Laptop Buying Guide

Story by Bigshop

A laptop is the ideal replacement for your desktop computer. The greatest advantage of a laptop is its portability. Unlike desktop computers, you can easily move a laptop around your home, carry it to work or class and take it with you when you travel. Laptops are a big investment, so before buying one, you should consider many factors like the manufacturer, performance and features.

What kind of laptop user are you?

A home user wants all the features of a desktop PC in the form of a notebook. If you are a home user, then choose a notebook which is easy to carry and comes with the most basic computer applications. Students should opt for an affordable laptop which is light and durable. Frequent fliers need slim notebook models with long-lasting batteries. A business user should purchase a laptop with plenty of hard disk space and advanced security features while a gamer needs a fast processor and the latest graphics card.

What are the different kinds of laptop computers available?

Laptops for Entertainment:

Multimedia laptops are always more expensive and heavier than your standard model. These laptops come with a powerful processor, abundant memory and a large hard drive. You can use these laptops as a mobile DVD player, MP3 jukebox and a digital photo album. If you buy a TV tuner card, you can even use your multimedia notebook as a television set. These notebooks are ideal for PC gaming.

Laptops for Business:

Laptops especially designed for business use are ultra portable. These laptops are durable and more secure than the basic laptop. They are best suited for consumers who are always on the move. A good business laptop should offer a fingerprint reader or SmartCard support to prevent data theft. These notebooks usually have advanced computer applications and wireless capabilities, so you can work even when you are away from your desk.

Laptops for Home:

The home user typically uses a laptop for checking mail and browsing the web. These laptops perform general tasks. A high speed processor is an unnecessary luxury and tends to be wasted on most home users. Opt for a notebook with at least a 14-inch screen and a comfortable keyboard. These laptops are generally heavy, weighing more than 4 kg at times. Their average battery life is less than three hours.

What constitutes a good laptop?

Ergonomics:

If you are going to use your laptop extensively, then you need to be comfortable with the keys. Try a laptop with slightly larger keys to avoid straining your fingers from typing. Most laptops come with a touch pad or a tracking pointer instead of a mouse. If you are a PC gamer, buy a separate mouse which can keep up with the fast-paced action on screen.

Operating Systems:

The Windows XP Media Center Edition is a good operating system for entertainment laptops. It makes optimal use of multimedia features like TV tuners, radio tuners and media players. If you are a professional who prefers Apple notebooks but are concerned about compatibility, check out the dual boot models by Apple that allow you to install and run Windows as well as Mac OS X. If you prefer PCs, Microsoft Vista is an ideal alternative to Windows XP. Vista comes in several editions, including Vista Home Basic and Vista Home Premium for the home user, Vista Business for the professional and Vista Ultimate for the best of both worlds.

Memory and Storage:

All data and applications are stored in the RAM (random access memory). Many laptops commonly use 256 MB of RAM. Most business laptops and entertainment laptops come with 512 MB or more of RAM. The more RAM you buy, the more data you can store.

The hard drive stores all programs and files. For the average home user, a 20 GB hard drive will more than suffice. If you buy a laptop for entertainment or business purposes, a 60 GB hard drive will better serve your needs. Some entertainment laptops even have multiple hard drives for better performance. Hard drives come with different speeds. Most laptop hard drives have a speed of 5,400 rpm. However, faster hard drives go up to 7,200 rpm.

Display:

The size of a laptop is based on the size of the screen. Screen size starts as small as 10.6 inches and goes up to 20 inches diagonally. Most laptops have an LCD monitor. However, if you are using your laptop for CAD, a CRT monitor will serve you just as well, if not better. The screen resolution determines the crispness of your image. A 12.1 inch display uses WXGA resolutions (1,280 by 800). A 14 or 15 inch display typically uses WSXGA+ (1680 by 1,050), although a small number of notebook computers use WUXGA (1,920 by 1,200) instead.

Processor:

It is more difficult to upgrade a notebooks processor than it is to upgrade a desktop computer. For this reason, you should buy a processor with a speed that will best suit your use. Also, it is wise to choose a processor with less battery consumption. Processors with 1.4 to 1.6 Ghz are preferred by most users.

Battery:

Lithium ion batteries are commonly used in laptops. The average battery life is about 3 hours. It takes around 75 minutes to fully recharge a lithium ion battery.

Graphics Card:

A graphics card, sometimes referred to as a video adapter, is responsible for generating the images you see on a laptops display. For businessmen who need to do lot of presentations, a graphics card containing 32 or 64 MB of dedicated memory is the right choice. There are also specially designed cards for gaming. These cards are expensive and should be avoided unless you require excellent graphics.

USB Ports:

Laptop computers come with at least one USB port so that you can connect peripherals to the notebook. Recent models have a FireWire connection that lets you transfer digital information from camcorders or MP3 players.

Optical Drives:

Most laptops come with either a CD-ROM (compact disc, read-only memory), a CD-RW (compact disc, re-writeable) or a DVD-ROM (digital versatile disc, read-only-memory). The DVD+RW/+R with CD-RW is a combination drive which will read a CD or a DVD and write data to a DVD as well.

