Laptops

Before you buy a laptop, you'll need to figure out what you want to do with it. Your notebook will differ depending on whether you're a student, home user, working professional or frequent traveler. According to your preferred usage, you will need to choose a laptop designed to be a workhorse fit for word or excel processing, multimedia performer suitable for gaming, watching movies, listening to music, storing and editing photos and other such applications. 

You'll find laptops of all shapes and sizes in the market today. From the slim, ultra portable variety to the big and heavy ones – there's ample choice for you. So, you have to take your pick depending on your usage and the functionalities you want in your notebook. The categories available are – ultraportable (smallest, most lightweight), thin-and-light – portability and performance at a reasonable price, midsize – these are a little bit of everything, from word processing to multimedia to gaming, but aren’t too portable; desktop replacement – feature packed, bulky machines that can do everything your desktop can.

As a student, you will want a budget laptop, that's portable as well, so you can cart it around with you. If you're a frequent traveler then your prime criterion will be portability. You will want a laptop that is very light to carry. If you are a high-powered business executive, you will need a laptop that's high on performance while maintaining a slim body. If you are home user, you are looking at the laptop as a substitute for your desktop. Here you could be looking at either a mid-sized laptop in the budget range or a feature packed one that can outdo your desktop.

 

BUDGET You can buy a laptop for as low as Rs 15,000. Of course, don't expect too much in terms of features. This one will be ideal for basic processing. More than sufficient if all you need it for is Microsoft Office applications, basic Internet surfing.

Then you have the mid range laptops of 60,000 to one lakh range. Now these give you more variety and are very good for multimedia applications and gaming. 

The other important factors to be considered.

PROCESSOR You are probably looking at Intel's Celeron processor in the budget level and an Intel for the mid and high-end. If you don't mind a little expenditure then Intel's Core2Duo should be your ideal choice. 

SYSTEM MEMORY The Rs 15,000 or so laptops come with 512 MB, but ideally you must at least have a memory of 1024 MB. If you want to do more than word processing or Internet surfing, then go in for higher memory. Nowadays you have notebooks with 2 GB RAM. Even if you do have a small memory, it is sensible to upgrade it, as it will make your laptop more efficient.

 

GRAPHICS MEMORY If you intend using your laptop for gaming and other graphic oriented applications then you will need at least 64 MB or 128 MB RAM as video space. You even get 512 MB of dedicated graphics memory.

 

SCREEN You could get 14-inch or 15-inch in the entry or budget level. You also have 17-inch widescreens in the budget range, which makes spreadsheet application easier to view. If you travel a lot or need extremely small and portable notebooks which are available in screen sizes between 5.6-inch and 13.3-inch, and some of these are even widescreen. 

BATTERY It is most critical to know the battery life of the laptop you intend buying. At the minimum the laptop should be able to function for at least three hours on full charge. Some laptops even offer seven hours.

 

KEYBOARD This is necessary to look into especially if you are buying a small notebook with their smaller than average keyboard. Though you will eventually get used to whatever keyboard you buy, it wouldn't hurt to try it out before you buy. 

OPTICAL AND OTHER DRIVES You can choose from Combo drives, DVD writers and Blu-ray drives. If you don't intend spending too much money, go for the DVD writers.

 

HARD DRIVE A hard disk of 40 GB sounds more than sufficient, but when it comes down to actual usage you'll never know where all the space went. Most laptops will have at least 40 GB. Those who want more space can opt for the 60 GB or even 120 GB models, else you can always upgrade the existing hard drive.

 

WEIGHT A laptop can be as heavy as 3.5 kgs and as light as .63 kg – it depends on the variety you go for. As mentioned earlier, the frequent flier would probably opt for the 1.4 Kg as its easy carry, whereas the desktop replacement could be the 3.5 kg laptop. But you need to look at the weight of the AC adaptor, any external modules, and their cables as well as you'll be carrying that along with your laptop. Usually lightweight laptops come with light AC adaptors.

 

CONNECTIVITY Most laptops today come with 2.0 ports; some with four and few other even have six. Today, parallel ports have become more commonplace. The basic connectivity options include Wi-fi, USB, and LAN card. Apart from this you also have FireWire (most mid-range and high-end laptops have this) and in-built Bluetooth.

 

While there are dime a dozen options to choose from with an array of features, here are a few tips to make choosing easy for you. Opt for 1024 MB RAM because anything less will not be sufficient for any work. A 1.6 GHz mobile processor is enough for working on Office applications and surfing the Net. Bigger is better, so a screen larger than 12 inches is better for long hours of work; unless you really want to stick with portability. Again, unless you have a storehouse of movies and music, 60 GB is more than enough space. Most laptops come with multiple ports, so gadget savvy users can connect all their peripherals to these ports. A design with an internal bay will allow you to swap an extra hard drive or another battery but if you prefer lightweight designs, you will have to miss this feature. 

 

Slick and lightweight notebooks come with top-notch processing power and big screens, thereby adding to their cost. But vendors selling laptops allow you to custom configure your model with your desired specs. So you may opt for a faster notebook with less expensive hard drive or a DVD writer drive instead of a Blu ray drive. Remember unless you really want to use your laptop for hard core multimedia apps, you can easily do without a Blu ray drive.