There are several reasons for you to ask “what kind of laptop do I have?”, and it’s not exactly a bad question either. It’s important for you to know what your laptop’s device specifications are in order to determine the following:
- do you need to upgrade certain parts?
- are you planning on installing software or games on your laptop?
- is your Windows laptop running as it should be?
- is my laptop using hardware resources properly?
All these questions and more can be answered when you know what your laptop’s exact model is.
How Do You Check Your Laptop’s Specs?
If you’re planning on buying a new game, or installing a new software, then it’s not enough to find the model number. Granted, you can still find the model number and input it in Google to find out what laptop model you have, but this may not be a good idea if you have a refurbished laptop. Chances are, some parts might’ve been upgraded or replaced.
How To Find Out What Your CPU or Processor Is
Not all laptops will have a small system summary stuck near their keyboard panel, so this info might not be available at a glance.
This is relatively easy, but there are other methods as well. You just right-click on the Windows icon, which is found on the bottom left part of the screen. You’ll see a list of options after, but click on System. You’ll want to go through the section called “Device Specifications”, which should be halfway down the list.
How To Check Your Motherboard
Go to the search bar and type in “System Information”. Then click on “System Information” when it shows up. You’ll see a lot of information about your laptop model on here.
But what you should be looking for is the field titled “Baseboard Manufacturer”. This is your motherboard, and you’ll know what model you have and what its specs are on your laptop.
Knowing what motherboard you have will let you know what slots are available on that laptop in case you want to add more hardware (like RAM or SSD).
How To Check Your GPU
If you bought a new laptop and you want to find out if it can run the latest games, you can double check for what kind of GPU you have. Note that GPUs on a laptop aren’t exactly similar to a PC GPU. For one thing, you can’t upgrade GPUs on a laptop. Second, the specs may not even be the same to an extent. For example, specs of a GTX 1660 on a PC might be different than a GTX 1660 installed on a laptop. This isn’t exactly detrimental, but you should manage expectations on what you can and can’t do with your laptop graphics card.
To identify what kind of graphics card you have, just go down to the Windows button on the far left corner and click on it. Open Control Panel. Select Device Manager and click on the tab that says “Display Adapters”. You should be able to see both the onboard GPU (the one that’s tied to your and dedicated GPU (if ever there is one).
How Do You Find Your Laptop’s Model Number?
To answer the question “what kind of laptop do I have?”, there’s one important piece of information that you need to have: your laptop’s model number. This singular piece of information can answer some of the questions that you might have. A laptop model number is located at the back or at the bottom of your laptop’s chassis. Not all laptops might have this information readily available, but don’t worry.
Just flip your laptop upside down and you should be able to find the laptop model number immediately. If it’s not found at the bottom of your laptop, jus turn it on and go to Control Panel.
Select System and Security, and then click on System. You should see every hardware detail on the system information window, including your laptop’s model number displayed on the computer screen.
How Do You Determine What Kind Of Laptop You Have?
Okay, now that you know your exact model number, and maybe even the serial number, it’s time for you to learn how to find out other useful details about your laptop.
Finding The Serial Number
If you want to know where you can find your laptop’s serial number, just flip it over and you’ll find it at the bottom cover. Instead of looking for the model number, you’re now looking for the serial number. These pieces of information are bundled up together in one corner of the laptop, but not all laptops will have this readily available.
Serial numbers are unique to each product, brand, and model. This is used for warranty purposes and ownership identification. In case your laptop gets stolen, you can use your laptop’s serial number as a way for people to keep an eye out if it’s getting sold.
When you purchase a laptop, or computer hardware in general, serial number is used as part of the financial transaction. This is listed on the official receipt and warranty card. If you used a credit card to purchase your laptop, that serial number is tied to your credit card information.
On Top Or Below Keyboard Panel
You can also find pieces of information about your laptop posted right below or on top of the keyboard panel. At a glance, you’ll know what operating system you’re running, how much RAM it has (by default), the model name, graphics card, processor, and more through stickers or a small label.
If your laptop is refurbished, there’s a small chance that the previous user might have done upgrades on it before selling it. You can easily verify if there are upgrades previously done by checking the device manager.
This is one of the few ways that laptop manufacturers make it easy for their users to find out what kind of laptop do they have.
Using the Control Panel
In case you don’t know how much RAM you have or what kind of processor you’re running because the laptop you bought doesn’t have the stickers on labels, fret not. You can always find these pieces of information and more through the Control Panel.
Just click on Windows button and click on Control Panel (or the Gear icon if your operating system is Windows 10). You can also use your search bar found on your taskbar too. Just type Control Panel and hit Enter button. You’ll see the System and Security Window open up.
Then click on the System link, and you’ll see all the other details you have on your laptop, including the model number.
Using Windows System Information
In the event you can’t find the information you need using the three steps above, don’t worry. You can always use the System Information App. The process is different for each Windows OS, but we’ll show you how to do that for Windows 7, 8, and 10.
Windows 10
If you’re using Windows 10, just navigate your way to the little search bar on the bottom left part of the screen (if it’s enabled), and from there, type in System Information and Hit Enter. You’ll see a little pop-up window and scroll your way down until you see a field titled “System Model”. You just found the exact model number of your laptop.
Windows 8
Things are different with Windows 8. Start the process by opening the Search option. Type in “msinfo32” and you’ll see a search results window open up. You should see a search results, one of which is titled “Msinfo32”. From there, you’ll see a field titled “Model”. You now know how to check model of the laptop if you’re running on Windows 8.
Windows 7
Click on the Start button at the bottom left part of the screen. Click on the Search Bar and type in “System Information”. You’ll see a list of search results after you hit the Enter button. Click on System Information and you should see the field called “System Model”. This info is your laptop’s exact model.
Closing
There you have it. That’s how you answer the question “what kind of laptop do I have?”. You now have enough information about your laptop to let you determine if you need to upgrade certain parts, know what specs you have so you can list it for selling, or if it’s time to replace your laptop with one that has higher specs.
