How to Buy a Laptop

Given the mind-boggling selection available today, picking the right laptop can be downright daunting. That's why we're here to help. written By Shaan Ali Ch CEO of Brainstechnology Sheikhupura (www.Brainstechnology.net)

One size fits all? Just the opposite: If there's one thing that characterizes the laptop market, it's the array of sizes and styles to choose from—flyweights that barely tip the scale at 2.5 pounds, lap-crushing behemoths of 10 pounds or more, and everything in between. Indeed, venturing online or into an electronics store to pick a laptop can be an overwhelming experience if you're not prepared for all the choices and focused on your needs.
That's where this buying guide comes in. We'll brief you on the latest buzzwords and trends, help you decide which features matter most, and get you ready to buy the right portable for you, whether it's a super-slim ultrabook or heavy-duty desktop replacement.

The 14-Inch Dividing Line
You don't hear much about netbooks anymore, and you don't see the bare-bones minis with 10.6-inch (measured diagonally) screens, cramped keyboards, sluggish single-core processors, and a skimpy 1GB of RAM that defined the netbook category in, say, 2009. Apple's iPad and other tablets have horned in on their light-duty, Web surfing and occasional word processing territory.
But netbooks' enhanced successors are alive and well in the lower half of the ultraportable market, where 11.6-inch and 12.5-inch laptops with comfortable keyboards and relatively perky processing power such as the Lenovo ThinkPad X130e and HP Pavilion dm1-3010nr hold sway. These systems typically weigh between 3 and 3.5 pounds and often feature AMD APU (accelerated processing unit) chips that combine a CPU and GPU on the same die.
In the upper half of the ultraportable market are 12.5- and 13.3-inch laptops that usually rely on Intel Core processors. Some, like the 12.5-inch, 4.3-pound HP EliteBook 2560p (Best Deal: $739.97 at CompUSA) and 13.3-inch, 3.2-pound Toshiba Portege R835-P88 (Best Deal: $779.99 at TigerDirect), find room for onboard optical drives; some, like the 12.5-inch, 3.3-pound Lenovo ThinkPad X220 , don't. All offer full-sized keyboards and enough horsepower for desktop applications. Right now, the hottest part of the ultraportable segment falls under an Intel-trademarked term called ultrabook; more on ultrabooks in a minute.
Fourteen-inch laptops like the Lenovo IdeaPad U400 (Best Deal: $499.99 at TigerDirect.com) and Gateway ID47H07u (Best Deal: $529.97 at TigerDirect.com) are more or less the largest that get carried daily in briefcases and backpacks as opposed to mostly staying on desks. PCMag recommends 13.3- and 14-inch portables to frequent travelers and habitually refers to 15-inch and larger notebooks as desktop replacements (although jet-setters can find a few 15-inch systems, like the Sony VAIO VPC-SE23FX/S and Apple MacBook Pro 15-inch (late 2011) , that are thinner and lighter than most 14-inchers).
Whether they're bargains like Wal-Mart's Acer Aspire 5349-2635 (Best Deal: $348.98 at Walmart.com) or deluxe models like the Dell XPS 15z, 15.6-inch laptops are the classic desktop alternatives. Most weigh 5 to 7 pounds, with plenty of ports, full-sized keyboards with numeric keypads, and built-in DVD or Blu-ray drives.
The barely luggable 17- and 18-inch units above them range from mainstream models for users seeking a larger view, like the Toshiba Satellite P775D-S7144 (Best Deal: $649.97 at TigerDirect), to media centers for elite audio and video buffs, like the HP Envy 17, to monster gaming systems for hardcore players with heavy wallets, like the Alienware M18x . Such 7.5- to 12-pound systems often flaunt features such as dual hard drives, full HD (1080p or 1,920 by 1,080 resolution) displays, and the fastest mobile graphics adapters Nvidia or AMD can conjure up.
Rugged laptops like the Panasonic Toughbook CF-31 (Best Deal: $4,929.71 at Rugged Depot) and Dell Latitude E6420 XFR (Best Deal: $5,043.00 at Dell SMB) are a category in themselves, overkill (and overpriced) for business travelers but designed to shrug off astonishing abuse such as drops, vibration, rain, and extreme temperatures for vertical markets such as police forces and utility crews. They're at the far end of a spectrum of sturdiness that includes so-called business-rugged machines such as Panasonic's Toughbook F9 and HP's EliteBooks, which aren't built for torture tests but can survive the bumps and scuffs of travel better than lowest-common-denominator laptops.—Next: Enter the Ultrabook >
Enter the Ultrabook
The slimmest ultraportables—no more than 18mm (0.71 inch) thick for units with screens smaller than 14 inches—fall into a new category created by Intel in 2011. Dubbed ultrabooks, these wafer-thin systems represent a new vision for portable computing, albeit one influenced by the success of Apple's 2.9-pound MacBook Air 13-inch : a no-compromises laptop light enough that you'll forget it's in your briefcase, whose battery and storage let it resume work in seconds after being idle or asleep for days.
