Laptops are essential gadgets for most of us. They are personal, portable and convenient. But a bunch of laptops in the market confuses consumer as to which is their laptop of choice. This article will give you just what you wanted. So let's see what you need to know before buying a laptop.
I will be taking each laptop component (ex- screen, processor, memory etc) at once and explain what to look in the respective component.
1. Screen Size-
This is the most important factor that will decide how your laptop will look like, how big, heavy or how costly it is going to be. Mainstream laptops usually come in 11.6, 13.3, 14, 15.6 and 17 inch screen.
In the above sizes 11.6 and 13.3 inch screens are categorized as ultra portables, because of their small size and lighter weight. 14 inch is considered as power cum portable size, as it is capable of packing powerful spec components and also is relatively lighter. 15.6 and 17 inch are considered convenience desktop alternatives due to their powerful spec, not that easy portability (heavy). The first thumb rule is that the lower your screen size is the more low powered your laptop will be, because with more power comes more heat, and heat management in smaller laptops is difficult. Hence they are packed with slower components. The second thumb rule is given the same configuration the lower the screen size the more pricey your laptop is, as good build quality, aesthetics have to be considered for managing heat more effectively. So if you want a good gaming laptop 15.6 or 17 inch will be drastically more cheaper than a 13.3 or 14 inch laptop. If you want to do basic computing function like word, spread sheets, presentations or watching movie but want to have a laptop which is so light that you can slide it in your bag and not feeling the weight, go for a 11.6 or 13.3 inch laptop. You certainly wont get many gaming options because the laptops which have graphics card in this category (that too only 13 inchers) are very few. If you want portability and want to have a powerful laptop which easily plays any games and can do high intense tasks like video editing go for a suitably spec'd 14 inch laptop. If you do not like a Desktop PC at home and feel it is bulky but would want the performance comparable to it, you can settle for a 15.6 or 17 inch laptop. These are heavy, which means it is not good for easy porting, but can be a desktop replacement by giving you the convenience of keeping it on your lap and using it.
2. Display -
This is the most neglected factor in today's laptops. The quality of your laptops display decides how well your experience is with it. But consumers hardly know about this and concentrate on good specs when making their laptop purchase. The true quality of the display depends on its ability to display accurate black and white colour i.e its accuracy of colour reproduction. The resolution of the screen decides how crisp the screen looks, how legible the fonts on the screen are and does not majorly affect the quality of the display.There are many types of displays like IPS, LED and many more. Opt for a screen with a contrast ratio of atleast 500:1. There are other two factors namely the brightness value of blacks and whites measured in cd/m2. Opt for a screen with low black brightness value and a high white brightness value.
3. Build Quality-
This is also an important factor in laptops. The way your laptop is built decides how you will feel and how long it will be with you. There are mainly two types of materials used one being polycarbonate plastic and other being aluminium. The former being the favourite of budget laptops and the latter used for premium and priced laptops. Plastic built laptops make it cheap, fragile and light, but give us a cheap feel. On the other hand aluminium built laptops look beautiful and feels premium and also are very tough, but are costly, hot ("you quickly feel the heat on your lap") and are a bit heavy. One way to find about the quality of build is by pressing the laptop at various areas and searching for any squeaks, if you find squeaks then the quality of build is bad.
4. Processor-
Processor decides how fast your computing operations will be. That is say you are editing a video, a better processor would do the job without any lag than a weaker processor. Do you need a fast processor? The answer is yes if you are a gamer, a video editor, a multitask freak and no if you mostly use for watching video and working on spread sheets.
5. RAM-
RAM (Random Access Memory) is the bridge between the processor and the hard disk. So more the RAM more the processor can multitask. If you are buying a laptop running a 32 bit operating system 3 GB of RAM would more than be sufficient, but if your laptop is running a 64 bit operating system more than 3 GB RAM would make things better.
