Alright, you've made up your mind to get a craptop, errr.... laptop and you're looking at all the different brands and configurations, scratching your head and wondering "WTH have I gotten myself into?" FEAR NOT DEAR FRIENDS! As a former salesman at tigerdirect.ca I can give you completely unbiased and truthful information, hopefully I can dispel a lot of myths surrounding laptop purchases.
Myth #1 - Processing power is all-important.
Actually, as with everything else, it completely depends on the application. Most people who buy laptops buy them for school or for work. Some buy them as their primary computer because they don't have a lot of room at home and so they assume that they need a powerful processor in order to do the everyday tasks they bought the laptop to do. The fact is, 90% of what people do on computers hasn't really changed since the days of Windows 95. Hardware has advanced much faster than software has. I was browsing with netscape and internet exploder back when I had a Pentium-I. You can't tell me that office applications need much either. I was using WordPerfect with an original IBM PC! LOL
Myth #2 - Brand matters
This is one of my favourites because it REALLY shows just how ignorant human beings can be. As someone who sold these things for a living at one of the largest computer retailers in Canada (hell, in North America) I can tell you a few things about the marketing behind the laptops and help you cut through all the BS.
The only difference between one brand and another is appearance (and sometimes quirky features that few people, if any, ever use). Laptops are like people, under the skin we're all pretty much the same. No matter what brand the laptop is, whether it's Acer, HP, Dell, Gateway, Lenovo, Compaq, ASUS, eMachines, Alienware, MSI, Toshiba or Packard-Bell, they're all made with the same internals from Intel, AMD, VIA, ARM, nVidia, ATi, Seagate, Hitachi, Western Digital, Foxconn, etc. They're also ALL MADE IN CHINA which means that most likely that they didn't even design the thing to begin with, they just bought the rights to a Chinese design, threw their name on it and marketed the hell out of it in North America. Also keep in mind that Acer owns Gateway, eMachines and Packard-Bell while HP owns Compaq and Dell owns Alienware. If you think they don't try to keep as many common parts as possible to keep costs down and profits up, you really should give your head a shake. Specs such as Hard Drive Space, RAM, Operating System, WiFi type, Bluetooth Compatibility, LED vs. Fluorescent backlighting and display size are the specs you should be looking at. Battery life is also a consideration but be sure to check how much a replacement battery will cost because you will most likely be replacing the battery at least once in the lifetime of your laptop. A battery with double the life might cost 5x the price to replace. No battery lives forever. Typically, eBay is the best source for replacement batteries.
Myth #3 - School home/laptops should be expensive to make sure they don't become obsolete.
This is the biggest pile of crap I've ever heard. I attend university and I use an eMachines E620-5885. Here's the specs:
CPU: Athlon 64 2650e 1.6GHz Single-Core
RAM: 2GB DDR2
Hard Drive: 160GB SATA
Graphics: ATi Radeon X1200
WiFi: Wireless-G
OS: Originally Vista Home Basic (gasp!), downgraded to XP Professional (Thank god!)
Optical: Dual-Layer DVD-RW
This machine (which I am typing on as we speak), from a specs perspective is rather primitive. The question is, since it runs everything I want it to (including most online games), why do I need to worry? Word and Powerpoint both work perfectly and probably would on an old Pentium-1. Programs like that, along with Firefox and other browsers were originally designed for much older machines and so even a machine like mine will be perfect for the average user who surfs the net, plays light games and does schoolwork. Even my old Pentium-3 laptop does these things. (I upgraded because after 9 years, it was physically falling apart but I use it for my magic jack now.) Believe me, my ATi X1200 is one of the LOWEST-scoring GPUs in benchmark tests but it's still fine.
Myth #4 - You should periodically drain your laptop battery completely and charge it up again
Hell no, you don't want to do that. Lithium-Ion batteries are not like the old Nickel-Cadmium rechargeables. They do not develop a memory from unscheduled charging and do NOT respond well to deep-cycling (draining completely and then recharging). That will kill a Lithium-Ion cell almost as fast as too much heat. Ideally, you would keep it plugged in all the time and the battery would last forever (which would defeat the purpose of having a laptop) but as long as you never drain it completely it will last for years. There isn't a huge difference between running it down to 10% as opposed to charging it from 90% from a battery life standpoint but keeping it as fully charged as possible at all times will make the battery more or less immortal.
