I’ve been asked by Adams Media Publications to contribute to a book of lists they’re publishing later this year. It’s a couple of pages on the topic of ‘Top Questions to Ask Before Buying a Laptop’. They’re looking for a list of 8 or so items, with a short paragraph description following each item.
Why should I do all the work, when you, my dear readers, are a bunch of smartypantses (heh) just waiting to contribute? Let me start off:
- Weight – You may not think it’s the most important issue on Day 1 of ownership, but on Day 243, after hauling that 8-pound brick around airports and parking lots, you’ll understand its signficance. Simply put, lighter is better.
- PC or Mac – The days of OS lock-in are largely over. I have an Apple laptop and a PC desktop and they rarely cause compatibility issues. I prefer the Apple PowerBooks because they’re durable, sexy and commodified. By commodified, I mean that there’s a limited number of choices to be made, so you don’t waste your time considering a hundred parameters.
- Is it wifi-enabled? – Wireless internet cards are increasingly standard on laptops, but make sure yours has one. Even if you don’t see yourself as a work-in-a-cafe kind of person, people change and wifi-cards are incredibly cheap. This is particularly important if this is your first laptop–who knows how you’ll end up using it?
I can’t be bothered to write them out right now, but other items that spring to mind are battery life, input device (touchpad or IBM nipple), processor speed (is that really that crucial for the average business user?) and optical drives. What else you got?
UPDATE: Do people still use laptop docks?
UPDATE #2: The book for which this list was assembled is now available.
DarrenBarefoot.com 
Form factor is important – this goes beyond weight and extends to whether you want an ultra-light or desktop replacement type. Battery life, display and drives are all influenced by this choice. Maybe consider the tablet as another possible form-factor.
With this in mind, the first question you ask yourself is “what are you going to use it for?”, then “how often are you going to carry it?” and probably a few others. In otherwords, get your own requirements sorted out first before thinking about hardware to meet those requirements.
RAM is probably more important that processor speed for the average user, at least if you like to use more than one application at once.
Video capabilities can be important for some people. If you’re a gamer, you’ll want a beefier video card. If you’d like to hook your laptop up to an external monitor, choice of video card becomes important. Apple iBooks (which are as good as Powerbooks in almost every way) only support mirrored mode, whereas the Powerbooks support dual-head.
If you’re wanting to use a digital video camera, you’ll want to make sure there’s a firewire port.
I am not the average business ueer. I have a desktop for “fun” stuff and everything else is on my laptop — business files, a few novels, scripts and short stories, everything for 4 weblogs I have, a TON of music, and a few dozen other oddball things. I go nowhere without the laptop (the weight issue wasn’t even a thought when I got my behemoth, a thing I wish had been an option 4 years ago).
For traveling, a good DVD player is nice, since I often spend time in boring hotel rooms with boring standard cable. Having a decent screen and DVD makes the hours easier to pass, discs being easy to pack.
MORE USB PORTS — I’ve noticed newer models have those little babies in multiple locations. I was blessed with two on mine, located so that having two items plugged in at the same time can be difficult (a key drive and a keyboard light won’t work together, for instance — the key drive, even a skinny one, is too thick)
It’s also a nice option to have plug in drives available — even in this day of key drives and CD RW, I’ve had to dig ol d info off a floppy or ZIP disc, and had to scramble to find something I could use to port data across. Luckily my laptop is old enough to still have a small floppy drive I can plug into one of the battery slots, and that has saved my bacon a time or two.
Laptop docks? I had a laptop with one of those in…95? 96? Never used it, for that matter.
By the by, just found your weblog and am bowing down to your wisdom :> enjoying it a lot.
Weight, style, battery life and “speed” are top concerns.
Other things I look for are a DVD drive (and software to play DVD’s), sound outputs AND controls on the outside of the lappy. And wifi controls on the outside.
In addition, power saving software is nice (on long flights this can make a 2 hour laptop last 3-3.5 hours and a 4 hour laptop last nearly 6).
When I purchased my iBook, I wanted three things out of my laptop: portability, reliability, and ease of use.
And it’s light, it’s durable, it hasn’t crashed once, and it’s the perfect tool for me as a freelancer and for my work tasks as a writer.
I’d heard from more than one person that Powerbooks weren’t as reliable on the wireless side of things and I didn’t need to pay the extra cash to look slick, so I’m happy with my marshmallow-white 12″, hyper-reliable, super fast lappy.
