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Sunday 20 March 2011

Help when buying a Laptop, what to look out for!

As with most electrical products, knowing exactly what to buy can be very difficult especially with computers. Laptops, Netbook, Tablets, Ultra mobiles are all increasing in performance power, becoming faster and faster for an ever increasing demanding software. This means that technology can be out of date within no time after buying your brand new computer. This is not designed to go into minute detail on what every aspect of computers are, but rather explain just enough to get you started with some ideas of what to look out for. So here are a few tips on what you should be looking for when buying.

Before going over the most important aspects to look for in each computer there is one tip that if there's anything you should take away from reading in this blog it is this; Don't buy for just today, buy for the future! Too many times have I talked to customers that aim to buy a laptop with minimal specs because it will do what they need for now, they're also the first to complain that their laptop is too slow. An OK computer today might not be an OK computer in a couple of years. In fact there’s a chance it will be struggling by that time. If it means spending £50/$80 extra for a far superior computer, do it. Even if it means you only get another 12 to 18 months of good life out of the laptop it's going to be worth it before taking another plunge into buying another machine.

Processing power.
This is the most important part of your computer. It's the brains of your system, and the better this is the better the overall performance of your computer will be. The two most available processors are AMD and Intel. While Intel are usually faster, AMD are becoming more and more popular as a good priced product for what you get for your money. Intel's processors range from the Celeron, Pentium, i3, i5, i7. The AMD processors start from the AMD Sempron or Neo, AMD Turion, AMD Phenom (I apologise for the names, gees, why not call it 5, 10 and 20???) The graph below shows the difference between what applications can be run on each of the different processors. AMD Sempron is equivalent to Pentium, Turion to i3, Phenom to i5/i7.


Personally an Intel i3/i5 of AMD Turion should be enough for the average laptop or computer buyer.

RAM
Random access memory or memory works hand in hand with the processor, it allows programs to be stored here so the information can be processed quicker. Simply put, more RAM equals quicker processing, as long as the RAM amount is equally as good as the processor. There is no point of having a poor processor with lots of RAM. The amount of memory you should be looking for the average computer should be 3 or 4 GB. Anything less is again going to be outdated quickly. 

Hard Drive
The hard drive is the total amount of memory that is available for the computer. It will store all the programs, your work, films, music, everything. This was once the most important aspect of a computer, there was no point in having very little memory as you would have difficultly doing anything with the computer if you couldn't store many programs on it. However hard drive memory is now cheap, if your computer is running low on memory you can always buy a portable hard drive. As a tip I would personal put as much of your files on a portable hard drive, this can aid in keeping the computer running smoothly for as long as possible. I would be looking for at least 250 GB of hard drive in my computer, and if you do store a lot of files (documents, movies, music) then look for at least 500 GB.

Graphic Card
This can get complicated, there are many different cards on the market. However there are two different types of graphic card, dedicated and integrated. Integrated are normally part of the RAM, while dedicated are separate processors designed just for graphic. If you’re using your laptop for gaming or editing you will need a dedicated graphics card.

Wireless Card
The wireless card will determine the range your laptop or computer will be able to wirelessly connect to a router. These either come in g class, the most basic. n and n300. The n300 combines good range with the connections speeds into 300Mb/s. This would be ideal for a laptop as hopefully within the next few years broadband speeds will soar with the integration of the fibre optic cable throughout the country.

Other things to take into account.

Screen size
HDMI port - to connect to a TV.
Battery Life.

Hope these tips will help finding the right computer for you that little bit easier. Any more information please leave a comment for us to get back to you.
   

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