Arjun's Laptop Buying Guide

As a so called computer expert, I sure put my  foot in my mouth when I wrote a newspaper column in June with an offer to share with my readers some research I was soon to do on the best laptops for different purposes. I got a lot of response to that column from people who wanted the information.

I started to think about how I was going to conduct the research. And the I got very scared. Preliminary checking around convinced me that I had bitten of a heck of a lot.

Okay, but I am still going to try.

There is a huge variety of different laptop models out there. And obviously different laptops would work better for different purposes.

Laptops can be divided into 3 very general categories (there are a lot of sub categories within these categories).

• Desktop Replacements - laptops you can move around, but most of the time don't. Have a lot of the similar features as desktop PCs. Approximately 7 to 10 pounds.
• Mainstream - made for mobility, but has many features - lighter than desktop replacement, better battery life. May not have all the features of desktop replacement. Approximately 4 to 7 pounds.
• Ultra Portable - made for frequent mobility - often don't have internal CD or floppy drive. Should have better battery life. Usually under 4 pounds.

When buying a laptop, you should decide which of these 3 categories appeal to you and also decide your budget. Budget is a pretty important consideration because it will determine how much extra you can spend on the things that you would like to have, but are not totally necessary.

Here are my minimum recommendations for a laptop computer:

• 512 mbs of RAM
  recommended specs for Windows XP
• 40 mbs of HD space
  more than enough space typically, except for repeated video storage and editing.
• wireless inbuilt
  increasingly useful when "on the road"
• DVD / CDRW Combo
  I would personally even skip the DVD, if you don't watch a lot of movies, but almost every laptop comes with a DVD player now. The CDRW burner is great for back ups.
• Back up solution
  Not really part of the laptop but critical, critical and often overlooked. Do you have a way of backing up your computer files or doing things like moving your digital pictures onto another storage medium or device. Options include CD burning, an external harddrive, or one of those USB flash drives.

You notice I didn't mention processor speed (eg. the pentium number) because all new computers today, unless you doing high end things like video editing or gaming, are fast enough to perform any task.

There are things that, when I see them, make me feel that the laptop manufacturer was really thinking about the benefit of the user:

• Various jacks and ports on front and side rather than on the back:
  I hate reaching aroung any computer to have to plug stuff in. I love it when I see USB ports on the side ledge of the laptop keyboard and headphones and microphone jacks on the front ledge. Full marks!
• Long Battery life:
  A laptop is not a laptop unless it offers at least 3 hours of battery power. Anything less is a mockery of the name.

Now, the moment you have been waiting for and the hardest part, recommendations on specific laptops. I took a tour one day through one or two computer stores I trust and found 2 I want to recommend. These 2 computers are in the mainstream category, so here are some other tips.

1. Find a trustworthy computer store and talk to a salesman about the options:
   I have given you a baseline of recommended specifications. You need to find a good computer store that will back up it's products. Ask about their warranty - how long? do they have an in house repair department? can you have a tour?
2. Read the recommendations at PC World and from Walt Mossberg at the Wall Street Journal. These are American centred but provide good pointers for everybody.

Okay here are the two laptops I looked at and liked a lot:

• The Acer Aspire 5000
• The HP Pavilion dv1330ca

Comments

[Mike Maddison]

Hi Arjun,
In any search for a laptop these days, I would encourage a DVD+RW drive as a standard feature to look for. DVD's have come on a little more slowly, but with the sizes of drives increasing drastically (such as 500GB drives!) CDRW's are becoming like floppy disks... just too small to hold sufficient data.

"Long Battery life:
A laptop is not a laptop unless it offers at least 3 hours of battery power. Anything less is a mockery of the name."

I have to disagree with this statement. I use my laptop all the time, and most other laptop users I know rarely seem to use it without the power adaptor plugged in. Myself, I purchased the most powerful processor, RAM and Hard-Drive performance machine as a desktop replacement knowing my battery life would be very short. I've never regretted it.

[Jason Johnson]

Arjun, what's your opinion about Dell, Toshiba, and Mac Desktops?

[Mike K.]

Don't forget Apple laptops. iBooks are particularly affordable and offer long battery life - especially in sleep mode. I can put my laptop to sleep for days and still have a good charge on the battery.

Speaking of sleep mode, you also get *very* quick wake-ups from sleep on Macs, for whatever reason. Beats my shiny HP laptop every time.

Also, no worries about viruses or spyware. All the typical "productivity" software is available, and it's got Unix under the hood to boot. :)

(and despite sounding like a Mac fanatic, I do run PCs too... it's just that for portable work, I really prefer the Mac)

[Mike K.]

Almost forgot: I wanted to follow up on Mike Maddison's comment re: battery life.

I'd have to agree with Arjun on 3+ hours or more of battery life. My notebook goes with me wherever I go: to a client site, to the TRU campus, a cafe, the airport...

If you are the type of person that buys a notebook to tote around home and the office, then yes, perhaps you never will run it on battery. But if you're mobile, you never know whether there will be an outlet where you're going.

Case in point: TRU's Campus Activity Center is sorely lacking in AC outlets.

I like to pop over to campus, find a good spot to sit, and work on my web development contracts... I get approximately 4 hours on my Powerbook, and some days use every minute of it.

[Vicki Smith]

The other issue that can come up with laptops is durability. My husband recently bought what are called "ruggedized" laptops for use in the oilfields--well actually for use in the trucks that are in the field. They are monstrously expensive, but if the conditions for use are not terrific, having a ruggedized machine can make the difference between having a working machine, or not.

Vicki

[VScM]

Arjun,

I'd like to suggest that people working on a budget in which to fit their laptop purchase consider both a used laptop and a lightweight Linux OS distrobution. It saves cost on buying WinXP and the machine won't need a ridiculous amount of horsepower to run a skinny Linux OS.

Something with a P3-600 and 256MB RAM will run distros like Beatrix, MiniSlacks, Vector & MepisLite for example - quite well.