Solid-state drives—whether a full 128GB or 256GB SSD or, more affordably, a small one used as a cache with a traditional hard drive—give ultrabooks their quick start and resume capability. Displays typically measure 13.3 inches, with weights ranging from 2.5 pounds for the Toshiba Portege Z835-P370 to 3.25 pounds for the HP Folio 13-1020s and prices ranging from around $800 to $1,400 depending on CPU and storage.
Larger-screened 14- and 15-inch ultrabooks have trailed their 13.3-inch siblings to market, but systems like the HP Envy 14 Spectre (Best Deal: $1,149.00 at JR.com) and Samsung Series 9 15-inch (Best Deal: $1,398.00 at Walmart.com) are starting to gain traction. Since Intel's guidelines allow these ultrabooks to be 21mm (0.83 inch) thick, some, such as Samsung's Series 5 Ultra 14-inch, contain optical drives for users not yet ready to give up their CDs and DVDs.
Intel has had a monopoly on the ultrabook market to match its trademark on the term, but AMD-based (and slightly lower-priced) ultra-thin laptops are expected by midyear. Not long after that, we should see touch-screen and hybrid/convertible models, like the IdeaPad Yoga that Lenovo showed at January's CES, that take advantage of the touch interface of Windows 8. For more on ultrabooks, see our How To Buy an Ultrabook guide.—Next: What To Look For in a Laptop >
What To Look For in a Laptop
Connectivity is key for a modern laptop. Every model on the market today offers 802.11n Wi-Fi, and many support Bluetooth. Mobile broadband options, for when there's no Wi-Fi hotspot handy, include 3G, 4G LTE, and WiMAX.
Ultrabooks may have just one or two, but most laptops have three or four USB ports for plugging in storage devices and peripherals. USB 3.0, which offers much greater bandwidth and faster data transfer than USB 2.0, can be found in all but the oldest and lowest-priced designs; it's identifiable by a port colored in blue or labeled with the letters SS (for Super Speed). Some USB ports double as eSATA ports for external hard drives, while others can charge handheld devices such as cell phones or MP3 players. Meanwhile, Apple has taken the lead in implementing Thunderbolt, an interface even faster than USB 3.0 for monitors, storage, and docking stations.
The venerable VGA interface is still the most popular way to present PowerPoint slides on a big screen, but newer monitors and projectors work better with DisplayPort or HDMI. The latter is especially popular lately, thanks to the demand for connecting laptops to HDTV sets. HDMI's cable-free cousin, Intel's Wireless Display or WiDi, beams a laptop's or ultrabook's audio and video to an HDTV set fitted with a third-party, roughly $100 adapter—either Netgear's Push2TV HD or Belkin's ScreenCast. Speaking of video, a webcam for video chat is standard equipment on almost every laptop, as is a memory-card slot for loading images from a digital-camera card.
Except for ultrabooks with 128GB or 256GB solid-state drives, most laptops nowadays come with 320GB or 500GB hard drives, with a growing number stepping up to 640GB or 750GB of storage. Most people, to be honest, don't need all that hard drive space, unless they're aspiring videographers—and if they are, external USB 3.0 and eSATA drives are readily available.
Nor do many users, in this age of app stores, cloud storage, and Steam games, need an optical drive, but a DVD burner remains the de facto standard for most 14-inch and larger laptops (and some ultraportables, although the optical drive is usually the first thing to go when saving weight is an issue). Blu-ray drives are coming down in price, and you can find one in laptops like the
Beyond Plastic
Plastic is the cheapest and most commonly used material in laptop frames, but manufacturers have shown great ingenuity in making plastic not look cheap. The most common technique is called in-mold decoration or in-mold rolling, a process made popular by HP, Toshiba, and Acer in which decorative patterns are infused between plastic layers. This process has evolved into etched imprints and textures, commonly seen on laptop lids.
