Tips for Choosing a Laptop

Are you getting a new computer, do you want to upgrade a computer you already own? There are a lots of factors to consider while choosing a new computer. It sometimes happens this way. You get a new computer out of the box, you love the clean, shiny machine but it becomes annoying and irritating after some time. You discover you are not getting what you expected or that it can’t match up to your new demands.

Technology is forever advancing, new features and new systems. I remember when the highest processor speed around was1.2ghz. Even android devices swinging 1.2 GHz on dual cores are not considered as strong. I am pretty sure you’ve heard about terms such as RAM, SSD, HD, 6 Cell, Back lit and the likes. Today, I would be explaining the meaning of some of these terms and give some tips to help you decide when you want to choose a new device or upgrade your device. First I’d like to talk on choosing the laptop.

Choosing the brand

There are various OEMs of laptops out there. Some are known for their speakers, batteries, displays, processors, customer service, superb chargers and design. Some are also known to have big flaws such as bad audio delivery, poor batteries, poor keyboard layout etc.

So, I would advise that you first decide what you want to do with a PC. If you want to use it to watch movies, you should get a laptop with good speakers, nice DVD drive, high capacity Hard disk and a perfect screen with good graphic rendering. For a gaming laptop or graphic work, get a laptop with high RAM, processor speed and Video memory. The basic idea is to understand the basic requirement of the task you’d be using the laptop for and ensure that you get s laptop that has the basic things you’d be needing. For gaming, picture, video design and editing, you’d need a good graphic card, processor, RAM.

For simple office document work, you’d need a PC with good keyboard layout and battery as you’d sometimes be working away from a socket and would need all the battery life you can get from the PC.

Different OEMS have different strong grounds. You just identify what you want and choose what you get and can easily pay for. I for one had to make a tough decision. I wanted to get a silver rating HP ENVY. Was allowed to do the whole customizing thing, I was left with a choice of choosing Intel or AMD processor. Core I7 vs AMD A10. It was hard at first but then I remembered how bad Intel processors were with PES game. I simply chose the AMD knowing well that it would get hot while gaming and I’d need to clean the vent and keep it cool at all times.

It is also very important to read reviews of a laptop you have in mind. Hear from people that have used this laptops. They would point out defects and highlight outstanding points. I found out that my HP ENVY had an all flat touchpad like the Apple Mac and that it was tough to use. Then another lady said it was easy to understand, 3 other people said the same and I got the laptop. It came and I loved it.

Understanding basic parts

The trackpad

The trackpad is the inbuilt mouse of the laptop, usually in-between the palm rest of the laptop. The touchpad surface could either be smooth or sturdy, have 2 or 3 mouse buttons, scroll sections, gestures etc. you can read about the availability of this on the product information page on the OEM website. If you want the scroll function and the laptop you chose doesn’t have it, that’s easy. Zoom off and make another choice.

The speakers

A new development in speakers is the addition of subwoofers and the strategic position of the speakers. My laptop has 4 speakers and 1 subwoofer. Strategic positioning is the word, 2 speakers just beneath the screen right above the keyboard, 1 beneath the palm rest on the left and right side and the subwoofer somewhere under the laptop. The laptop has small studs that raises it up. This enables the sound to boom out from underneath the laptop with loudness and still maintain clarity. Either you love watching videos, playing songs, skyping (oh yes!!!), streaming, gaming. Name it, a good speaker in your PC just makes it all interesting. Read reviews about them, read reviews about audio drivers and enhancements that they offer. BEATS Audio is awesome. IDT, Realtek and some other I’ve seen fair well. It all boils down to your choice and what people say about it. If you don’t give a rabbits tail about audio from your PC, you can shun away from it and get anything that comes.

Ports and Slots

USB ports, LAN ports, SD card slots and many other ports are usually found on computers. This ports have various functions, limitations, requirements. So, do well to enquire on the types of ports available on the PC you plan to buy so as to aid compatibility and flexibility when using your new PC. If you have lots of USB 3.0 devices, it would really be annoying if you got a PC that has all USB 2.0 ports. It would not only slow down your work. It would make you hate the PC real fast. Wanna bet?

 

RAM

RAM (Random Access Memory) is storage used for a place to hold data. Think of it as a big filing cabinet that keeps things ready for the CPU in your PC to present it to your eyes and ears. It's infinitely (almost) re-writable, very fast, and used differently by different operating systems. Let me break it down. You’ve probably heard RAM classified according to different sizes. 2gig, 3gig, 4gig RAM. To make things easy. Imagine a small dining table. Three different chefs are needed to serve their meals on the table. Chef A is Mozilla, chef B is WinRAR and chef C is MS Word. The name of the table is RAM. Let’s assume you call up chef A to serve you a meal out of its collection of meals, he comes to the table and starts unpacking his dishes. Let’s also assume that you want water and call chef B to the dining, he unpacks and starts serving you all varieties of water but oops, the table is all filled up, you need to get some sauce from chef C but there isn’t space on the table for him to quickly display all his sauces. As a result of this, all the chefs start unpacking slowly on the table. The chefs having more use of the table render more efficiently. The only means to ease things or speed things up is to tell either chef A or B to pack up and allow C more space to perform. You digg? All it means is that, when RAM is not very large, there is limited space for apps to run, some apps eat more space than the others do. When apps don’t have enough RAM to operate, that’s when you get the sluggish hanging called a LAG. So, if you wanna get a device and would be doing heavy multitasking, playing HD games or using apps that eat up the “table”, I’d advise you get a device with a big RAM aka Table. It would also help to clear running applications before launching a RAM demanding app. Also note that even a big table can get overloaded when too many Chefs are called to the table at once.

