How to Buy a Quality Laptop
Buying a laptop is no easy feat. There are so many options out there from large 17-20 inch screens to hold in your hand mini laptops, or notebooks. It’s quite daunting in reality. Therefore, this post should be considered a starting point on what to look for when buying a laptop.
What to look for when buying a laptop: How will you use it?
This category is key to figuring out what kind of laptop you should be looking for in the first place. For instance if you are student, what to look for when buying a laptop includes small prices and lots of portability. Laptops with 13 inch screens are pretty popular and many laptop cases and laptop bags accomodate 13 inch laptops. A popular option if budget is not as much as obstacle-or you saved up for months from your part-time job, A Sony Vaio, Dell Inspiron models( so many pretty colors!), and the increasingly popular Macbooks and Macbook Pros. Apple offers student discount on its goods and in this past year, computers could be bought free of tax during tax-free weekend in certain states. But if prices are in a issue then mini laptops, or netbooks, which are usually light-weight and posess LCD screens no larger than 10-11 inches. For students, prices are a big component of what to look for when buying a laptop, which makes mini laptops the ideal choice. Many mini laptops stay under the $500 dollar range. Also, if a student is carrying a mini laptop around in their school bag, its so lightweight that it leaves enough space to cram some more school supplies without being a burden.
For individuals who tend to work and travel for a living, mini laptops would not be suitable. For these individuals, what to look for when buying a laptop tends to the more traditional laptops but also can be tailored depending on one’s career. But overall, a laptop with a good battery life, such as 6-cell type is ideal. Constant travel and work means that one’s laptop will probably not have a access to a power outlet, even at the aiport. There is even a NY Times article about the woes of finding an available power outlet at certain airports. Overall though, those work for travel for a living such as businessmen, journalists, photographers etc. need a laptop that is sturdy, alot of hard-drive space( minimum of 160 GB), and good performance with about 2-4GB of RAM (4GB is definitely better). Overall, computers such as a Lenovo or a Dell XPS are a good bet for those who work and travel. For a career that is more geared towars Multimedia such as a photographer or a graphic design artist, there should far more RAM- 8 GB is ideal as well as large, most likely 500 GB Hard Drive that can perform at 7,200 rpm speed as opposed to the standard 5,400 rpm threshold.
For those who are interested in buying a laptop for home use, what to look for when buying a laptop is a little bit easier because the laptop will remain inmobile. However, some components should be considered for home usage. If the laptop becomes the main computer of a household, security becomes paramount. A good security system or possibly a back up hard-drive will provide some piece of mind. Currently the most popular model for home users is a model with a 15 inch screen although 14 and 16 inches are becoming more prevalent in the marketplace. Also, these models offer lots of USB docks, and a disc drive with DVD burning capability, something that is not always found in other models particularly mini laptops. Therefore, for those who plan to keep their laptop staitionary,there are many options.
With this in mind, knowing how you will use your laptop will definitely help in the process of shopping for the perfect model for your needs.