Mouprise.com

Guide to buying a laptop

One question our customers always want to know is what type of laptop they should buy.

What a loaded question!

First, we need to answer some very important questions:

1. Is this a home laptop or a business laptop?

• Home laptops are currently targeted at more entertainment-oriented users. They’re mostly designed with glossy screens, have larger (but slower) hard drives, and have features like Blu-Ray players. Performance is only really a consideration on high-end machines aimed at gamers. And since most home laptops hardly ever leave the house, the fact that it’s a laptop is hardly a concern. Battery life is generally not that great, and cases tend to be made of cheap plastic that can’t withstand the rigors of travel.

• Commercial laptops are built with more rugged designs. They are designed to be worn 8 or more hours per day virtually non-stop. They are also made with higher quality parts that are designed to last longer between failures. They also have longer warranties with better service. Think about it: if these laptops are aimed at Fortune 1000 companies, those companies aren’t going to put up with hard drives that fail after a year. These factors tend to make business laptops cost 10-15% more than home laptops.

2. How long do you need the laptop to last before you replace it?

• Why do I ask you that? It’s simple: current trends show that most home users replace their laptops and desktops every 2 ½ to 3 years. Generally speaking, it’s easy for home users to move their pictures and music to the new computer and maybe reinstall a couple of simple apps.

• For businesses, there are a couple of additional factors to consider. First, the transfer of software and data from old to new systems is significantly more difficult and therefore more expensive. While the data is being transferred, many times the employee is unable to work, which costs the company more money. The second is that companies must follow Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) which tells them that computers must be depreciated off the books over 4 years. So that laptop better last 4 years!

3. Are you going to travel a lot with the laptop?

• Trust me: if you’re going to be traveling a lot, you DON’T want the 17″ monstrosity. It’s 11 pounds, and then you add the cables, laptop case, mouse, and… You’ll see where I’m going with this. ?

• If you talk to any of your business friends who have to travel a lot for work, they tend to have smaller laptops with long-lasting batteries. 14″ inches is a pretty standard size for full-featured laptops, and you can even get them with 12″ or 13″ screens, but the price goes way up for those.

• Here’s an interesting fact to consider: On American Airlines, because of the way the seats are designed, the tray will only easily accommodate a 14″ or smaller screen. With a 15″ screen, the lid won’t have room to open. completely and you can’t see your screen unless the laptop is practically resting on your stomach.

4. What kind of budget do you have?

• People ask “what can I get for $500?” to which the answer is “not good”. Always buy 20-30% more power than you need. Why? Because we plan to keep this for 3-5 years. Technology is changing around us so fast that system requirements are constantly increasing. In 2001, when Windows XP first came out, Microsoft said that it only needed 64 megabytes of RAM to run. After 9 years of updates, fixes and patches, it needs 512 megabytes to work and 1 gigabyte to work well. Our software needs will continue to grow, and it’s now much cheaper to plan for the future.

• If you buy a laptop for $500 now that it’s barely doing the job, life will be really bad in 3 years when everything runs at a snail’s pace. To me the purchase price is $750 (not including software like Microsoft Office) for a good solid business laptop with a 1 year next business day onsite warranty.

5. What kind of warranty does it come with?

• Always ask/research what type of warranty comes with the laptop. Many low-end laptops have 1-year mail-in warranties. If something happens, you need to pack the laptop and send it to the repair center. They always say they are not responsible for data loss on the hard drive, so they tell you to back up the drive first (always a good idea to back up!). It may take 5-15 business days to get your laptop back.

• What if you are a business user? Can you live without your laptop even for 5 days? Can you have employees without for 5 days? Only buy laptops that have a 1 year onsite next business day warranty, and always see if you can upgrade to a 3 or 4 year. After all, if you have to keep it on the books for 4 years, it’s probably worth $150 to have it under warranty all the time.

6. Do you need “always on” connectivity?

• For years, almost all laptop computers have had wireless as a standard feature. Whether you’re at the local coffee shop or a hotel room, you’ll connect. Recently, we have seen a huge increase in users, especially business professionals, who NEED to be connected all the time. It can be for constant access to customers by email or to use an application over the Internet. For your always-on solution, you can always go to AT&T/Verizon/Sprint and buy a USB Wi-Fi card and a subscription to connect via cell towers across the country. Or now you can buy built-in Wi-Fi connectivity directly into the laptop to make it easier to use. No more dongles!

7. Do you have the right operating system for you?

• No doubt I’m a big fan of Windows 7. Just make sure if you’re buying a business laptop that you get Windows 7 Professional or Windows XP Professional so you can connect to your server.

8. Do you really need a full-featured laptop? If not, consider a netbook.

• Well, I’ve already used the term “full-featured” twice. I’m referring to the fact that most laptops work roughly like a desktop computer. In recent years, there has been a rise of a whole new class of laptops called netbooks. Netbooks are smaller than laptops (8″ or 10″ screens), have very low power consumption (so batteries last longer), and significantly lighter (some weigh 1 pound). However, at some point there have to be trade-offs slower than laptops – in fact netbooks are closer to par with laptops of 8 or 10 years ago what they’re really good at is quickly checking your email, a couple of websites, perhaps editing Microsoft Word or Excel files.Most people don’t use them as their only computer, but rather as a second device for traveling.

9. The extras!! It’s nice to have, but usually not necessary.

• Do you want to watch movies on it? Make sure it has a Blu-Ray player and an HD screen. For true HD, you need the resolution to be 1920 × 1080 or higher. Any less and the computer has to simplify the image to fit your screen?

• Do you want to connect your phone or a wireless headset? Get Bluetooth built into the system. It’s also good to use with a travel mouse or even a keyboard.

• Use it a lot in low light? Look for backlit keys.

• Do you need to do presentations with him? Make sure it at least has VGA output. The best systems have VGA and HDMI output.

• Do you want better graphics? Look for ATI or NVidia video chipsets in the list of features. Both companies specialize in high-end video subsystems and will really make Windows 7, movies, and games amazing.