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TechWareLabs Notebook Buyers Guide


Author:  Jason Jacobs
Date:  2006.12.05
Topic:  Misc Mod
Provider:  TechWareLabs
Manufacturer:  TechWareLabs





Components

The casual buyer looks at the price first and then the product to determine his or her purchase. Let's face it we are a cash driven society and everyone is always in search of a deal. The smart buyer will usually have a good idea of what product they want to buy and then go searching for the right price, one which doesnt break the bank and yet still lower than buying it at the first store they come across. For the laptop consumer this is where components come in. We will discuss the most common categories of components and the usual options you will see in everyday stores as well as online. Knowing whats inside your laptop can tell you a lot about what to expect in terms of price.

CPU: An entire article could be written comparing CPU types, speeds, and performance and that is not the function of this guide. Generally speaking dual core, which is X2, Core Duo, and Core 2 Duo, are the fastest cpu's currently available with the most processing power. CPU selection for laptops should be made with the following information in mind. Think of the Intel Celeron, Intel Core Solo, and Intel Pentium 4 as the slowest of Intel's offering with the Intel Core Duo and Intel Core 2 Duo being the fastest. Similarly think of AMD's Sempron and Turion as being the slowest of their offering. The offerings from each company below are arranged from slowest to fastest. While current benchmarks show the Core 2 Duo to be the speed and processing champion a laptop equipped with an X2 processor is more than capable of handling anything you could use it for from office productivity to gaming and will likely cost less than Intel's offering.

AMD:

Intel:

VIDEO CARD: One of the most important and most overlooked categories by the average consumer the video card in your laptop is becomming increasingly important. Video cards come in two flavors, dedicated and integrated. Dedicated video cards have a separate chip on the motherboard dedicated to processing video information, this form of video card often has memory that is meant just for it so that video does not share memory with the system ram. On the otherhand integrated video uses the cpu to process video which can reduce performance, this kind of video almost exclusively uses shared ram which will reduce the amount of ram available to the system. The video card is so important that Microsoft's new operating system Windows Vista requires an advanced video card with discreet memory to run its Aero interface. Vista will run without discreet (dedicated) graphics but it will not run Aero nor will it run well. An advanced dedicated video card is often required by many games in order to run properly so gamers beware select the laptop with a fast enough card or you may not be playing your favorite game.

Generally there are three types of vendors offering video cards. Cards are listed in order of performance for each vendor.

Intel Video Cards: Generally resulting in the least video performance, Intel video does offer good DVD and mpeg playback while conserving system power.All of Intels video cards are integrated video offerings that share ram with system ram. Laptops sporting Intel video are ideal for any consumer who does not expect to have a need for playing games or working with any 3D, video editing, or drawing programs.

ATI Video Cards: ATI offers a full range of cards from low to ultra high performance. Generally speaking as the model numbers get higher so does performance and also price.

Nvidia Video Cards: As is the case with ATI, Nvidia also offers a full lineup of video cards with the same general rule about model numbers. It should be noted that Nvidia cards also generally run hotter than their ATI equivilants which might be why Nvidia offers more models to choose from.

 

SCREEN: Not all screens are created equal. In addition to size a consumer needs to be aware that while one screen may be larger than another its resolution or image that it displays may be smaller. This is because the number of pixels or dots that create the image differ per screen. Typical resolutions that you will see advertised are as follows from smallest to largest: The majority of consumers are comfortable working at 1024x768 and 1280 x 1024 or XGA and SXGA respectively. This is the resolution that most websites are created for viewing.

RAM: This is the component most directly related to speed as its the repository for all instructions that come and go from the cpu. Ram is defined by type and quantity. Ram type will either be DDR or DDR2 with most newer laptops being offered with DDR2, the general idea here being that DDR2 is faster and offers more performance. DDR2 is additionally offered in 533Mhz and 667Mhz speeds with faster being better. Consumers will see ram in quantities of 512MB, 1024MB, and 2048MB as most commonly available. More is always better with ram and 512 is the most commonly available. If you are even considering moving to Windows Vista when its available I suggest you settle for no less than 1024 also known as 1 GB(gigabyte).

HARD DRIVE: Hard drives are defined in three ways, size (quantity of storage space), type of interface, and speed. With a hard drive speed is always in rotations per minute with 4200, 5400, and 7200 rpm being the most common. Faster is not always better with rotational speeds as 7200rpm drives eat a lot of power and can be as quick as a slower but larger storage sized 5400 rpm drive. I do not suggest that any buyer select a 4200rpm drive as it will become unbearably slow which is why this speed is very uncommon in any modern laptops. Hard drive interface for laptops is always either IDE or SATA with SATA being the faster of the two.

USB: Consumers will want at least 2 USB 2.0 ports located in a convenient spot on the laptop. Most USB ports can be found in the back of the laptop with several offering them on either side. Some laptops may have as many as 4 or more USB ports. I would suggest demanding at least USB 2.0 from a modern laptop as the speed different for your external devices using USB will be much, much greater than 1.0 or 1.1.

OPTICAL DRIVE: Most laptops currently offered utilize an optical drive which is one of two types. Either a DVDRW/CDRW or just CDRW. A DVDRW has the ability to read DVD's and CD's while simultaneously also being able to write (burn) DVD's and CD's. All DVDRW's are also CDRW's. A CDRW will have the ability to read CD's and burn CD's and may or may not also have the ability to read but not burn DVD's. Check the specifics of the laptop optical drive to be certain. If it has the ability to read DVD's it will usually be listed as a CDRW/DVD combo drive. Having the ability to at least read DVD's is important not only for DVD playback, but also for loading many programs which are more frequently being offered only on DVD such as Windows Vista.

WIRELESS: Wireless is truly one of the key reasons laptops are as popular as they have become, as such it is very important to get a wireless equipped laptop. Almost all currently built laptops will come with some form of wireless as a standard feature. You should not expect to pay extra for this feature as it's nearly a standard now. Similarly you should look for at least a wireless 802.11 B/G card and not simply 802.11 B which is much slower and has less range. It's easy to tell them apart in the notebook description as well, if it does not state B/G or G then its only B. Some manufacturers such as Dell are even offering wireless N ,however, unless you have a wireless N router you will receive only the benefit of greater range and may even run into compatibility problems with certain wireless access points. Here we would have to suggest a wireless G card, additionally we are preferential to the Intel 3945 wireless over the Dell branded 1390 and others. The selection is very close though with most wireless cards offering similar service and speeds that are rated the same.

BLUETOOTH: Bluetooth is a mixed bag for many consumers. While the primary use many users will see for bluetooth is the ability to use a bluetooth enabled cell phone for online browsing and exchange of information and contacts, bluetooth can also be used for notebook mice and several other accessories like headsets. Bluetooth is not found on all notebooks but is a selection on nearly all notebooks that you can configure online. You can expect to pay anywhere from $30-70 for this option for Bluetooth 2.0.

Now lets take a look at several scenarios to help you make a selection.



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