To pick a laptop is to know a laptop.
Most people get the "googley" eyes when they see all the "high techery" when looking for a laptop and if they have the money they buy it (even when they won't even use it to its full potential) and if they can't afford it they think they need to go with the lowest quality, even though they want to use it for gaming or other video intensive activities. Don't hate me for stereotyping but most people who are wealthy enough to afford it and don't really need it are typically the rich family man type who's kids all have iPads, Nintendo DS, laptops and cell phones with worn out key pads. Don't worry, I'm not saying this is bad, but when someone is getting a laptop for their kid/s, they don't need a $1500 top of the line widescreen Mac Book. On the flip side, those who can barely afford rent and need a laptop don't need to think that they have to settle for the worst laptop out there, especially now-a-days when prices have dropped so drastically and when processors, memory, hard drives etc. have gotten better, faster, cheaper. It used to be that high end normal use laptops were between $900-1200 and Gaming laptops were $1500-2000 and higher, I've seen them as high as$3600. Now, high end gaming laptops start around $1500. The same quality and speed of laptops we saw at $800 can now be found between $350 and $500.
To start, you really need to sit down and figure out what you need this laptop for and what and when you are going to use it. Computer companies like Dell, HP and Toshiba and stores who sell them like Costco, Best Buy and others promote their product to certain demographics just like any other company trying to sell their product. They advertise with the things you don't really need, HUGE Hard drive, FAST processor with FOUR CORES, 16 gigs of memory, BLU-RAY. All of these things are wonderful... unless that is of course you will NEVER use them to their full potential. What I mean by this is that these items are stronger than what the average consumer will ever use them for.
Processor: This one is the most tricky, it can also be a big money maker. As I have mentioned above, the best thing you can do before you buy or even shop for a laptop is to sit down and figure out what you need it for. This alone can make a difference in price of up to $250.Over the years processors have also been getting a lot better and faster, as well as cooler with lower power needs. Intel's i3, i5, i7 are amazing processors but only one is really worth the money unless you are planning on doing high-end video editing and graphics intensive processes and gaming, these are the i5's and the i7's. Most people will never use an i5 or i7 to its full potential, in which case an i3 is the most expensive you want to go. Even for light to mid gaming and video editing, an i3 with a decent graphics card will do just fine. For those who need a computer for work but can also watch movies and other light video tasks, then AMD's E series or Athlon series are great choices, and very cheap at that. Athlon PC's are down to around $450 and E series start as low as $250. No that's not a joke and they are not half bad computers either. Don't think about gaming on an E series but they'll have no trouble playing movies or anything for work, i.e. word processing, presentations, etc. For gamers, don't think that you have to have the most expensive "everything" to game on a laptop. AMD's A series is a magical processor for gaming on laptops. Its definatly not an i7 with GTX 570 but for cheep gaming laptop system, the A series APU with video built right in is a great little unit, especially if the laptop it is in has a graphics card. This means it can now "cross-fire" between the two and you now have an even better graphics setup.
Memory:This is one of the big ones that companies use to promote their product because the upgrade from 4 to 8Gig is quite low in price for them compared to the amount of sales at the higher price. The standard used to be 512Mb of RAM followed soon after by 1Gig then some time later by 2Gig, then 4 and as of a few months ago 8Gig started to be the standard in most laptops. The problem is that the industry standard has always stayed ahead of the actual need of the computer. Right now most laptops have 6-8Gig when the most their computer will need is 4. My current laptop has 4Gig, I have never seen my Memory usage above 90% and that was under full load as well as having netflix open playing a movie on one half and a video game on the other half. It is just a waste of more money to pay for a more expensive laptop just because it has 8Gig instead of 4.
Blu-Ray: This one makes me laugh. Much like I explained in the "Memory" section above, this is a HUGE money maker for them. Putting a Blu-Ray on a laptop can change the price as high as $100-150. So... why does blu-ray on a laptop make me laugh? A laptop monitor is already displaying in true HD with just a regular CD player. If there is a difference in video quality then it is so minimal that I can't see the difference.
Hard Drive: The 2 main functions of the hard drive are storage and to slow down the overall speed of the computer. I know it sounds funny but compared to the internal transfer speeds of motherboard to processor, memory, etc. the hard drive is the slowest thing in the machine (exeption for SSD). Without spending the extra $200+ on a SSD (solid state drive) all hard drives for laptops are fairly similar when it comes to read and write speeds.The bottom line is how much storage do you want? or more importantly need? I've seen prices on a laptop that are identical except for the hard drives jump $60 and higher just for a little bigger drive. A great alternative is to go with a smaller hard drive and price and then get a 1Tb external drive for around $60, that way you have way more storage for the money spent.
