Tips for buying a new laptop – it’s getting harder all the time to make the choice on which laptop to purchase as the range and variety of laptops continues to increase.

There is also a wide range in the price of laptops and to the uninformed this can make the decision even harder. Hopefully the information provided below will assist you in this difficult decision.

Buy only what you need

For most people a laptop costing around $750 should be sufficient to cater for all your needs. For this price you should be able to purchase a mainstream slim machine with a 128GB SSD hard drive, an Intel Core i5 CPUs and a touch screen.

If you are play resource intensive games or use your laptop for HD video editing you will have to reach into your pocket a little further.

Consider how much your laptop will travel

Many people nowadays buy a laptop rather than a PC simply because it takes less room on their desk at home. On the other hand there are those who use their laptops for work and travel frequently – and even take their machine from home to work and visa versa every day.

Whether your laptop is going to be very mobile or not affects the choice in which type of laptop is best for you. The size of the laptop screen usually determines the weight and system size.

A laptop with a 15 inch screen is going to become very annoying to travel with due to the weight, but makes a great choice for home based use. If you don’t intend to pack up your laptop and take it around with you then you could go for a 17 inch or even larger screen laptop. These sized laptops are really not terribly mobile not only because of their weight and size but also because they have a short battery life and are best used connected to the mains power.

If you need your machine to be highly portable you need a lighter weight laptop possibly with a 13 inch screen. For business travellers there is also the option of ultraportable hybrids which allow you to leave the keyboard base at home and travel only with the screen.

Check the Design of the Laptop

The hardware components of most PCs and laptops these days seem to come from the same supply pool – that is most of them have the same hard drives, CPUs, video cards and ram. The difference comes in with the design of the laptop. In looking at the design there are two factors, the look and feel of the machine for the user and the ease of repair should your laptop fail.

With regards to the look and feel of your laptop – laptops can be a fashion accessory so you may want to choose a laptop which reflects your personality. Also from functionality perspective you need to consider whether the keyboard and touch pad are easy for you to use. You need to choose a laptop with good ergonomics. By this we mean for the ease of typing, is there sufficient space between the keys? Also does the mouse provide a solid click and is the touchpad easy to operate.

In terms of repair, should you need it down the track, we have noticed recently that the design of laptops is becoming less than idea. In a number of machines we have found that batteries have become difficult to remove and there appears to be a trend in providing less air circulation outlets. A reduction in airflow will mean that your laptop will have to work harder which means more wear and tear of the hardware components and also there is a greater possibility of overheating. Both of these factors could mean you end up at the repair shop sooner than you should.

 

 

 

 

Tips for Buying a New Laptop

Affordable Computer Repairs and Service

Corner of Octantis Street and Mars Street in Coorparoo

Help for you when…

Choosing the right Hardware Components for your Laptop

When it comes to choosing the right hardware comonents for your laptop,  what you are going to use your laptop for will determine the type of components that you will need. This article explores the various laptop components and advises on what type of component is most applicable.

Hard Drive

There are two factors to consider in relation to the hard disk, the speed of the drive and the amount of storage space. In general the speed is the more important factor of the two for most laptop users. We would recommend that a 7,200-rpm hard drive as being a good choice, remember if you wish to upgrade at a later date this will be a costly exercise both in terms of having to purchase the drive and also for the labour cost required from a computer repair business.

When it comes to hard disk storage space again we would recommend purchasing a drive with what may initially seem to be a bit more than adequate. As the cost between a medium and larger gigabyte drive is not substantial it is worth that bit extra for the additional space as software; particularly games increasingly require additional space.

Solid State Drives

The benefit of a solid state drive is their better performance – with a solid state drive you will have faster boot times, quicker application open times and improved resume times. Another very important benefit of a solid state drive is that it doesn’t have moving parts so failure of these drives is far less likely than their mechanical counterparts.

The downside is that solid state drive is that they are more expensive and generally have less storage space.

Graphics Card

It is most often unnecessary to purchase a graphics card for your laptop as for most users the built in graphics capabilities of their new laptop is sufficient for their needs. This is still true for most gamers as long as you use the visual setting set at low there shouldn’t need to be the necessity to purchase a graphics card. However for really demanding games, 3D gaming and high intensive HD video-editing a discrete graphics processor would be necessary.