6. Hard Drive-
Hard Drive in laptops vary from 500 GB to 2 GB. There are also types in it like SSD, SATA Drives. SSD being more silent and expensive and SATA being more noisy and cheap. Basically anything about 500GB could be fine because you could buy an external hard drive to keep your movable files.
7. Graphics Card-
This is an important feature for gamers. There are lot of laptops with dedicated graphics card. Nowadays laptops boast they have 1GB, 2GB of dedicated memory and people feel that the more the memory the better will be the card, but in actual this is not the truth. A Graphics cards performance does not depend totally on the memory but mainly depends on the processor of the graphics card. Normally you will find laptops sporting graphics cards like ATI Radeon 5550, 5650, 6470,7100 etc. or Nvidia GT430, 530,380,290,610,720 etc. Look for graphics cards with a higher second value in the model for ex you will think Nvidia GT 710 is better than Nvidia GT680, but in reality Nvidia GT680 is far better. Normally graphics card manufacturers release graphics cards in series, like 7000 series, 8000 series for ATI and GT400 series, GT500 series for Nvidia. So the first number denotes the series of the graphics card (manufacturers normally release new series if there is a update in the DirectX version for ex ATI 7000 series supports upto DirectX 9 and ATI 8000 series will be released to support DirectX 10). The second value will be that of the relative speed of the processor, for ex NVidia GT710 has a processor of 800MHz and Nvidia GT720 will have a processor of 900 MHz and so on. So whenever you are buying a laptop for gaming compare the processor speed to decide which is more better and not the size of the RAM.
8. Connectivity-
Look for laptops with the latest WiFi versions like a/b/g/n. It should also support the latest Bluetooth version for wireless peripheral connectivity. Also it should support USB 3.0. Three to four USB ports are better as it will give you more flexibility in connecting more devices simultaneously. Laptops come with different types of ports of different applications. For sound the laptops will normally have audio-in (microphone), audio-out (headphone) a multichannel S/PDIF port would be a bonus as you can connect your laptop to a multichannel amplifier. For video look for HDMI port as it is very useful in the present. A RJ-45 LAN port is also a must in your laptop, so definitely look for it. Also look for a multi card reader as you need to read a lot of cards.
I will be taking each laptop component (ex- screen, processor, memory etc) at once and explain what to look in the respective component.
1. Screen Size-
This is the most important factor that will decide how your laptop will look like, how big, heavy or how costly it is going to be. Mainstream laptops usually come in 11.6, 13.3, 14, 15.6 and 17 inch screen.
In the above sizes 11.6 and 13.3 inch screens are categorized as ultra portables, because of their small size and lighter weight. 14 inch is considered as power cum portable size, as it is capable of packing powerful spec components and also is relatively lighter. 15.6 and 17 inch are considered convenience desktop alternatives due to their powerful spec, not that easy portability (heavy). The first thumb rule is that the lower your screen size is the more low powered your laptop will be, because with more power comes more heat, and heat management in smaller laptops is difficult. Hence they are packed with slower components. The second thumb rule is given the same configuration the lower the screen size the more pricey your laptop is, as good build quality, aesthetics have to be considered for managing heat more effectively. So if you want a good gaming laptop 15.6 or 17 inch will be drastically more cheaper than a 13.3 or 14 inch laptop. If you want to do basic computing function like word, spread sheets, presentations or watching movie but want to have a laptop which is so light that you can slide it in your bag and not feeling the weight, go for a 11.6 or 13.3 inch laptop. You certainly wont get many gaming options because the laptops which have graphics card in this category (that too only 13 inchers) are very few. If you want portability and want to have a powerful laptop which easily plays any games and can do high intense tasks like video editing go for a suitably spec'd 14 inch laptop. If you do not like a Desktop PC at home and feel it is bulky but would want the performance comparable to it, you can settle for a 15.6 or 17 inch laptop. These are heavy, which means it is not good for easy porting, but can be a desktop replacement by giving you the convenience of keeping it on your lap and using it.
