Laptops are incredibly feature-rich in our current day and age. Besides upgradability, they can rival desktops in terms of their functionality, but not every feature is worth forking over your hard-earned cash for. Most of these are quite easy to ignore if you don't plan on using them, but you should think twice if you're planning on paying a little extra for a laptop with any of these 5 gimmicky laptop features.
5 Mechanical keyboards
Totally unnecessary
Some laptop keyboards have mechanical features, but that's not what I'm referring to here. I'm referring to the implementation of a mechanical switch rather than the usual membrane or scissor-style mechanism. Mechanical keyboards are great for consistent keystrokes while typing and gaming, but for laptop use, they just add bulk and unnecessary cost.
If you're using your laptop for gaming and some extra bulk and thickness doesn't bother you, then by all means, knock yourself out. For the majority of other use cases, however, there's simply no reason to buy a laptop for its mechanical keyboard. Even today's membrane boards are perfectly usable and provide a good typing experience.
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4 Touchscreen displays
Extra cost and gloss, for what?
Before you pull out your pitchforks and begin penning a very angry response in the comments: 2-in-1 laptops do exist for a reason. People do use them, and touchscreens are not only a viable input method for a ton of different applications, but are actually preferred for things like drawing. With that said, if it's not one of the core features you're looking for in a laptop, there's simply no reason to buy one that has a touchscreen.
Most touchscreens feature a glossy finish due to the nature of how touch-sensitive displays are made, and while some laptops try and mitigate this with an anti-glare or matte coating, the viewing experience is still compromised if you have any kind of light behind you. Not only this, but the extra cost associated with a touchscreen makes the device much more expensive than it otherwise might be. If you're not pulling out your stylus often, and you don't plan on using any kind of tablet mode, skip the touchscreen.
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3 Enhanced speaker systems
They will always be bad
If you need good audio, you might be tempted to reach for a laptop that features some kind of branded audio system inside. Whether it's Dolby, Harmon Kardon, or another brand, any claims about "better audio" can pretty much be discarded. These systems might make the audio louder due to the sheer number of speakers included, but it certainly won't sound good enough to spend extra on. If you're planning on consuming a lot of content and audio is important to you, you'll get so much more mileage out of a nice pair of headphones than any kind of special integrated speaker system.
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2 High resolution displays
Anything over 1440p is overkill
There's truly nothing better than having a crystal-clear display on a laptop. It'll likely be your primary display, so it's important that it's a nice one. What you don't want, is to go overboard on the resolution. The range in which laptop displays usually live is just way too small to justify having a 4K one.
4K looks fantastic on displays 24" and up, but even at that size, you'll start to see diminishing returns in image quality. Most laptop screens are anywhere between 14 and 16 inches, and at that size, you just won't be able to tell a meaningful difference between 1440p and 4k. Not only that, but 4K displays suck up much more battery and performance than that of a lower resolution. Don't bother paying more for 4K, stick with 1440p or lower.
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1 AI acceleration
At least, not yet
Artificial intelligence is so ubiquitous that it's no surprise it's been as heavily integrated as it has been into our mobile devices. Microsoft seems hell-bent on every Windows laptop having a dedicated Copilot key, and even while Apple has taken a slower, more conservative approach to AI integration, it's quickly starting to ramp up.
Pretty much any laptop released in the last couple of years is going to have some kind of NPU inside to handle AI workloads, but if you're planning on paying more for a better NPU, I would rethink that approach. NPUs are slowly starting to be integrated further into more general workloads, but it's not at the point at which paying more for one is important enough.
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More isn't always better
While hunting for the right laptop for your use case, it might be tempting to just find a brand you like and select all the bells and whistles at checkout, but chances are you're throwing some money away. Make a list of features that are important to you and begin to make a short list of potential candidates. If the laptop you purchase has any of these features but does what you need it to do at a decent price, then no harm, no foul.