CPU

The performance of a CPU is reflected in its price. Lower end machines usually have an Intel Pentium CP or an AMD E Series CPU which is fine for most users who primarily surf the net and use social media. A more expensive option would be an Intel Core i3 CPU or AMD A Series and the difference in performance is worth paying for. Towards the upper end of the market, an Intel Core i5 CPU will give you even greater performance; expect to pay more than $500. At the very top of the market is the Core i7 system or a quad-core chip again these top performing components are really only necessary if you are a serious gamer or use sophisticated intensive software.

RAM

These days 4 gigabytes of ram is the accepted minimum amount of memory that your notebook should have. In general you shouldn’t have to get a laptop with anything greater than 6 or 8 gigabytes for your laptop to perform at the speed that you require.

Ports, Card Slots and Video Outlets etc.

You really can’t get away with less than two USB ports, most laptops these days come with two or more USB 3.0 ports – and you will need them. It’s also essential that you purchase a laptop with an SD card and a HDMI video outlet. You can get away without an Ethernet jack and Bluetooth – depending on how you use your laptop.

Optical Drive

The trend is now not to provide an optical drive in slimline and lightweight laptops as their use is declining with most software being downloaded from the net. However if you still use CDs or DVDs for storage or media playback or if you want to watch Blueray movies then an optical drive is obviously a necessity.

Display

The greater amount of pixels you have, the sharper will be the image which is particularly important if you intend to watch a lot of movies on your laptop. Once again, you get what you pay for, and once again the price difference between the more basic and better displays is not that large. If you choose a laptop with a wide screen then full HD panels are a good choice.

Choosing the right Hardware Components for your Laptop

Affordable Computer Repairs and Service

Click Here to find out about our many computer repair and IT services.

Laptop Improvements

Laptops are getting thinner, lighter, faster, more powerful and more convenient. The biggest changes are in the choice of processors, the means of user input and the types of storage. As wireless infrastructure grows, laptops are gaining wireless capabilities to match. Battery life, the main complaint about these mobile computers, is now reaching practical levels. There are signs of further improvements in battery life to occur in the future.

We now have skinny laptops of various types, such as super-thin models like the MacBook Air, to hybrids that with detachable screens that become tablets.

Mobile technology is evolving at a rapid pace, so what may we see in the future for laptops…

Battery Life

Extended battery life is needed to make laptops practical for users. Battery life is increasing all the time and the new Haswell chipset from Intel is certainly assisting this.

New laptops can offer a 9 to 12-hour battery life is. The challenge for the future is to increase battery life through battery technology to say a day or more days. This would greatly increase the popularity of laptops – allowing the user to leave the power adaptor at home when undertaking short business trips.  Continual worrying about finding an outlet for charging purposes would become a thing of the past. It would also make it possible to use these mobile computers at higher performance levels – without worrying about power settings.

Multiple Screens

Multiple screens would be a great bonus.  Users are now used to having multiple screens with their desktop and the same expectation for laptops is on the way.

At the moment laptop users needing a very visual display (such as real estate professionals) have to rely on giant laptops with huge screens or using an external monitor. Both of these options significantly reducing the main attraction of laptops being convenience and mobility.

There has been the option of special laptops that used two separate screens that unfolded out of the base. However, these laptops were very large and highly expensive. There is definitely scope for future improvements regarding multiple screens that are both affordable and portable.

Wireless

It would be amazing if wireless technology could be lifted to a whole new level. While we currently have wireless connectivity in web connections and in peripherals like the mouse – how about wireless technology allowing a laptop to charge the battery. Also, how about wireless automatically turning on the desktop and connecting to the laptop, the mouse and the keyboard?

There have been attempts in the past, now with the evolution of technology maybe this could be possible in the future.

In Summary

There are currently a variety of styles of laptops to meet most of the needs of mobile business users.  Improvements in the future are likely to see these machines becoming more and more powerful, convenient and portable.

This article is provided to you by Affordable Computer Repairs and Service. Contact us today on 3397 1215 or 0409 974 707 for all of your computer repairs and IT needs.