Purchasing a Laptop

By Joshua Erdman
Digital Foundation, inc.

Laptops come with a plethora of features leaving a sea of information to investigate to make a wise purchase. I prefer to only recommend laptops when portability is an absolute requirement because laptops are generally more expensive, less upgradeable, slower, and are more prone to failure. So if having a desktop at the office and another at home with remote access still does not meet your needs, then you should consider buying a laptop.

Features

Most obvious features require a sacrifice against other laptop attributes. For example, you sacrifice weight and battery life if you want a larger screen. You must get a slower Processor (Intel M Processor) if you want long run-time without having to lug spare batteries. It really comes down to how you plan on using your laptop. Here are are some important questions to answer to help you decide:

Will you have utility power at every location where you use your laptop?
Are you limited by size or weight as you travel?
Are you working with high-power applications that need significant CPU resources?

You should also consider other features such as a CD or DVD Burner, wireless capability. I almost always recommend laptop users to get an optical drive that can burn CDs and read DVDs, it might be listed as CD-RW/DVD-ROM. Also wireless is practically standard and is is very convenient, you should get your laptop equipped with 802.11g capability.

Performance

Besides choosing a faster CPU for better performance (instead of the Pentium M processors) I believe the next greatest factor is Hard Drive RPM speed. I have used 2 different a 3.0 GHz laptops and my old home PC that runs with an 800MHz PIII CPU loads way faster. That is because it has a 7200RPM Hard Drive. Of course getting the faster hard drive does mean that you are going to be using up yuor battery faster.

Accessories

Power Accessories

For the laptop die-hard who is working in areas without a personal solar panel, generator, or (God forbit) utility power you should definitely consider a Spare Battery. There are typically 2 types, one is a primary spare battery (requiring you to shutdown your laptop to swap) or the multimedia slot spare battery that is inserted in the space where your CD/DVD drive goes. Of course that is counter productive when you are wanting to watch DVD movies while you travel through the desserts of Africa (better get that solar panel).

Another power accessory to consider is a spare charger. Some manufacturers sell a charger that works in the cigarette lighter, instead I prefer to use a DC inverter. These devices create AC power from my DC outlet in my car and I can use it more many more things than just my laptop.

Port Replicator vs. Docking Station

For laptops that are often used in the office it makes life much easier if you used a port replicator or docking station. At the minimum a Port Replicator is a base that your laptop fits in. On its backside it has all the standard connectors (parallel port, serial, USB, Ethernet, power, & Audio) so you can permanently connect all those wires without the worry of wearing out your ports and it makes connecting an external keyboard, mouse or monitor really easy.

Toys!

USB Memory Stick
USB Portable Hard Drive

Memory

Having more RAM can increase battery life by lowering the amount of HD access. This is most noticeable if you use your laptop with 256MB of RAM of less. As a rule of thumb I always start laptops with 512MB or more. The other thing to note is that laptops usually have only ONE memory expansion slot so check out the configuration and make sure that slot is not used so you can add more later.

Keep in mind that memory can be expensive (especially when purchased from the manufacturer). So to save money you can always buy more from a 3rd party vendor, such as ------->

Stories

Purchasing the Ultimate Laptop
Purchasing the Ultimate Laptop: the Sequel

Article last reviewed: 02/16/2005

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Created by: Digital Foundation, inc.

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