Five Things to Consider When Buying a Laptop

by Terrence O'Brien — Feb 18th 2008 at 6:18PM

Buying a new laptop can be a daunting task. First off, there are many more factors to take into account when buying a laptop than when buying a desktop PC -- size and battery, for example. Budget laptops can be alluring, but will they have the horsepower you need for daily computing tasks? What difference does having an AMD or Intel processor make? And how do you make sense of the alphabet soup that is Wi-Fi (802.11a, b, g, n)? Well, dear reader, and potential buyer, Switched is here to help you wade through the spec lists you see on those Sunday circulars and help you make the best of your laptop money. Take a look at our crib sheet of five things to consider when picking out your new portable, which starts on the next page, so click below....

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Tags: amd, features, intel, laptop, Laptop Buying Guides, LaptopBuyingGuides, wi-fi, wifi

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 4)

brettze said 2:13PM on 2-05-2008

I will never buy another laptop until it is using flash memory instead of hard drive. I can add as many flash cards as I wish. Hard drives eat up battery time. Also, I am waiting for a new advanced type of LCD screen called OLED that is self illuminating instead of using thin spaghetti like flourscent tubes as back lighting for LCD screen. I had taken apart an old LCD monitor and was horrified to see flourescent tubes behind the screen. They are so flimsy looking!!! I dont like today's technology already! I will rather wait for bigger flash cards and OLED screens to come along before I buy antoher laptop.

darknight815 said 7:04PM on 3-19-2009

what the hell are you talking about?
thats like saying i rather use lighter fluid to drive my car.

Mr. Irons said 3:23PM on 2-05-2008

Flash drives, as a main? Are you an idiot? Flash Drives are ment to be cheap temporary storage units between machines. Relying on a platform that has speed degradtion and data corruption rates as it ages is highly ignorant and foolish for a permanant storage medium.

Protocol said 3:47PM on 2-05-2008

The Best Selling Person in America Is?
Mrs. Hillary Rodham Clinton!!!

The Best Selling Product In America Is?
The Re-Chargeable Battery For A Laptop!!!

No. 2: Multi-Media Web-Based TV Stations ***^^
No. 3: Construction Equipment & Supplies *****

Barbara Finger said 3:55PM on 2-05-2008

Just buy a Mac if you want to be happy and avoid viruses etc.

Paul Vernon said 4:01PM on 2-05-2008

Very helpful article for a novice like me...but what is #1 (of the 5)?

darknight815 said 6:53PM on 3-19-2009

lol macs. but of the 5 i have seen lots of those asus laptops on campus. They last pretty long and are much lighter then most.
the dell is horrible but best at online support. So its hard either way you take it.

Charles Carter said 4:05PM on 2-05-2008

I have used computers for a very long time and I can assure you that the newest computer you buy today will be a dinosaur in another year.

Richard said 4:28PM on 2-05-2008

Good luck with that wait! You won't be purchasing a laptop until 2015 or so if those are your requirements.

Richard said 4:32PM on 2-05-2008

My previous comment was directed at the first poster. Took me a while to confirm.

As for the second poster, Mr. Irons, welcome to the world of computing. He is referring to SSD, solid state disks, which are a form of flash memory that WILL replace hard drives. They are great for their extremely fast read/write speeds, lower power consumption, and better reliability as they have no moving parts that can wear out. He is not referring to the little usb keychains that people use.

tony said 4:33PM on 2-05-2008

WHATS THE DIFFERENCE IN "CORE 2 DUO" AND "DUAL CORE"?

Dells said 4:44PM on 2-05-2008

Are dells really all that bad? I still don't understand the problem they have with the RAM.. Can someone please explain?

Zachary Peter Mehlek said 11:53PM on 8-07-2008

Well ya its not the ram with mine. My first one was a Damension 4300 and it would last for a long time but what was weird about it was that every time it crashed the hard drive would wer it self out and everytime I called for a replacement hard drive the warrenty would exspire and every time the warrenty exspired the hard drive would just terminate itself for some reason and the hard drive was a Dell product made for microsoft.

karl said 5:01PM on 2-05-2008

Whoever wrote this article doesn't know much about computers. Get your own second, opinion and believe what this article says.

ruff ready said 2:12PM on 8-06-2008

Not a good comparison article. Yes, PCs are great for games. Tv on any mac is easy,,, think elGato. and running Vista on a mac laptop in Boot camp mode is NOT running two operating systems at the same time. I can run any windows program on my intel mac. I can even run On my PC laptop using my mac, I can watch TV ( HD ) Mac and windows systems interface easily.

If you are going to compare: compare apples and apples. Ie compare units that have equivalent features. PCs are ok, Macs are great ....

Becki said 5:07PM on 2-05-2008

Only a idiot would call someone else an idiot...can't you just answer without calling names? So childish to see this on blogs.

Mike said 5:24PM on 2-05-2008

I have had bad experinence with Dell computers. So did two of my friends.Getting parts for it and even the tech. help was very painfull. Phone handling and awaiting for someone to help was long, frustrating and it took two days to be able to order a part. Technician on phone, did not know more than I did. Very time consuming. Also, they had problem with BIOS at first and other problems later.
That is why I would never buy a DELL period.

tootsie said 5:38PM on 2-05-2008

We all have our personal likes and dislikes. That does not make any of us stupid or an idiot. Except for the price...it is like do you want loafers or tie shoes, american, german or japanese car? the list is endless. Being mean is what makes one wrong and stupid and idiotic as far as I am concerned.

henry holowzak said 5:48PM on 2-05-2008

I think these sites are set up to move "dreck"

henry holowzak said 5:50PM on 2-05-2008

I think these sites are set up to move "dreck"

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