Modem:

Laptops are available with integrated modems for dial-up connections, Ethernet ports for cable internet and DSL and wireless modems for Wi-Fi connections. Many business laptops also have a cellular wireless modem so you can browse at broadband speeds with just a mobile phone signal.

About the Author

Bob Shanty has been researching and writing articles that help shoppers make more
educated buying decisions on laptops and notebooks for online shopping
mega store BIGshop for years. For more articles by Bob please visit http://www.bigshop.com.au.

Source: ArticleTrader.com

Laptops Are Becoming Increasingly More Popular. But Why?

by: Robert Michael

In the Lap of Luxury

Laptops are becoming increasingly more popular, and have evolved so much that some business people and individuals are using them as their only computer. The reasons laptops are popular is that they are portable, they use far less power than desktop computers, and they make less noise. The disadvantages of laptops, however, are that they are usually slower than desktop models, have fewer graphics, and their power to process sound is not as robust. As laptops are upgraded, however, many of these differences are not substantial enough to even be noticeable to the average computer user.

Laptops are generally more costly than desktop computers, although that may not be the cost for much longer. The price of both is falling continually, with the price of laptops dropping more quickly. As of May 2005 more laptops were sold in the United States than desktop computers.

Laptops and desktops are actually quite similar in design, with the same basic software, hardware and operating systems. The basic difference between the two is in how these components are fitted together. Laptops, of course, of necessity, must have more compact components.

Desktop computers have motherboards, hard drives, video cards and their other hardware components assembled together and housed in a large case, commonly referred to as the CPU (central processing unit) or the tower. In a desktop model the keyboard, mouse, monitor, printer and other peripherals are connected to the tower by wire or through the newest technology are connected wirelessly. Each CPU or tower has plenty of extra internal space for additional cards, cables and the circulation of air.

A laptop, of course, is considerably smaller and lighter weight than the smallest tower for a desktop. Neither the mouse, keyboard nor monitors are peripherals, but rather part of the laptop unit itself. There isn’t a lot of extra space for circulation of air or addition of cards. Not only must laptop components be compact but their heat production must be considerably lower than that of desktop components, and they must conserve considerably more power. Thus the additional cost.

The CPU, also called the microprocessor, works with the laptop’s operating system to control the computer. This CPU is the brain for laptops. In a desktop computer a CPU generates a considerable amount of heat, so it must have a fan and a heat sink. The heat sink is made up of plates, channels and radiator fins that work systematically to draw heat away from the processor.

Laptops have CPUs that run at lower clock speeds and voltage. The heat is reduced, and power is not consumed as greatly, but the processor is slower as a result. Most laptops will run faster and at a voltage that is higher when they run on electricity than when they run on batteries.

Laptop processors don’t use pins to mount to their motherboard, which saves room. The two alternatives are for the processors to mount right to the laptop motherboard without any socket, or to use a micro-FCBGA (Flip Chip Ball Grid Array.) The latter replaces pins with balls. The disadvantage of this, however, is that the owner cannot replace or upgrade the processor because it can’t be removed from the motherboard.

Laptops have slow-down, hibernation or sleep modes. These reduce the speed of the CPU when the laptop is not in use. One Macintosh processor actually prioritizes its data to help minimize the drain on its battery.

Some laptops use CPUs made for desktops, but that are designed to run at slower clock speed. Performance is improved in these laptops but they tend to run considerably hotter than other laptops, and their battery life is reduced a great deal.

About The Author

Robert Michael is a writer for http://nhmxservers.com which is an excellent place to find Notebooks links, resources and articles. For more information go to: Laptops & Notebooks.

How To Fix A Slow Computer

By Austin Porter

Do you want to learn how to fix a slow computer? Most likely you are a computer user, but have no idea about why your computer starts to slow down over time. Having experienced a slow computer myself, I was finally able to clean up my slow computer and make it run like brand new again.

What I Did To Fix My Slow Computer

To make your computer run faster again, you will need to repair your registry files. They are the files in your computer registry that give the software and hardware the instructions to run properly. A computer registry filled with errors will cause the computer to slow down, because the applications get stuck while running. Another result of a bad registry is the frequent freezing of the computer.

How To Fix Your Computer Registry

The computer registry is a component of the computer that is not regularly talked about, yet it is one of the most important. Most people have no idea about a computer registry, even after years of using their own PC.

Fixing your computer registry requires you to download a good registry cleaner. Try not to fix your registry by yourself, because any mistakes made may be fatal to the system. The registry cleaner I used managed to detect all the errors in my computer registry, and proceeded to clean up all of them. The whole process took about 10 minutes to complete. To download the top registry cleaner on the internet, visit my website link below to learn more about the best 5 registry cleaners.

Is your computer always slow or freezing? Read the author's review of the Best Registry Cleaners on the market now at http://www.review-best.com/registry-cleaner.htm and completely clean up your computer registry in 2 minutes!

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Austin_Porter