In the end, though, plastics are often associated with low-priced laptops, while more classy models rely on metal. The most common choice is aluminum, which has a more luxurious look and can be fashioned into a thinner chassis than plastic. Systems like the HP Folio 13-1020us feature a brushed aluminum lid and palm rest, while the Apple MacBook Pro 13-inch (Thunderbolt) and Lenovo IdeaPad U300s (Best Deal: $1,350.00 at Amazon Marketplace) go further with unibody construction in which the whole case is fashioned from a single sheet of aluminum.
Other light but strong materials include magnesium alloy, as used in the Toshiba Portege R835-P88 and Lenovo ThinkPad X220, and carbon fiber, seen in the base of the Dell XPS 13 . The last also covers its screen in edge-to-edge, scratch-resistant glass, while the glamorous HP Envy 14 Spectre coats not only its screen but its lid and palm rest in glass.
Glass and mylar are the two most common coatings for laptop touchpads, some of which provide dedicated mouse buttons while others just have clickable lower left and right corners. The difference is a matter of personal preference, as are laptops such as Lenovo ThinkPads and HP EliteBooks that offer dual mouse substitutes—both touchpads below and pointing sticks embedded in the keyboard. Keyboard layouts are a matter of taste, too, although we're partial to ones that have real Home, End, PgUp, and PgDn keys instead of doubling those functions up on the cursor arrows (pressing the left arrow plus a Fn key for
Under the Hood
The most dominant processor chips come from Intel, which at presstime was rolling out its third-generation (codenamed "Ivy Bridge") Core processors, starting with quad-core Core i7s for performance enthusiasts and avid gamers with mainstream dual-core Core i5 and Core i3 models to follow. Compared to the popular second-generation (codenamed "Sandy Bridge") CPUs, Ivy Bridge parts—identifiable by model numbers in the 3000s as opposed to 2000s—bring a modest boost in performance and power efficiency and a better-than-modest boost in the chip's integrated graphics.
Whether Ivy, Sandy, or an AMD APU, you should find an integrated graphics subsystem adequate for graphics tasks, unless you're a part-time gamer or a CAD user. High-end, discrete graphics processing units are terrific for 3D games, transcoding 1080p video, or watching Blu-ray movies, but like fast processors, they also feast on laptop batteries. Nvidia (Optimus) and Apple (Automatic Graphics Switching) have, and AMD (Enduro) has announced, technologies that stretch battery life by switching seamlessly between integrated and discrete graphics based on application demand.
A big battery can be your biggest ally in a travel-hectic day. Many laptops are offered with multiple battery options, such as a choice of a 3-, 6-, or 9-cell battery pack, depending on your desire for unplugged life versus bulk and weight. Ultrabooks and Apple laptops, on the other hand, have non-removable batteries that can't be swapped out for a spare. It's up to you to figure out where battery life ranks in the grand scheme of things. For instance, mainstream laptops tend to come with a 6-cell battery option that lasts between five to seven hours on a charge, while ultraportables and business laptops tend to have multiple battery options—both swappable battery packs and, in some cases, snap-on battery bases or slices—that, when used in tandem, can easily surpass the 10-hour mark.
If possible, it's always a good idea to look into additional batteries, especially if you spend more time on the road than you do in the office or at home. You should also look at the battery's capacity, which is usually measured in watt-hours. Two batteries claiming to be 6-cells can have different capacities. A plus-sized battery means extra poundage, but the weight gain is worth it if it means leaving the system unplugged from dawn till dusk
Buying an Extended Warranty
Most laptops are backed by a complimentary one-year parts and labor warranty; Asus and Costco sell laptops that come with two-year warranties. The standard warranty is a limited one, so it won't cover accidents that stem from a spilled drink, a key scraped off by a fingernail, or a drop to a hard surface. Extended warranties are also available.
Most laptop manufacturers also sell accidental coverage as a separate plan on top of optional extended warranties, so you might end up spending close to $300 for three years of comprehensive coverage. Apple offers a maximum three-year extended warranty ($250), while most Windows-based laptop manufacturers will offer up to four years.
Our rule of thumb is that if the warranty costs more than 15 percent of the laptop's purchase price, you're better off spending the money on backup drives or backup services that minimize downtime. Of course, you can't put a price tag on peace of mind. There are instances when the logic board or the display—the most expensive pieces of a laptop—fail, and while rare, such a catastrophe can cost you half of what the laptop is worth. Defective components usually break down during the first year; anything after that is probably your fault.