Myth #5 - Intel is better than AMD / AMD is better than Intel
Again, your application makes all the difference here. If you do actual heavy-duty computing like video encoding, etc. Then yes, Intel is the way to go. If, on the other hand, you want it for simple purposes or for gaming, then AMD is the way to go. Here's my explanation:
Intel's mobile CPUs are superior in processing power to AMD's in the same price range. That means that they are better for heavy multitasking (I mean a LOT of tasks because all CPUs can multitask reasonably well, even single-cores, remember the Pentium-4?) but they have a serious thorn in their side, namely, the Intel GMA series graphics processors. Intel offsets this with outstanding battery life by using their Centrino technology but not all Intel-based laptops have this feature. If all you do is simple tasks at home like banking, surfing the web, playing music and watching movies, well, we were doing those exact things back in the days of Windows 95 with our Pentium I's and 486DX4-100's! You don't need serious power for that. Hell, my OLD Dell Latitude C610 with an ORIGINAL Mobility Radeon having only 16MB of dedicated video RAM and 512MB of PC100 SDRAM plays NHL games streamed from cbc.ca FLAWLESSLY! Keep in mind that 2D graphics such as movies and photo editing are a snap for even the old ATi Rage and nVidia TNT2 series cards. Modern notebook GPUs are far more powerful than that. I'll compare two like-priced 15.6" laptops, one that is Intel-based, and one that is AMD-based, both at around the $500USD mark:
Lenovo G550 - $500
CPU: Intel Pentium Dual-Core T4400 2.2GHz
RAM: 4GB DDR3
Hard Drive: 250GB SATA
Graphics: Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 4500MHD
WiFi: Wireless-G
Operating System: Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
Optical: Dual-Layer DVD-RW
Acer Aspire AS5517-5358 - $500
CPU: AMD Athlon 64x2 TK-42 1.6GHz
RAM: 4GB DDR2
Hard Drive: 320GB SATA
Graphics: ATi Mobility Radeon HD 3200
WiFi: Wireless-G
Operating System: Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
Optical: Dual-Layer DVD-RW
Now in this case, the T4400 is considerably more powerful than the TK-42 and DDR3 is superior to DDR2 so the processing speed advantage is clearly Lenovo's . On the other hand, the Acer has a 70GB advantage in hard drive space and the HD 3200 blows the GMA 4500MHD clear out of the water as far as graphics performance is concerned, which means faster gaming. According to notebookcheck.net, the T4400 has a front side bus of 1GHz while the TK-42 only has a front-side bus of 800MHz. Coupled with the fact that the T4400 alone is 72% faster than the TK-42, we can expect to see almost double the speed out of the Intel chip compared to the AMD chip. One would think that this would make it an easy decision, think again. The reason for this is that the HD 3200 GPU has almost triple the 3DMark06 score (1294) compared to the GMA 4500MHD(483). Couple that with the 62% frame rate advantage it enjoys in World of Warcraft and you immediately realise that if you want to do anything graphically-intensive (like gaming), the power of the GPU will make a much bigger difference, especially when you consider that some games do not run AT ALL with Intel graphics. ATi or nVidia graphics ensure game compatibility. While CPU speed is always nice, when a game won't run AT ALL because you have Intel graphics, it means it will NEVER run on that laptop until the software company makes a patch to support Intel graphics. Since laptops are a tiny percentage of computers used for gaming of any kind, the odds of the developer putting the time and/or money into developing said patch is remote at best. (They're probably never going to make one.)
Netbooks:
Netbooks are almost all essentially the same with the Intel Atom 1.6GHz CPU,1GB RAM, 160GB HD, XP Home and Intel graphics. The only way to distinguish one from the other is through battery life and warranty. In the same price category you can expect them all to have the same specs. If there's one you like the look of better than the rest, then go for it but don't expect a performance difference between them unless you're willing to cough up extra $$$ for an SSD or faster CPU. Make sure you know what battery you're getting because some manufacturers bundle a 3-cell Lithium-Ion battery and some bundle a 6-cell Lithium-Ion battery. As before, be sure to find out what the price is for a replacement. Again, eBay is the best source for that.
Laptops vs. Desktops:
If you're thinking of buying a super-powerful laptop, I implore you not to. Laptops cannot be upgraded and are therefore technological dead-ends. For the price of a super-powerful laptop, you could pick up a desktop that is equal to or more powerful than the super-powerful laptop you're looking at AND get a $500 laptop for the same price. If you just need the laptop for mobility, then this combo is the way to go.
I hope this helps you wade through the sea of marketing BS and expensive sparkly glitter. Remember, a laptop is NOT a fashion statement unless you have money to burn. I know I don't and you probably don't either, take care.
If you have any questions about Laptops (or desktops for that matter), you can send me a pvt message or laptop questions can go here.
SOURCES: notebookcheck.net, cpubenchmark.net
If you like what you read here, please post a reply so that this thread doesn't get buried. I'd like it to be stickied but nobody answers me.
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