What to Look For When Buying a New Laptop
The price of laptops has dropped dramatically in recent years. Not long ago a decent laptop would easily go back a few thousand dollars. These days, you can pick a good laptop for only $ 500.00 at your local Wal-Mart. But with thousands of laptops to choose from and more coming every week, how do you choose which is right for you? Here are five tips to help you make the right decision when looking to buy a new laptop.
1). Determine your needs
The first step to determine which laptop is right for you is to determine your needs. Most students, for example, would put the emphasis on price, portability and battery life. In that situation, you should look for a laptop with a 14 - or 15-inch screen. A bigger screen means a portable heavy and bulky, making it more uncomfortable to wear. Larger screens also drain the battery at a much faster rate.
Home users should rather look for laptops with screens much larger than traditional 14 - or 15-inch screens. Since these systems tend to remain anchored to your desk or kitchen table - perhaps sometimes being moved from one room to another, the emphasis should be placed on improving the overall viewing experience and performance. A greater number of USB ports (3-4) would also be helpful to plug-in, for example, a mouse, digital camera, printer and external hard drive.
Business users often need something stronger, able to withstand the stresses of constant travel. Because of this, a longer warranty plan is much more important. Security is also a concern so a laptop with extra security features is ideal.
Determining your needs will help you narrow your choices considerably and help decide what laptop to buy much easier.
2). A good CPU is the key
The CPU is the most important component of any laptop. Do not cut corners in this department is important if you want a good laptop and a good overall experience. For most users, a dual-core processor is the best option. It offers excellent speed and ability to multitask with the consumption of good energy. If you are planning to use your laptop to play video games, video editing or play movies in HD, it would be wise to invest in a more powerful processor such as Intel Core i7.
Choosing the right of the CPU can be difficult, so that research available to individual processors to have a better idea of what will take place with the intention of using the laptop. When it comes to CPUs, you get what you pay for, so use price as a guide to help you make the decision, but keep in mind that the most powerful processors also consume more battery life as well.
3). Memory is very important
As operating systems and programs continue to use more and more memory, this is not an area to be overlooked. If the laptop is running Windows Vista or Windows 7, 2GB of memory or more is required for good performance. The 32-bit version of Windows XP, Windows Vista or Windows 7, can only detect up to 4 GB of memory is recommended that you seek a laptop with a lot.
However, RAM is cheap and easy to install. You can simply buy less in the beginning and add more if you find that performance is not adequate. Just make sure the laptop has a slot available for upgrade. For example, a laptop with 2 GB 2 DIMM slots can have two 1GB memory cards. In that situation, I would have to launch one of the memory sticks to add more.
4). Touch It before you buy
Today we tend to find the best prices and deals online. However, before making a purchase, you should try to find a store with the same laptop on the screen. As with most products, you see the ad and what you get may be a little different. See if you like the look, shape, and feel in real life as well as in the photos. Do the keys feel nice? Does the screen have problems with glare? It is heavier or lighter than you expected? Do you feel strong or cheap? You will not be able to answer these questions, looking at a photo ad professionally edited so you need to see the product yourself first-hand whenever possible.
5). Read reviews online
This is the most important step. Whatever you are looking to buy, you should always have some opinions from other sources, and the Internet is the best place to go. Read a few reviews to go to Google and type “[name laptop] review” and see what people have to say. Look at customer reviews of popular computer stores online and TigerDirect.com, NewEgg.Com, NCIX.com, etc.
If the critics give the green light, then go ahead with the purchase. If you see warning signs and then consider lucky to have found out sooner rather than later, and look for something different. Finding little or no information or comments on a specific laptop is one of the biggest warning signs of all. Unless you like playing with your money, you should look for a laptop with a certain reputation. The last thing I want to do is to test new products at its own expense.