achieve more realistic lighting and reflections in games. With raytracing, picture quality can be noticeably better than without it.
Pantone validated
To further emphasize the high quality of the display, a number of manufacturers get Pantone certification for their laptops. This is a company that studies and standardizes colors and hues - it's well-known among content creation professionals.
Certification from Pantone ensures that the screen accurately reproduces colors. This is important for photographers, designers and illustrators. The excellent matrix calibration will be appreciated by ordinary users as well: it's more pleasant to watch content and work on a high-quality screen.
However, the absence of the Pantone sticker does not indicate poor image quality - the picture can be good even without it. If there is no sticker, expert tests in the reviews will help to make sure of the display quality.
Huawei Share
The Huawei Share sticker can be found only on Huawei MateBook laptops. This technology helps synchronize your smartphone and computer into a single ecosystem - the option works only on Huawei gadgets.
Huawei Share allows, for example, to quickly drag and drop files from the laptop to the phone and back, to use a single clipboard. You can also launch android applications on your computer and control your smartphone directly from the laptop display using the touchpad and keyboard.
Important nuance: NFC-module is built into the sticker. If you remove or damage it, Huawei Share will not work properly.
Honor Magic-Link
Analogous to the Huawei Share function, only for Honor gadgets. You can display the smartphone desktop directly on the laptop screen to write messages and answer calls, open documents from the gadget's memory and drag and drop any files from the computer disk into it. This sticker also contains an NFC module, so it is better not to remove it.
