The Basics

There are four main types of laptops:

Ultralight

  

• Pros: Very portable  Cons: Very expensive, minimal power

Tablet

• Pros: Swiveling touch screen, compact   Cons: Limited power, small screen, expensive

Budget

• Pros: Good prices, good power, lots of features   Cons: Less portable

Desktop Replacement

 

• Pros: Very powerful, large screens Cons: Very expensive, very heavy, poor battery life

The Important Bits

Screen Size

• The bigger the screen the heavier the laptop. Biggest and smallest screen laptops are the most expensive

Weight

• For travel - lighter and thinner the better
• For home - bigger screen is better and it can be heavier

CPU & RAM

• Go for a multicore CPU but avoid the very fastest as they can be pricey
• Install as much RAM as you can afford

Battery Life

• Most vendors sell secondary batteries for extra power

Extras

• Optical drive for burning CD / watching DVD
• Media card reader for camera cards
• Video card for games

The Jargon

Celeron 

• Intel’s budget CPU, cheap but doesn’t perform that well

Centrino

• Intel’s technologies including CPU and wireless

Core 2 Duo

• Intel’s latest CPU (part of Centrino)

DVD

• Digital Versatile Disc

Turion

• AMD’s primary laptop chip, cheap but doesn’t perform that well

TFT

• Thin Film Transistor, also know as LCD

WiFi

• Wireless networking with a limited range (approx 200 feet, part of Centrino)

Wireless Broadband

• A built in technology allowing high speed access across the phone network

DL DVD

• Dual Layer DVD, capacity of 8.5GB

HD DVD 

•  High Definition DVD, capacity of up to 30GB

Express Card 

•  Business card size slot used for some peripherals

HDMI

•   High Definition Multimedia Interface, single cable digital connection for video and audio

 Blu Ray

• HD optical standard, many Blu Ray drives allow you to save up to 50GB of data to disc