2. Display -
This is the most neglected factor in today's laptops. The quality of your laptops display decides how well your experience is with it. But consumers hardly know about this and concentrate on good specs when making their laptop purchase. The true quality of the display depends on its ability to display accurate black and white colour i.e its accuracy of colour reproduction. The resolution of the screen decides how crisp the screen looks, how legible the fonts on the screen are and does not majorly affect the quality of the display.There are many types of displays like IPS, LED and many more. Opt for a screen with a contrast ratio of atleast 500:1. There are other two factors namely the brightness value of blacks and whites measured in cd/m2. Opt for a screen with low black brightness value and a high white brightness value.
3. Build Quality-
This is also an important factor in laptops. The way your laptop is built decides how you will feel and how long it will be with you. There are mainly two types of materials used one being polycarbonate plastic and other being aluminium. The former being the favourite of budget laptops and the latter used for premium and priced laptops. Plastic built laptops make it cheap, fragile and light, but give us a cheap feel. On the other hand aluminium built laptops look beautiful and feels premium and also are very tough, but are costly, hot ("you quickly feel the heat on your lap") and are a bit heavy. One way to find about the quality of build is by pressing the laptop at various areas and searching for any squeaks, if you find squeaks then the quality of build is bad.
4. Processor-
Processor decides how fast your computing operations will be. That is say you are editing a video, a better processor would do the job without any lag than a weaker processor. Do you need a fast processor? The answer is yes if you are a gamer, a video editor, a multitask freak and no if you mostly use for watching video and working on spread sheets.
5. RAM-
RAM (Random Access Memory) is the bridge between the processor and the hard disk. So more the RAM more the processor can multitask. If you are buying a laptop running a 32 bit operating system 3 GB of RAM would more than be sufficient, but if your laptop is running a 64 bit operating system more than 3 GB RAM would make things better.
6. Hard Drive-
Hard Drive in laptops vary from 500 GB to 2 GB. There are also types in it like SSD, SATA Drives. SSD being more silent and expensive and SATA being more noisy and cheap. Basically anything about 500GB could be fine because you could buy an external hard drive to keep your movable files.
7. Graphics Card-
This is an important feature for gamers. There are lot of laptops with dedicated graphics card. Nowadays laptops boast they have 1GB, 2GB of dedicated memory and people feel that the more the memory the better will be the card, but in actual this is not the truth. A Graphics cards performance does not depend totally on the memory but mainly depends on the processor of the graphics card. Normally you will find laptops sporting graphics cards like ATI Radeon 5550, 5650, 6470,7100 etc. or Nvidia GT430, 530,380,290,610,720 etc. Look for graphics cards with a higher second value in the model for ex you will think Nvidia GT 710 is better than Nvidia GT680, but in reality Nvidia GT680 is far better. Normally graphics card manufacturers release graphics cards in series, like 7000 series, 8000 series for ATI and GT400 series, GT500 series for Nvidia. So the first number denotes the series of the graphics card (manufacturers normally release new series if there is a update in the DirectX version for ex ATI 7000 series supports upto DirectX 9 and ATI 8000 series will be released to support DirectX 10). The second value will be that of the relative speed of the processor, for ex NVidia GT710 has a processor of 800MHz and Nvidia GT720 will have a processor of 900 MHz and so on. So whenever you are buying a laptop for gaming compare the processor speed to decide which is more better and not the size of the RAM.
8. Connectivity-
Look for laptops with the latest WiFi versions like a/b/g/n. It should also support the latest Bluetooth version for wireless peripheral connectivity. Also it should support USB 3.0. Three to four USB ports are better as it will give you more flexibility in connecting more devices simultaneously. Laptops come with different types of ports of different applications. For sound the laptops will normally have audio-in (microphone), audio-out (headphone) a multichannel S/PDIF port would be a bonus as you can connect your laptop to a multichannel amplifier. For video look for HDMI port as it is very useful in the present. A RJ-45 LAN port is also a must in your laptop, so definitely look for it. Also look for a multi card reader as you need to read a lot of cards.
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