Your in the market for a new shiny laptop but are not 100% sure what you need to look for in the waves of models the local store are showing you. Why are some more expensive then others, why is there so much choice between even the same makes of laptop and how can you buy something that is going to last you a while? Read on to find out my own views on what to look for when buying a laptop.
Price
The first thing that you as a consumer is going to base a new purchase from is the price, this will be the most important factor above any specifications. There is a reason why one laptop is £299 and another is £999, you are going to loose some features as the price goes down but this does not mean if you bought the most expensive that it will be a given it will be the best. Always go along with a price in your head as to what you feel is good to pay – remember the salesperson will always try and get you to spend more then you want – that is there job and they do get a commission if they manage to sell certain brands.
Usage
What do YOU want to do with the laptop? almost any laptop on sale today can run Windows, produce documents and spreadsheets, browse the web and send emails, so you need to look beyond this general use. Is portability important to you or in other words, are you going to be carrying this about everywhere you go? Do you want to replace the desktop and for the laptop to be mainly on your desk connected to a power supply? Are you going to be gaming on this laptop? Do not kid yourself and say you are not going to game – apart from a few chosen models, you cannot upgrade the graphics in the laptop.
CPU
I have noticed they try and hide the actual CPU used – maybe they deem that this is not important? The lower price models come with a Celeron CPU and from my own experience, this is a very bad idea to buy something with this in – steer clear of any Celeron or Single Core AMD chips. The next step is either a Dual core AMD (Called AMD Turion64 x2) and this does the job but is not as fast as Intel Dual core from my own testing. The one to aim for then is the Intel Core 2 Duo range of CPU, the faster the number the better. For most home users this is not swappable – so get the most bang for your buck here.
Memory
The next thing to look for is memory but remember this can be upgraded quite easily. I would suggest in this day and age to look for 3 or 4 GIG ram installed if possible. The more memory you have, the less the computer need to swap stuff around on the {slow} Hard drive and makes the overall computer feel a lot faster and allows more programs open at once.
Graphic Card
Most laptops come with an on-board graphics card that is either Intel or ATI and some do come with Nvidia but the better the on-board graphics get, the price starts to rise. A chip made by Intel for example is fine for normal day to day stuff and playing movie’s but gaming is out of the question. As an example, my laptop features an ATI 1270 which boils down to the power of anATI X300 – which in desktop terms is low gaming wise but I can play some games fine – so not everything is lost. If gaming is not required and by this I mean blockbuster titles such as Modern Warfare 2 not Solitaire – then any of the installed graphics cards will suit you just fine.
Screen size & Resolution
Screen size will effect the overall size of the laptop so a 10″ Screen allows a very small compact laptop but sacrifices resolution meaning you cannot fit much on the screen. A Model with a 17″ Screen means this laptop will be a monster to carry around but allows the laptop to have a fully featured keyboard and numberpad along with higher resolutions often matching a 24″ Desktop Screen.
Not all is clear cut as it sounds, one laptop can run at 1280×800 while the same screen size (15.4″) on another one can feature 1680×1050, which just happens to be the same resolution as my 21″ Desktop screen. Does this “resolution” matter? think of them as dots and the more dots you have either direction means you can fit more on the screen. On the first example, you can have a web browser open and when you want to look at say email, you have to switch applications but on the higher model, I can have these open side by side.
HardDrive
Laptop’s use a 2.5″ Harddrive and by and large these come in sizes of 60,80, 120, 250,320,500 gig’s – the goal here is to aim for bigger is better. Now it is possible for the end user to buy a replacement hard drive and put a bigger one in later or even use an external harddrive.
Battery Life
Most people seem to ignore this and often the quoted numbers bear no real indication of how long it really lasts. Many things can effect battery life such as wireless, playing DVD, the screen bee on full brightness or the CPU going full pelt running an application. I would say that a normal laptop gives about 2 hours use so factor that in and if portability is high on your list, maybe buy a spare battery.
What is the Sweet price point?
I would spend myself only £400 ($650) to get myself the right kind of laptop, you can buy a Sony and spend a lot more or even an Apple Laptop and really go to town on price.
Checklist
CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo 2ghz or higher
Memory: 3 or 4 GIG ram
Screen: 15.4″ Screen or higher
Extra’s: DVD Writer, ignore BluRay for now (Adds a lot to price)
