Hello and welcome to Prasanth's Views and Reviews.

Buying a Laptop look out for these things.

which laptop

If you are buying a laptop or just planning, watch out for these things. This will help you make your decision a bit easier.

Price

This could be the deciding factor for most of us. So first try to decide on a price point that will help you narrow the models you have to look at etc. For example think of a price point and stick to it, only go over 10% of that price point if you can get a better deal.

Companies

Don’t get stuck on them, try to see what get you bang for your buck. If you go for a local company the price could be less. In India for example if you buy a laptop for HCL or SAHARA you will get the same product that is atleast 5000 Rs more if you would have choose the multinationals. Similarly companies like apple and Sony make high end laptops that are very good but you will also be paying extra for those laptops. So stick to local ones for better bang for your buck.

Processors

There are two options, INTEL and AMD. Intel is popular and easily available. I prefer AMD because its much cheaper and give you the same performance as the INTEL processors. But they are hard to find, so try to look for them for better value. I have been using AMD processors without any problem for the last seven or eight years.

Monitor Size

Screen size is very important, if you are looking for a desktop replacement get a 17 inch or bigger. But if you want portability then go for 12 or 14 inches. Remember as the size of the monitor increases the battery performance decreases.

Operating System

There is only one really Windows Vista. Vista is the best OS you can get unless you are into Linux or osx. Vista comes preloaded with many laptops there are a lot of versions of vista. Any of them would be fine because they will only install the OS that runs well with your laptop. So which ever you get should be fine. And you will not be missing that much between the versions. You can always upgrade at a later date if you want.

Ram

Now a days 1GB ram seems to be common. So get atleast 1GB and upgrade it further if you have the money.

Storage

Atleast 120 Gb should be the least you should look for. Anything less would see you uninstalling files within a month. So get atleast 120 Gb and if possible more. Don’t go for a 120 GB single drive go for a 80 GB and a 40 GB drive that way if one fails you don’t lose all your data. There is not much choice you have in deciding this but, if you have to choose between two models with similar capacity go for one with two hard disks. This way you can also upgrade in future without reinstalling the OS or changing your settings.

Battery

Here also you don’t have much option. If you are going for the basic laptops the battery will be around 2 hours. If you go for the premium ones the battery level could go up to 6 hours or so. The price difference between them is very big so don’t bring this issue in deciding the laptops.

Optical Drive

Go for atleast 16x DVD drive other options like lightscrub ( Special drive that can print cd cover onto the cd, you will need special cd’s for this hp makes them ) etc are feature that are nice if they come with the laptop don’t pay extra for them.

The above mentioned features are the main issues that you should look for, everything else you can add later. So don’t make big issues if you have don’t have Bluetooth, wifi, etc. All those features can be added with USB dongles. Even camera if it comes with the laptop that’s fine don’t pay extra for it. You can always add it later with USB camera.

So good luck with your purchase and hope this has helped you. I bought a HCL Y2001 for 40500 Rs watch out for a review soon.

Related posts:

  1. Dell Adamo XPS

Posted on 25 May '07 by Prasanth, under Computers & Internet.

No Comments to “Buying a Laptop look out for these things.”

#1 Posted by Ravi (25.07.07 at 11:34 )

Well a nice site of yours, Congratulations.
Some things I’d like to add:
The Screen : Glossy or Matt finish (I’d prefer Matt finish but Matt finish tends to be costlier and rarer to find) because the Glossy one will get dirty even if you touch it slightly and reflections of your own self get in the way while computing or watching movies.
Screen Hinge Play: If the Screen has good height & you want to watch a movie while travelling, you will have to hold it with one hand because a simple jerk will be amplified to 3-4 times of screen shakes.
Wi-Fi LAN Card: That’s pretty much standard nowadays, but make sure the lappy has one because if it is not there, you will probably have to shell out an extra 1500-2500 bucks for that. You will need it desperately in the mobile world.
Support for Data Cards: Ones supplied by Mobile Operators to access the Internet with your Lappy.
LPT Parallel Port: Its the World of GUI software, but in case you use DOS based software (even the railways & BSNL billing department in my City use it), you find it difficult to get a DOS based Printout in case the Parallel Port is not available in the Laptop. It is possible but you will have to use some adjustments like a USB to LPT coneverter Hardware / Software, etc or Share the PC on the Network & then get your Printouts via some other PC with a Parallel Port.
Finally on Windows Vista: It is a nice OS, I’ve use the Home Premium Edition & worked flawlessly. But be prepared for all mighty Customised Downloads to all the common popular Softwares, written specially for VISTA (Other versions for XP will not work well on VISTA). Few are Adobe Acrobat Reader 8.0 or higher, AVG Antivirus, ZoneAlarm Firewall & if you use a Nokia Multimedia Phone (N-series or similar) then the Nokia PC Suite. Moreover if you find yourself stuck with your Critical Applications not working in Vista, be prepared to search for Drivers for the OS you will then be going to install for all the Hardware Goodies in the Laptop because the supplier won’t supply you with them. This happened to me with a Toshiba Laptop that came with Vista Pre-installed. I managed to get them right but some softwares written by Toshiba (Mouse, Keyboard, Webcamera, multimedia utilities)specfically for that model were impossible to find. It was so impratical that I could not change the brightness of the screen itself because the lappy used a Fn key & XP could not recognize that key.
That’s my 2 cents worth.
Ravi.

#2 Posted by prasanth (06.08.07 at 14:50 )

very nice points and good additional information. Since everything will eventually start to run on vista not much to worry. But many of the old stuff that workded in xp will not work because its just old. But if you buy anything new it will work with vista.