Thursday, March 20, 2008

A few tips for future laptop shoppers

It’s been about 8 years since I last bought a brand new laptop. In researching for my recent purchase, I learned a lot of things. The best brands will always be up for debate, but there are a few universal gems of information that might come in handy for you when it’s time for you to go laptop shopping.

• If your laptop is going to come with Vista whether you like it or not, make sure you have at least 2GB of memory on there, otherwise the thing is going to crawl.
• If you don’t feel the need to shop for bargains or clearances, special order your laptop so you can specify all the hardware you’ll need, as well as which OS you’ll prefer. This way you’ll end up with a laptop you love instead of one you have to get used to. I know you can do this with Dell, not sure where else.
• Many of the laptop-producing companies offer a consumer line of laptops and a business line. Not sure why they think consumers needs wimpier, less reliable equipement, but you’re better off ordering from their business line if you can. Toshiba’s Satellite line is for consumers, while their Tecra line is aimed at businesses. My last laptop, which I got used, is a Tecra and I had no problems with it at all.
• If you plan on replacing Vista with XP, make sure you have all drivers available for the model laptop you are buying. Many manufacturers design their hardware to work with a specific OS (dumbasses).
• If you’re considering purchasing an open box item (like I did), do a thorough check for dead pixels. Many LCD screens, regardless of brand, ship with pixels that display incorrect colors or no colors at all. Look at the screen with an all-black background, then an all-white background. I forgot to do this and found that against black there is one pixel that stays red. However it works correctly for most other colors. I decided I could live with it, especially for the price I got it at.