As a first time laptop buyer, you may already have some experience on desktop computers. However, if you are not fully au fait with laptops (also called notebooks), you are probably inclined to seek as much advice as possible, and unfortunately, often from people whose advice it is actually better to avoid.
Salespeople will more often try to determine your budget and then ‘advise’ you on how to spend every cent of it, thereby maximizing their commission or meeting a quota. A few months down the line you may realize that you don’t even use half of the bells and whistles for which you paid so dearly. A tech savvy person may recommend to you the latest, fastest and most powerful laptop, which of course is also the most expensive, and you can never ever win at the ‘latest craze’ game, as faster and more powerful portable computers enter the market on a weekly basis.
Others, such as your boss, parents, or spouse, may advise you simply based on cost, and you could end up with a cheap and not very useful machine. Advice from actual users may also not be very useful, as it is often opinion based. You see, in the computer industry, there are very few actual part manufacturers, with most being in Asia, from where both brand and clone sellers buy alike. This is why among the top laptop brands there isn’t any serious claim that any one is significantly better than the other.
According to laptopadvisor.com, only you know what is the best laptop for you, and while there isn’t any shortage of advice in this world, most of the time it will throw you off track by confusing you, so again, ask yourself: “Exactly why do I need a laptop computer?” Once you have honestly answered this, and feel justified that you need one, as in cases where you are a frequent traveller, a university student, do a lot of work at home, or find it unfeasible to have two computers with two sets of peripherals, then the next stage is to find a laptop that will fulfil your computing needs without any hassles, glitches and other nightmares that come with owning computers.
Cognisance, however, should be taken of the some of the drawbacks to buying a laptop rather than a desktop. On top of the higher price, laptops are not as easy or inexpensive to upgrade as desktops. While it is relatively simple to add a larger hard drive or a DVD burner to a desktop, on a laptop the operation can be a lot more expensive, more complicated, or both. You will also be working on a smaller keyboard, looking at a smaller screen, and will have to become very conscious of battery life. Further, the average laptop is ill-suited for graphic intense applications or computer power hungry programs such as music making, video editing or gaming. Laptops for these uses tend to be prohibitively expensive, and it usually makes better sense to go with a desktop for these uses.
A brand name laptop that can do average computing tasks, is fairly light and portable, with good battery life generally costs between one hundred and forty thousand to two hundred and forty thousand Guyana dollars. On the lower end you would find those that use Intel Celeron and AMD Sempron processors, and these are more suited for word processing, spreadsheet and internet tasks. If buying one of these, try to ensure that you have at least 512MB of memory (RAM) if running Windows XP, and 1GB RAM for Windows Vista. On the higher end, you would find laptops that use Intel Core Duo and AMD Athlon X2 processors, and these laptops would of course perform a lot better and could also comfortably handle basic graphic software such as Corel Graphics Suite, Adobe Photoshop and some of the newer games. Once you are spending extra money on these, you should go the extra step and ensure you have 1GB RAM for XP and 2GB for Vista.
If your laptop is going to be your only ‘baby’, you should configure it as best as you could at the time of purchase, even if it means waiting for your particular configuration to be shipped. With the exception of memory and hard drives, most other laptop parts are not standard and are rarely stocked. Therefore, making changes after your purchase can mean higher costs and longer waiting time. So if your budget permits, ensure you get everything you may need at the time of purchase, paying particular attention to your optical drive, whether it is a CD burner, combo drive (DVD/CD-RW) or DVD burner you need. Pay attention to the screen also – and bigger is not necessarily better, as some of the wide screens have such a high resolution that the fonts can be unreadable for some persons. If you need longer battery time, buy or order your extra battery now too.
It should be noted that the laptop industry is very competitive, and lesser known brands may go bankrupt, or may not offer sufficient support in terms of drivers and parts, and it is therefore advised that you stick with the big players to be on the safe side. Among the recognised brands are Apple, HP, Acer, Dell, Toshiba, Gateway, Fujitsu, and Sony. If you expect to work with your laptop under rugged conditions then consider any of the Panasonic Toughbook models, noting however, that they are significantly more expensive.
Having made your purchase, please note carefully that even though your laptop battery functions as a UPS and most power adapters, because of their wide input range, can function as stabilisers, surge protection is still essential. I recommend a protector that has a let through voltage of less than 40 volts, and you must ensure that your point’s wiring in terms of polarity and grounding is in absolute order. Not paying attention to power could result in data and software corruption, and premature hardware failure.