There are so many laptops out there I can’t decide which one to buy. How do you choose and decide which laptop to buy? What should I look for when buying a laptop?
Before choosing a laptop ask about the warranty and support either form the manufacturer or dealer. This is important because laptops are very proprietary and if anything should go wrong it you will need to send it back to the manufacturer for hardware repairs.
The processor (CPU) is the muscle behind the whole operation. You’ll notice in most ads the first thing they tell you about the computer is the CPU spec. CPU’s are so powerful these days that anything from Intel or AMD will do fine for most people.
The next thing I would look at is the screen size. Laptop screen sizes usually range from 13 to 17 inches. The bigger the screen the bulkier and pricier the laptop.
Now we need to figure out how much ram we need. Ram is memory used to run all the various programs on the laptop. So basically the more ram you have the more programs you can run smoothly at the same time without slowly down your laptop to a crawl. If you are planning to use the notebook for basic stuff like internet and Office applications than 2 gigs on a Vista machine should do the trick. But if you are planning on doing a little more hardcore stuff like photo/video editing, or gaming than think about getting at least 4 gig in that laptop.
The hard drive: Bigger is definitely bigger. We can basically store everything on a single hard drive these days. Music, videos, and photos can easily take up hard drive space so if you have the option for a bigger hard drive at low cost than take it.
If you’re a gamer than a laptop with a good video card from either nVidia or Ati and at least 256 MB of dedicated memory and watch it get out dated within a few months. But c’mon if you’re a gamer you’d just by the most expensive laptop you could afford and probably not reading this post.
Laptops will come with at least one Ethernet port to physically connect to a network to get online but Wi-fi is another feature you should have. Wi-fi will allow you to connect online to a wireless network. Most modern laptops come with Wi-fi built in but ask to be sure.
Will you want to burn Cd’s and and DVD’s? I think being able to burn Cds and Dvds is a must, especially good for backing up your files onto a disc.
These tips should get you in the right direction for that perfect laptop, good luck and happy shopping.