The Computer Zone

So before I start this isn’t going to be another Mac vs. PC or a guy suggesting you go out and buy yourself a $5000+ gaming beast. I’m going to go through most of the main components in a laptop and describe what you should be looking for based on the type of things you’ll be doing with your laptop. The main categories of laptop usage that I’ll talk about are:

1. Casual use (programming, light graphics, light gaming, usage time: 0 - 1hr)
2. Moderate use (video / sound editing, lots of gaming, everything in casual use, usage time: 2hr - 4hrs)
3. Heavy use (tonnes of gaming, professional video / sound / graphical editing and everything in moderate use, usage time: 4hrs - 24hrs)

The components I’ll go into detail later on are:

1. Screen
2. Processor
3. RAM (Random Access Memory)
4. Hard Drive
5. Graphics Card

After going through each of these I’ll then provide a few suggested laptops for each category of usage. So lets get started shall we?

Screen
Selecting a laptop’s screen is very much a personal decision. Some people, no matter how much they will use their laptop, will want a smaller screen, and others a larger screen. If you want to keep the size of your laptop as low as possible you can opt for a higher quality screen with a higher resolution. For example a 15.4″ screen with a resolution of 1920×1200 will provide you with much more space than a resolution of 1280×768.

• Casual Use: Since you’re not going to be using your laptop that much, you’ll probably not want to spend a lot of money on an expensive screen. Higher resolution screens aren’t a necessity either since you probably won’t be playing many games. A 12.1″ or 15.4″ display will be perfect for the internet and email use.
• Moderate Use: So if your in this category you’re going to be spending more time with your computer. You’ll have some gaming and video editing so you’re going to have a better screen. At this point a 15.4″ screen is the minimum size you’ll want to have. A 17″ screen will give you more space to view your desktop and will provide a large amount of detail.
• Heavy Use: Since you’re spending at least 4 hours on your computer you’re going to want a beautiful screen to look at. A 17″+ screen will make being on your laptop a viewing pleasure. Basically, when you’re using your laptop as much as this you’re going to want the best you can have. Dell recently came out with their 20″ laptop. While this does add a lot of weight, you’ll never get tired of it.

Processor
The processor is going to be your most important choice while choosing your laptop. It will determine how fast your computer runs as well as how long the battery life lasts.

• Casual Use: Since you’re not going to be using CPU intensive programs (such as video editing and gaming) you’re probably not wanting to spend a large amount on the newest fastest processors. An Intel Centrino Core Duo T2050 at 1.6GHz or an AMD Turion 64 X2 TL-50 1.6GHz will be perfect. Both feature a moderate clock rate and are fairly cheap.
  
• Moderate Use: Now that you’re going to be using a lot more graphical programs and games you’re going to want a processor that can handle it. An Inte Centrino Core 2 Duo T5600 1.83GHz will work very well. This processor features two cores, essentially two processors in one. The processor can do more computations in a second and therefore will produce faster results.
  
• Heavy Use: You’re going to want a blazing fast processor to handle everything you need. A dual core is a must if you’re going to want to be able to render quickly. An Intel Core 2 Extreme X6800 at 2.93GHz will provide you with everything you need or could hope for. The only problem with this processor is that it tends to run hot and will suck your battery dry.

RAM
RAM is used as the “main memory” of the computer. Basically this means the working area used for loading, displaying and manipulating applications and data. There are different types of RAM (DDR, DIMM, etc.) but laptops use SO-DIMM (which is just a smaller version of the DIMM RAM). If you’re going to run Windows Vista on your laptop you should have at least 1GB of RAM.

• Casual Use: RAM’s not going to be a very big deal for you. 512MB to 1GB will be plenty for you to run all of your necessary programs. If you are going to do any gaming / editing you’ll probably want 1GB of RAM.
• Moderate Use: You’re going to want a bit more RAM for to run all of the games and programs you’ll be using. 1GB to 2GB should be plenty to run everything. Since most laptops only have two (2) SO-DIMM slots getting one stick of 1GB and one stick of 512MB would be a good way to keep the costs down while maximizing your systems performance
• Heavy Use: To make sure your games run smoothly and your graphics render quickly you’re going to want to maximize the amount of RAM you have in your system. 4GB is the maximum you can go (for now). Two 2GB sticks of SO-DIMM RAM will make everything run nicely.

Hard Drive
Hard drives aren’t as important as the other components, they are your main storage place. This is where you are going to store all of your information for applications and data. Laptop drives are generally 2.5″ hard drives.

Now, other than the actual size of the hard drive there is one other thing to consider: the speed of the drive. Most laptops come with a hard drive that spins at 5400RPMs. This means that every second the spindle (in the drive) spins 90 times. Hitachi released the first ever 2.5″ drive with an RPM count of 7200 called the Travelstar 7k60. Having a hard drive that spins faster means you’ll be able to access your data quicker, but it also comes with a setback. Faster drives consume a lot more power and can drain your batter quicker. For most use, a 5400RPM drive will be what you need.

If you can’t get enough storage space there are a few alternatives. The first would be to buy an external hard drive. Basically this is just a hard drive (generally 3.5″) put into an outer case that will connect to your laptop through a USB or FireWire port. The normal size for an external drive is 250GB but they can go all the way up to 2TB drive. The second alternative would be to back up your information onto DVD’s. This would require you to have a DVD Burner in your laptop.

• Casual Use: You’re only going to need the hard drive for storing data. The size is totally dependent on how many things you’re going to store. Anywhere from 60GB to 100GB will probably be enough for you.
• Moderate Use & Heavy Use: You’ll want to get the largest possible hard drive. So far I’ve seen 160GB drives for laptops. A few extremely high-end systems have two 100GB hard drives that are RAID 0 for extra performance. A couple HP laptops now have two 160GB drives.

Graphics Card
One of the problems with laptops is that you cannot change / upgrade them very easily. As far as I know it’s almost impossible to upgrade a graphics card so make sure you buy your laptop with the graphics card you want.

• Casual Use: Since you’re not going to be using your laptop for anything that needs a lot of graphical power, you probably don’t want to spend a premium for a really good graphics card. An Intel or ATI Radeon Xpress integrated graphics card with at least 128MB will be sufficient for all of your needs.
• Moderate Use: If your laptop usage falls into this category you’re going to want a dedicated graphics card to display your games and graphics. A NVIDIA GeForce Go 6100 with 128MB will be perfect for you. This will display very crisp graphics that you’ll enjoy looking at.
• Heavy Use: You’re going to want the best graphics card available for laptops. I f you have the money to spend you really can’t go wrong with a NVIDIA 7950GTX with 512MB. A cheaper option would be the ATI MOBILITY FireGL V5200 with 256MB. Both of these will give you excellent graphics and will be a pleasure to view

*For the casual use system you’re going to be looking at a price between $500 - $1000 approx. For the moderate use you’ll be set back between $1001 - $1600. And for the heavy use it’ll be $1601 and higher. All of these prices are in Canadian currency at the time of this article.

As you will have seen after reading this guide the difference in systems can vary by a lot and in most cases it’s just a matter of taste. I hope you’ve found this guide helpful and I hope you’ll check back here from time to time to read more articles like this.

*All prices are in Canadian currency and taken at the time of this post.

This entry was posted on Sunday, October 7th, 2007 at 11:00 am and is filed under Guides, Hardware / Gadgets / Hacks. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.