Buying a Laptop?

Mobile computing's popularity continues to increase year after year. Just
about everyone in the subway is thumbing away on their Blackberry devices,
hunting and pecking on their PDAs, and pounding away on their laptop computers.
It's no wonder – laptops are so much more affordable than a decade ago.
You can get a lot of bang for the buck. Plus, with online sites such as eBay
and uBid, bargain hunting no longer requires long jaunts to the outlet stores.

Laptops come in a virtually infinite variety of configurations. Everything
from the processor speed to the memory amount to the screen size can be matched
to individual preferences. In some cases, you can even choose colors outside
the standard-issue charcoal or black plastic.

Here are some individual considerations for major components:

Processor.

The first thing people usually look at whether they are purchasing
a laptop or desktop computer is the processor. What kind of processor is
it? What is the speed? While the processor is certainly important to the performance
of a laptop, it isn't necessarily the primary consideration. You must first
consider how you will be using the laptop. Do you need to maximize battery
life? Will it stay at home? If you need as much battery life as possible,
a
mid-range processor could be a better bet. They are not as power-hungry and
can perform just as well as more expensive processors. If the laptop will
stay plugged in most of the time, a higher-end processor can be a good choice.
Be
aware, however, of the following: In a recent test of two Intel Pentium M
processors, a 2.13 GHz processor outperformed a 1.73 GHz processor by only
7%. Additionally,
the latter was $300 less expensive and added 22 minutes of battery life over
the former.

Memory.

Memory, often referred to as "RAM," is often overlooked in
favor of other components. However, memory is one of the best ways to increase
your laptop's performance, and it won't cause an appreciable reduction in battery
life. When your laptop has a lot of memory, it does not require as many paging
operations to the hard drive, eliminating one of the major bottlenecks of computer
performance. It is also more cost-effective to increase RAM on a lower-end
laptop than to purchase a higher-end laptop with a faster CPU. Typically, it
costs around $50 to $100 to upgrade a 512 MB RAM laptop to 1 GB. The cost difference
between a lower- and higher-end laptop can be upwards of $500 or more. This
type of RAM upgrade can boost performance between 10 and 20 percent. Once you
hit the 1 GB RAM plateau, more is not usually necessary. There will not be
any appreciable difference in packing on more than 1 GB of RAM unless you use
the laptop for intensive mathematics applications, graphic design, or gaming.

Hard Drive.

When shopping for hard drives, most people will usually try to
find the largest capacity they can afford. However, if you shop with a
little more diligence, you can use the hard drive to help increase the laptop's
overall performance. Laptops tricked out with Gigahertz of speed and
Gigabytes
of memory
can be bottlenecked by a slow hard drive. A drive with 5,400rpm offers
significantly better performance than a 4,200rpm drive. The difference between
the two
drives is only around $25, making this upgrade a no-brainer. You can
gain between
15 to 25 percent in performance by upgrading the hard drive.

Graphics.

Low-end laptops usually rely on an integrated graphics processing
unit (GPU). Graphic rendering in such a configuration requires increased
memory usage. Higher-end laptops, on the other hand, usually come with
a discrete,
dedicated graphics processor. While a dedicated GPU can increase graphics-rendering
performance and reduce memory consumption, it can be a drain on the battery.

Media Drives/External Storage: Just about all laptops today come with at
least a CD-ROM drive. To enhance your computing experience, you should
consider a
minimum of a CD-RW drive. An upgrade to a DVD-RW drive would be a desirable,
albeit expensive, upgrade. USB and Firewire drives can also augment your
storage for backup and archiving purposes. However, these will eat your
battery juice.
Use only when necessary.