And I was blissed out to kiss Windows goodbye (at least at home).
Check the warranty… standard 1 year for consumer laptops and/or 3 year for business class.
If you’ll be using your laptop during presentations, or in quiet classrooms, how loud it’s fans are could be an issue.
My laptop runs it’s fans even while idling, and it’s a little annoying during class.
How much do you have to spend: Cost is a factor in this test.
Bluetooth: If you want mobile phone contact syncing or the ability to use a wireless mouse.
No. of USB ports: Do you need a USB mouse, and iPOD,a USB key and a USB printer at the same time.
Quick notes:
– Nice keyboard. You’ll be using it a lot.
– External video support. Is it VGA or DVI? What display/projector/etc. do you plan to use it with? Do you care if it natively supports monitor spanning, or only mirroring? How much oomph does it have to handle large external displays?
– Hard drive size and RAM. If it’s your primary machine, make sure you have enough RAM and storage to handle everything you’ll throw at it.
– FireWire? Everything has USB 2.0 now, but FireWire is very useful for external drives, video cameras, backups, etc. Not an issue with Apple machines, which all have it.
– Built-in camera. You’ll have to decide if that might be useful.
– Built-in memory card reader for digicam cards etc. No Macs have it, but some PCs do, and it can be very useful.
– Expansion capability. Does it have a PC Card slot or slots, and support a card for your mobile carrier, if you want that? Does it have a newfangled slot like the new MacBooks, which will support lots of cards eventually but none of them are out yet? Does it, like an iBook, have no expansion card slot at all? Is that okay with you?
– Colour. Many people don’t care, but others do. PowerBook/MacBook silver, ThinkPad or Lamborghini black, Ferrari red, or some other colour. Do you have a choice? What would it be if you did?
– Is it too big or too small? Some people like ultralights, but the screens may be too small if you need reading glasses, or not have enough real estate for all your windows. On the other hand, a 17″ laptop is tough to fit in an airplane tray and is hard to carry. What’s the ideal size for you?
Oh, and of course: is your manufacturer of choice (cough, Apple) likely to announce a new model very soon (hack, Feb 28), which could annoy the heck out of you if you buy the old model a day before? Ask your geeky friends if you should wait a week or two.
PBKs all the way, but if the mac doesn’t do, check out Acers new Ferrari series. Of course, you could go Toughbook and get more than a portable computer, you could get a bulletproof notebook
The question most people don’t ask — and should — is: do you want to use it in a mobile fashion or are you buying a moveable desktop? If it’s the former then go for a lightweight machine because you’ll want a second battery and they aren’t light.
If it’s the latter then go for the features (multiple USB ports; upgraded display; large drive; lots of memory; DVD; wifi; camera card port … hmmm, I seem to have been describing my wife’s machine and she only moves it from one room to another or to the car on the way to visit our grandson.)
One thing no one has mentioned is hard drive rotational speed. Most portables are 4500 or 5400 rpm but the Lenovo/IBM range has models with 7200 rpm (the same as a desktop drive). You’ll pay for the speed but if you are using business apps (particularly databases) you’ll notice the effects of reduced latency almost immediately.
I discovered that the frequency that you unplug and plug in your adapter can really matter. My laptop is going in for its second board replacement in only a year, because this design flaw causes it to only run off the battery after a short time.
If you travel a lot a backlit keyboard is a really great feature. And an S-video out connection is also much appreciated.
One key thing I enjoy about my Powerbook is the extremely fast wake up/ going to sleep time. This is a huge plus for me in practice.
One of the big downsides compared to my Pentium-M Thinkpad are heat and noise level in normal (low CPU) use.
Oh, it has been said before, but warranty is extremely important. Everybody who plans to use their laptop on a daily basis should buy an extended warranty. They are pricey but worth it (for laptops that is, not in general). Things are bound to break sooner or later and because laptops are so highly integrated, chances are that it will involve needing a new motherboard. Which will cost as much as a new laptop.
I found that ACER, LENOVO and SAMSUNG cheaper than DELL or SONY VAIO ( with the same configurations ). I do not have high budget to purchase one, but still wish to have the good one. I’ll use the laptop for basic purposes. I’ll be highly appreciated if I can get the right recommendation.
***I can see many articles related to my question and its helpful, however, I’m unsure if the information is up to date. I need the lastest information to make my decision.
Thanking you,
James.