How to buy a laptop on a budget

Great topic for a FAQ Tim, lot of work gone into it already

Battery life is a big issue for many, makers figures must be taken with a pinch of salt: 10 hours = closer to 7 hours in real-world usage, 3 hours = 2, etc. Is a larger capacity battery available for the model you're looking at?

A multi-user aka 'family' (esp. using User Switching) laptop will need a larger storage capacity, more security, more maintenance and, probably, more RAM than one used by a solo user.

A 10" screen is the smallest useable by most older adults, kids will be fine with less. If your main time is spent with applications and browsing, consider buying a laptop with a screen that isn't widescreen - vertical space could be much more useful to you than horizontal.

Don't expect a netbook (VIA/Atom/CULV CPU) to play video, game or handle Photoshop as well as a real notebook/laptop.

Don't jump at a laptop with a max. RAM limit of 4GB or less just because it has W7 64-bit installed, it'll cost you more if you find some of your current peripherals only have 32-bit drivers available and you have to buy newer versions.

(posted from a refurb, bottom of the line Acer 9" netbook with the slowest 8GB "SSD" Intel will ever produce and a battery life that's sub 1 hour - it runs a stripped version of W7 fine though)

 

LION batteries or not (mine are and still do less than 1 hour each), they'll be pissed if their new notebook dies after an hour on YouTube or some Flash-heavy site via Wireless and the blurb says the battery life is over 2 hours.

For those less tech savvy than us: peripherals = webcams, printers and scanners, etc. that are connected to your computer. A 64-bit Operating System is pointless if you can't fit 4GB of RAM or more. The more User icons you see on your login screen, the more RAM you'll need and the more time you'll spend fixing stuff 'cos one of them screwed something up.

It's down to us 'geeks' to try to enable those less savvy than ourselves, we were all n00bs once.

 

MA has a great article on How to buy a laptop on a budget on Site News today at http://majorgeeks.com/page.php?id=26

For those thinking of a new laptop, they should read this article and print it out.

IMO, it should also become a Hardware "sticky" to reduce the work for MA answering queries, and be permanently available for those in the market for a laptop.

Bazza

 

Thanks to MA for the link in post #1.
Saw some good sounding deals on desktops there also.
Will be checking it out some more later.

 

Maybe a little mention of video output?HDMI output can be a biggie that most people don't know they need until they use it and many cheap laptops don't have them to save money.

That's the only thing I can think of,nice guide.

 

Much more comprehensive, Tim .

The point I was trying to make about peripherals was that many PC's are now being sold with 64-bit Windows, even though the max. RAM for some of them is 4GB or less. This will mean that for a lot of buyers there will be an extra cost - that of replacing their current webcams and AIO devices that only have 32-bit drivers available.