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Some Practical Tips For Buying Your New Laptop
Before you buy your new laptop/notebook make sure you have thought through what you want to use it for now and in the future and where you want to use it. If you are going to write that novel or do work at home and space and portability are not the main requirements, then perhaps a desktop computer is what you need with its larger keyboard and screen. Laptops tend to be more expensive so just make sure it is what is you require. Now that you have decided that you need a laptop where do you start. Buying a new laptop can be confusing, especially if you’re unfamiliar with the technology.
The best thing to do is to decide if all this new technology is important to you? Do you really need the latest technology? If you want a laptop for simple tasks such as web browsing, emailing and basic document work etc a basic laptop would do the job and be a lot cheaper than a top of the range model. You may however need a lightweight portable laptop for business trips or meetings or as a student for classes. Long battery life may be a major consideration because you will be using it on your travels or in remote locations.
If you want to watch movies on your laptop a DVD drive would be important to you as well as high quality graphics and sound. So what might be the technical specification for your new laptop?
The Processors The Processor or Central Processing Unit (CPU) is the engine in your laptop and just like a car the  more processing power you have the faster things will run. With Dual-core technology such as Intel Centrino Duo or AMD Athlon™ you have two engines in one laptop to run applications. Processors speed would currently be measured in GHz where 1GHz is three billion cycles/second, but all you have to remember when comparing this value between laptops (or PCs) is the bigger the number the faster the laptop. MemoryThe memory in a computer is referred to as RAM or Random Access Memory and is perhaps the most important factor to consider when buying your laptop or any computer. The memory in a computer is currently measured in MB or GB (megabytes or gigabytes) so 1GB is 1 billion bytes of data. The amount of RAM will also have an impact on the speed of your laptop. Why? Well each of the applications/programs that you run will need some or a lot of the RAM. When the RAM starts to become full the processor has to spend time copying information between the RAM and the Hard Drive (see later) to make space available in RAM to do whatever it is that you are trying to do with your applications. Time doing this type of copying is taking some of your processor’s power away from the actual real work that you want to be doing.
Many laptops come with 1GB of RAM and are capable of upgrading to 4GB or more. Check the spec of the machine you are interested in to know if and how much you could upgrade your laptop’s RAM later if need be. It may be wise to buy a laptop with upgradeable RAM because new and improved applications place high demand on your laptop’s RAM. Having more RAM will be important if you are into playing games or have to deal with large image or video file etc.
Also if you are into playing games Video RAM (which is separate from the RAM described above which is used by the CPU) will be important, so you will need a good Graphics Card and this will increase the cost of your laptop.
In the past it was generally agreed that you need at least 256MB for Windows XP you will need more than that for Windows Vista, check the Microsoft Vista spec.
Hard Drive/Hard Disk The current technology to store all of you software and data etc is the Hard Drive (also called the Hard Disk). This is a high speed spinning magnetic disk on which you information is saved and retrieved. Like RAM the size of a Hard Drive is currently measure in GB but this to we are taking about 80GB or 100GB. However, if you don’t need or want to store a lot of data on your laptop then buying a smaller size hard drive will save you money. Many laptop experts choose the SATA hard drive with a high 5400 or 7200 RPM (Revs Per Minute) disk speed. The faster a disk spins the quicker the data can be read from or written to the disk.
Battery Life
Make sure the battery life will meet your requirements. High quality laptops should now give you up to 5 hours or more, but again check the spec. You could always buy an additional battery to plug. I think you can even but solar panels to run your laptop should that be what you require! Connectivity
Another important factor is connectivity as you will want something that is easy to connect to the Internet. You may need to be in regular contact with your staff or family so this might be a factor in your choice of laptop. Most high quality laptops come with Wi-Fi (Wireless Fidelity) connections; many have a tri-mode 802.11a/b/g wireless system.
Some newer models, like the Sony’s New Ultra-Portable VAIO VGN-T350P have the world’s first ‘Built-in Cellular Modem’. You can use your cell phone to connect to the Internet. This may be a great advantage since finding a Wi-Fi ‘Hot Spot’ in some parts of the world can still be difficult. Size, Weight and Sturdiness
As mentioned earlier the major reason to considering buying a laptop is its size or weight i.e. ease of transport, otherwise you are better of saving money and buying a desktop computer instead. Portability is the main selling feature of a laptop.
Obviously you must pick the best sized laptop to suit your needs. Laptops are divided into different categories, here’s a quick summary:
Tablet PC (smallest) Size of a paper tablet or notepad, less than 3 pounds.
Ultra Portable (small) less than 11" x less than 10" and less than 1.3 inches thick and less than 4 pounds.
Thin and Light (mid-size) 11-14" x less than 11" 1 to 1.4 inches thick, from 5 to 7 pounds.
Desktop Replacements (largest) greater than13" x greater than 11". More than 1.5 inches thick and more than 7 pounds. Sturdiness might be another facture. Many laptops have some sturdiness features such as IBM’s Active Protection System which is designed to protect the hard drive from falls and spills.
Security
As your laptop is portable and valuable and the data on it may be very valuable, you might need security measures in place to protect your records and files. In which case your laptop should have advanced security features. Many laptops such as the IBM/Sonoma ThinkPad series include an integrated fingerprint scanner for biometric authentication that uses an Embedded Security Subsystem and Password Manager.
SoftwareIf you have some specific software you intend to use on your laptop checkout it’s system requirements it may influence the specification for your laptop in terms of disk space or memory etc. Also checkout what software is included with the purchase of the laptop, for example what operating system (Windows XP, Vista etc) will it include and is there any other software such as word processor, spreadsheet etc included or will you have to purchase other software? Price
As with most technology based products Laptop prices are steadily falling, it is now possible to get a quality laptop for well under a $1000 (£500). Many are selling at the $500 - $600 (£250 to £300) range. High quality gaming laptops will cost you a lot more. Warranties If you are buying an expensive laptop then it is a good idea to think about extended warranties. If you will be doing a lot of travelling with your laptop it would also be a good idea to make sure it is properly insured.
List your requirements After reading the above it would be a good idea to list your own requirements for your laptop and then use this list as you look at the different laptops available. So you might list something like
1 to 2 GHz processor speed
1 Gig of RAM
80GB Hard Drive
15” Inch Screen
4 to 5 Hours Battery Life
Burn/Write DVDs Etc.
Now why not take a look through our UK or US shops to see if any of our listed laptops meets with your requirements? Click Digital Products US Shop Laptop area . Click Digital Products UK Shop Laptop area .
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