2. [must] HDMI, RJ45, >=2x USB-A, >=1x USB-C (2x if it's also used for charging), headphone jack, card reader (preferably one where the sdcard clicks into, so I can leave the microsd adapter inside and always handy; currently my laptop has it half sticking out so it would break off). I can understand that a serial cable requires a dongle, but network cables I still use daily. Install one of those openable ports if you must, but I won't buy your laptop if it doesn't have a network interface built in.
3. [must] Changeable RAM so I don't have to buy an overpriced 32GB laptop, but can just buy a regular laptop costing half as much and spend 70 bucks on an upgrade.
4. [must] Changeable SSD. Same story: large SSD with no HDD (because with an additional HDD you again have all its downsides like noise and power draw) is overpriced, and I don't feel like reinstalling everything anyway, so I prefer to just transfer the SSD from my previous laptop and toss whatever they stuck in the new one.
5. [must] 1080p screen so no scaling bugs or larger-than-necessary power draw. I don't see more pixels anyway and 95% of the time I'll be looking at an external screen; if you work 8h/day on a laptop you should probably be looking to change that.
6. [should] Fast CPU cores. When I selected my most recent laptop in 2018, CPUs had actually nearly gotten slower than the previous one in 2012. But they draw less power! Whoop tee doo... good job intel on power saving by just doing less. I'm buying a daily computing driver, not a phone, and I am very rarely more than 1.5 hours removed from a power socket. Also, I still can rarely use more than one core per task (and am doing just one thing in the foreground; dual core would be fine), but I suppose it's the only way these days to get any sort of performance. Still, I'd rather have 4 cores with 100 benchmark points each than 32 cores with 75 benchmark points each. (And hyperthreading counting towards the number of cores is misleading, as it adds only a few percent performance.)
7. [wish] WiFi 6
8. [wish] Buttons above the touchpad are nice. Keyboard: the more buttons the better, basically. I actually use home/end/pgup/pgdn/scroll lock/printscreen/pause/menu/function keys/media keys/etc. unlike what laptop designers seem to think. There's so little choice in this that I guess I'll just live with whatever I can get at this point. Also, death to the combined up/down arrow key.
9. [mkay] GPU is cool but, often, time thermal restrictions make it only a little faster than the nowadays pretty performant and efficient integrated graphics. Useful for hashcat though.
A. [wish] My current laptop has taught me that not all LCD displays are made alike. The vertical viewing angle on this one is so terrible that the colors are always distorted on at least one part of the screen no matter your viewing angle. I have no idea how to objectively look for this, but a nice screen is a bonus. Then again, as before: I won't spend 95% of my time looking at this screen anyhow.
2. [must] HDMI, RJ45, >=2x USB-A, >=1x USB-C (2x if it's also used for charging), headphone jack, card reader (preferably one where the sdcard clicks into, so I can leave the microsd adapter inside and always handy; currently my laptop has it half sticking out so it would break off). I can understand that a serial cable requires a dongle, but network cables I still use daily. Install one of those openable ports if you must, but I won't buy your laptop if it doesn't have a network interface built in.
3. [must] Changeable RAM so I don't have to buy an overpriced 32GB laptop, but can just buy a regular laptop costing half as much and spend 70 bucks on an upgrade.
4. [must] Changeable SSD. Same story: large SSD with no HDD (because with an additional HDD you again have all its downsides like noise and power draw) is overpriced, and I don't feel like reinstalling everything anyway, so I prefer to just transfer the SSD from my previous laptop and toss whatever they stuck in the new one.
5. [must] 1080p screen so no scaling bugs or larger-than-necessary power draw. I don't see more pixels anyway and 95% of the time I'll be looking at an external screen; if you work 8h/day on a laptop you should probably be looking to change that.
6. [should] Fast CPU cores. When I selected my most recent laptop in 2018, CPUs had actually nearly gotten slower than the previous one in 2012. But they draw less power! Whoop tee doo... good job intel on power saving by just doing less. I'm buying a daily computing driver, not a phone, and I am very rarely more than 1.5 hours removed from a power socket. Also, I still can rarely use more than one core per task (and am doing just one thing in the foreground; dual core would be fine), but I suppose it's the only way these days to get any sort of performance. Still, I'd rather have 4 cores with 100 benchmark points each than 32 cores with 75 benchmark points each. (And hyperthreading counting towards the number of cores is misleading, as it adds only a few percent performance.)
7. [wish] WiFi 6
8. [wish] Buttons above the touchpad are nice. Keyboard: the more buttons the better, basically. I actually use home/end/pgup/pgdn/scroll lock/printscreen/pause/menu/function keys/media keys/etc. unlike what laptop designers seem to think. There's so little choice in this that I guess I'll just live with whatever I can get at this point. Also, death to the combined up/down arrow key.
9. [mkay] GPU is cool but, often, time thermal restrictions make it only a little faster than the nowadays pretty performant and efficient integrated graphics. Useful for hashcat though.
A. [wish] My current laptop has taught me that not all LCD displays are made alike. The vertical viewing angle on this one is so terrible that the colors are always distorted on at least one part of the screen no matter your viewing angle. I have no idea how to objectively look for this, but a nice screen is a bonus. Then again, as before: I won't spend 95% of my time looking at this screen anyhow.