Hard disk

The hard disk is where your operating system files, personal files and the likes are saved. The speed of a computer is also dependent on the speed of the hard disk and type of the hard disk. First, let’s talk about Hard disks. This have the layers of disks and reading arm, a mechanical arm. The disk spins and the arms goes to various disks in layers to access your files. This type of disks use up more electricity, slower compared to SSDs (Solid State Drives). SSDs on the other hand are like memory card hard disks. 

Imagine a small memory card that was around 500 GB. It is faster and consumes less power. There is no mechanical arm so there is less delay time in going between layers to access data. Downside, SSDs are just too expensive. A 1TB HD might not get you more than 128GB SSD. Another detail is the speed of the hard disk. Most common are the 5400 and 7200 rpm I guess. This speed classification is only on the HD (Hard disk). The 7200 is faster than the 5400 obviously. So, if you wanna choose a hard disk, get SSD ahead of HD and if you’d be getting HD, get something with 7200rpm as this increases the speed of the laptop. It’s as simple as being able to read 1000 letters per minute compared to 500 words per minute. I once saw an identical laptop to mine, same specs but only difference was that she had SSD. We tried the speed. We boot the systems at the same time and she completed booting 10 seconds before mine. We also copied the same movies at once from our download folder to our desktops. She beat me by 2 minutes and 33 seconds. So, SSD does get you more speed. Jealousy was oozing more than my cologne that evening. LOL

SCREEN

The laptop screen is the one part that gets used even more than many other parts, so long the PC is being used. Lots of OEMS have broken grounds in screen displays. Retina display on Mac, bright view on HP, vari-bright on AMD supported PCs. There are lots of techs out there that you can get. It’s all about paying for what you want.  It would annoy you if you paid so much for so less. You can sometimes get all you want for so less. It all starts from knowing what you want and knowing where to get it. I once saw a PC that had a screen that didn’t do well on full brightness. Colours were all washed out. I’ve seen another that couldn’t replicate a particle tone of red. Screen resolution also matters. My verdict, beyond the shiny specifications on paper, it helps to read review about your target purchase before buying.

 So much noise has been made about touch screen devices. Simmer sown, Simmer down. *clears throat*

Yes, it’s techy, you practically feel like tony stark on a LOKI free morning when you use it. I don’t like it so much and I have my reasons. I hate the smudges on the screen from various fingers piking at the screen, I hate the drama you feature in when you run around looking for a fix when that touch gets messed up, I don’t just like the touch idea. Irrelevant excuses? The good reason for me to call it MY REASON. So, make yours today. On this category, it would be nice to make up your mind on your own.

Keyboards.

If you’d be doing a lot of typing, get a good keyboard with nice key spacing, nice key prints that wouldn’t fade off, firm keys that wouldn’t chip off, keys that would flex when pressed and not feel too hard. As an added blessing, get a backlit keyboard and you’d be happy just as I am while typing this post. If you’d be doing loads of calculations or numerical documents, a good keyboard with a numeric keypad by the side would be very nice. What more to add? I’d think of more details later.

Webcam

Webcams have progressed from photo capturing devices to communication devices and now to surveillance devices. AMD even featured a gesture control on some of the HP PCs I’ve come across. If you plan on getting all techy and waving hallelujah to make your PC hibernate, make a miracle, get a PC with such cameras and software support. If you also plan to skype with loved ones, monitor your room and see why your cereals don’t last, you need a webcam capable of such. So, ask questions before getting the PC, get to know what I can and can’t do.

Battery

Batteries come in cells. 6 cell, 8 cell. 12 cell, if that does exist. The more the cells, the more it lasts longer. Read up on good charging habits, enquire about battery life. Durability after years of use. I’d recommend a 6 cell battery with 5 hours backup time and 2 year durability on the average. And finally

The Processor

The 2 men at the table in this contest are Intel’s Core I and AMD. Intel has the I3, I5,I7 and AMD had the A8, A10 and many more. This are based on different types of technology and enhancement. The A10 is know to have a speed of 2.5 GHZ and known to turbo boost to 3.2GHZ when there’s need for it. The higher the processor speed and number of cores, the faster the PC. Simple bit.

I think that’s all I can speak on for now. I’d advise you read reviews, ask questions on OEM websites, OEM is Original Equipment Manufacturer. I mean HP, DELL, Compaq, Apple, Sony, Toshiba and the rest of the boys in the class. Read and understand what each part does. Understand how it affects the functionality, flexibility and efficiency in the utilization of the PC.