|
You’ve begun browsing at your local electronics
or office supply store or online to see what your options are.
At your local electronics store, you find a
wide variety of options. So many brands! HP, Compaq, Fujitsu,
Averatec, Sony, Toshiba …. Online you find even more brands; ASUS,
Acer, Gateway, the “Biggie” Dell…
According to Stephen Waddington, Technology
Focus in Writing Magazine, Vol. 10 No. 5,
“For the uninitiated, buying a computer can be daunting.”
Which One is
best?
Thankfully we have come a long way from the
days when computers were new technology and our only choices were
Radio Shack or Apple. I chose the Radio Shack TRS-80 (often called
the Trash 80). But so many choices can be confusing and
overwhelming. How do you determine which laptop is best?
You look at the screens, hoping they
will tell you something. Some are quite small, others larger. All
display a “neat” picture that is sharp, vivid and colorful. Often a
demo program is running to show you the benefits of buying that
specific model of laptop. The screens and the demo programs aren’t
much help in pointing you to the best laptop, so you look below the
computer to the store shelf, at the price and specifications.
So many letters and numbers; GB, KB, MB,
b/g, Kbps, DDR, RAM, LAN, USB, OS, XP, UTP, OLEDS, GHz, SVGA, XGA,
WXGA, TFT, LCD, and PCMCIA just for starters. What do they mean? How
critical is your understanding of these terms for choosing the best
laptop?
You look at the price, placed so
prominently on the display. When you consider alternatives to
spending your hard earned cash on a new laptop computer, you realize
the cost of a laptop is two to three times that of the average
desktop computer. For the price of a laptop you could take your
family or friends out to dinner and a movie many times over the next
year. You could book an airline ticket to an exciting “vacation
spot.” If you are going to spend $1,000.00 to $2,000.00, or more,
you certainly want to end up with the best computer. Does more
expensive mean better, faster, and more dependable.
Laptop prices online tend to be less expensive
than those in many stores. After much price comparison, you discover
that Dell seems to the be one of the least expensive laptops. They
are a big name in the business and have been in business a long
time. Does that make Dell the best computer?
What will you
use your laptop for?
Possible uses include; games, entertainment,
business and as a desktop replacement. Will you be carrying the new
laptop from your office to your home every day, or will you be
leaving it at the office to use for the occasional meeting and
business conference? Will your new laptop be part of your travel
wardrobe 50 weeks out of the year, or will it sit on your home
office desk holding down papers most of the time. Will you be using
it to make PowerPoint presentations to a large conference? Do you
need to have your laptop play the newest DVD movie on that long Los
Angeles to New York flight? How do these uses impact your purchase?
Won’t any laptop work for any and all of your needs?
Laptop computers today are the equal of most
desktop computers. The can be used for any purpose that a desktop
can with the possible exception of the high end servers. Intel
states that,
“Notebooks are fast
becoming the de Facto standard computing tool. With desktop-like
performance, a notebook PC is just as useful to your office staff as
your remote or sales employees.”
The Yankee Group, a Boston-based research and
consulting firm estimates that 50 million people, about 38% of the
nation’s working population, are mobile workers. Mobile workers are
defined as those who spend at least 20% of their time away from
their primary work place.
In the corporate world, analyst Eugene
Signorini, of the Yankee Group (a Boston based research group and
consulting firm) notes:
“Small and midsized
companies send up to 40% of their work forces on the road with some
sort of road warrior technology including laptops, PDAs and cell
phones.”
He further notes:
“Deciding how to
equip there workers can be a daunting task because different
employees need different tools. Top executives need to be in
constant contact for conversation, and to receive long reports, long
memos, PowerPoint presentations and the like. Lawyers and
accountants must access long-form PDF files and spreadsheets. Sales
people require secure and reliable access to capture and submit
orders.”
What software
will you use with your new laptop?
Do you plan to use your laptop with the newest
version of HALO 2® (a fantastic Microsoft Interactive
Game)? Will you use your new laptop to type up that History 101 or
English term paper using Microsoft Word 2003®? Will you
be creating a 3-D model of that new building addition using the
latest version of Autodesk AutoCAD®? Do you intend to
store and edit your family photos using a simple program like
PhotoSuite. Or will you use a much more complex program like Adobe
Photoshop® to edit and merge two 100 megabyte photographs
for your Microsoft PowerPoint® presentation?
What is the difference between that $895.00
laptop special at my local electronics store, and the $2,000.00 high
end laptop online? Aren’t all computers basically the same? After
all, they all have hard drives; memory, a keyboard and a screen, and
they all look good running the display programs on the store
shelves.
This is the reason for an eBook like How
to Choose the Right Laptop for Your Needs. Using this eBook,
you will discover:
- How to effectively compare laptop
computers
- What qualities will make a specific laptop
right for your needs
- Which peripherals and software will make
your ultraportable laptop most effective
The information in this eBook could easily save
you hundreds on your ultraportable laptop purchase. It will allow
you to purchase a laptop that will be “customized” to your specific
needs, while saving you money on features that you probably don’t
need. You will understand the “technospeak” in the store displays,
internet advertisements and computer magazines.
You can download this eBook directly from our
Writers Laptop website. There is no need to wait. How to
Choose the Right Laptop for Your Needs is also available on
CD-ROM. This CD includes several very informative whitepapers and
articles on laptop security and laptop software.
You can purchase this downloadable Adobe PDF
eBook for $14.95 or eBook CD for only $24.95 at:
WritersLaptop.com
By H. Court Young
December 2005 |
