Checking a laptop's real specs in Windows 11 takes under a minute and needs nothing beyond what's already installed on the machine. That matters anywhere, but it matters especially when buying a laptop in Kenya's refurbished and EX-UK market, where an advertised "Core i5, 16GB RAM" needs to be confirmed against what's actually installed before any money changes hands — not taken on trust from a sticker or a listing.

This guide covers all six built-in methods Windows 11 offers, what each one actually shows, and which one to reach for depending on what you're checking. If you're specifically verifying a laptop before buying it, our genuine laptop verification guide covers how to combine these checks with a manufacturer serial number lookup for the full picture.

Open Settings → System → About. This single screen shows the processor name, installed RAM, device name, and whether Windows is 32-bit or 64-bit, plus the Windows edition and version further down the page. It's the fastest check available, but it doesn't show storage type, RAM speed, or detailed BIOS information — for those, use one of the methods below.

System Information is the most thorough built-in tool for a single, readable report. The System Summary page alone shows the processor's exact model name, the BIOS version and date, the system manufacturer and model (useful for confirming a laptop is genuinely the brand and model advertised), and total installed RAM. Expanding "Components" in the left-hand tree reveals storage, display adapter, and network adapter details as well.

Open Command Prompt (search "cmd" from the Start menu) and type systeminfo, then press Enter. After a short pause, Windows prints a complete report covering the OS version and build, BIOS mode (Legacy or UEFI), total and available physical memory, system manufacturer and model, and network adapter details. To save the output to a file for later reference, run systeminfo > specs.txt instead, which writes the full report to a text file in the current folder.

Open PowerShell (search "PowerShell" from the Start menu, right-click, and choose "Run as administrator" for full access) and run Get-ComputerInfo. This returns a long, structured list of properties covering the OS, BIOS, and hardware. Because the full output can be long, Microsoft's own documentation shows how to filter it with the -Property parameter and a wildcard — for example, Get-ComputerInfo -Property "*version" returns only properties containing the word "version," useful when you only need one specific detail rather than scrolling through everything.

None of the other built-in methods reliably report dedicated graphics memory — PowerShell's WMI-based queries in particular can't retrieve accurate VRAM figures. The DirectX Diagnostic Tool's Display tab is the dependable built-in source for this: it shows the graphics card model, its current driver version, and total video memory, pulled directly from the graphics driver rather than estimated.