USB 2.0 vs USB 3.0: So... whats the difference you ask? speed! pure and simple. But remember that this has nothing to do with your transfer speeds inside your computer. Just with external devices that use USB ports. Computer companies are trying to implement USB 3.0 on there computers because "faster is better" right? Not necessarily. If your hard drive in your computer or the one in the external drive have a read or write speed lower than that of the USB 2.0 (or even a little higher) then there is no reason to get 3.0. Many people post their own home tests of 2.0 vs 3.0 on youtube and other forums but what they forget to tell you is that they are either writing from an external drive to an internal SSD (and not the other way around) who's write speeds are way faster than that of a HHD, or the other way around. when it comes right down to it, USB 2.0 with speed up to and above 40Mbps, is fast enough to transfer large file very fast. At that speed, a file of 16Gig will transfer in just over 6 minutes and the average movie file will transfer in around a minute. It is always fun to have to bigest and the fastest but there is no reason to get a new computer just because it has USB 3.0, or to spend the extra money and stop looking at laptops with 2.0.
Replace Memory and Hard Drive: For both of these, it is very simple, just flip your laptop over and look around a bit. Typically you should see 2 panel looking things. One is the battery and should have a little switch or two to the side of it to release and lock the battery. The other should be a panel for the memory and hard drive, with a few screws around the edges (some laptops have one panel for the hard drive and one for the memory but they will both have screws around the edges and look similar). Simply take out the screws and pop the panel off. the hard drive is held in with a few more screws and the memory is held in by little clamps to the side of the memory sticks. To remove the memory just push the arms of the clamps to the side away from the memory stick and it will pop up and allow you to remove it. You replace it the exact same way -just opposite. The hard drive is self explanatory once you remove the screws.
Just a note: please do a little research before you buy your replacement parts. Most laptops can really only handle a 500Gig HDD max. Some can only handle less (please remember that an external hard drive is a great option especially when 1Tb drives are less than $100 now). For your memory, there are a few things to keep in mind, the size and the type. You need to do a little research and make sure that the memory you are looking to buy is compatible with your laptop. Look for speed as well as type. Most laptops have a cap on memory speed. For speed, look for DDR, DDR2, DDR3 and ther will be a number with it, 667, 800, 1066, 1333, etc. For the type, look for PIN number. For example my desktop computer uses 240 pin and my laptop uses 204 pin. Don't think that there is just the two types. There are a few different types for laptop memory and a few types for desktop memory. So please DO YOUR RESEARCH. There is nothing worse than getting all excited about your new memory arriving at your door to speed up your laptop, only to have it be the wrong speed or type.
How to speed up your laptop: When ever I help someone get their laptop (or even desktop) running faster the first thing I do is check the "Windows Task Manager" (to find and open task manager, with your computer on hold down control, alt and delete at the same time then let go and an option should come up with "Start Task Manager" or "Task Manager" as a choice. Click on that and it should open. While in Task Manager, click on the tab "Performance" and the black and green graph bars on the left will tell you % of memory and CPU being used. This gives me an idea of weather or not any of my tricks inside windows will help, or if the computer just needs new hardware. But, weather or not it needs new hardware, the tricks I'm going to show you should help, at least a little.
The first thing is to make sure no unnecessary programs are starting up at "start up". To do this (Vista and 7), click on the start button at the bottom left of your screen and in the search bar type MSCONFIG and this will bring up your "system configuration" menu. Click on the "start up" tab and it will list all programs on your computer that currently start up when the computer does. There will be check boxes to the left of the names, just un-check any program that you will not need at start up. Really the only ones that should be checked are things like "antivirus", "mouse" and "touchpad" items, and maybe one or two others.
What does this mean to you? well, this means that when your computer starts up, it not only has to load all files necessary for windows, or your current operating system, to operate, but it now has to load all files for every one of those programs. You don't need everyone of those programs to load at start up because when you click on them on your desktop to open them (just like normal, as if they did load at start up) they would start up naturally as if they loaded at start up. This will allow your computer to start up much faster because your memory and hard drive doesn't have to spend all that time looking for and reading and loading everything for all those programs, it can now just focus on the operating system.
To help actual usable performance your going to want to tell the operating system what areas not to waste time in, memory and resources that it doesn't need to. To do this you'll want to click on your start button at the bottom left of your screen, find and right click on "Computer" or "My Computer" and click on the bottom choice "properties". Click on "Advanced System Settings" on the left side, this will open a new window with 5 or so tabs, click on the "Advanced" tab and click on "Settings" under the "Performance" section. A new window will open with a bunch of check boxes and 3 or so tabs. Make sure your on the "Visual Effects" tab and click on the DOT labeled "Adjust for Best Performance" (the third choice from the top). This should uncheck all the boxes below, if not, go ahead and finish un-checking them all. These check boxes are for the different effects you see on your desktop. Ya wouldn't think this would help much, but once you click the "Apply" button you"ll see the changes and yes it does make a difference.
Common Problems:
If you have more questions or need clarification, please leave a comment and we will get back to you.
