Picking the right laptop can be downright daunting, given the mind-numbing selection available in the market today. That's why we're here to help.
Go online or walk into any store's electronics section to find a laptop and chances are you will feel paralyzed at the sheer variety of models available. Most shoppers have a general idea of what their laptop should look like and what they want in terms of features, but are often intimidated by the sheer number and baffling complexities of the laptops available, which have grown to include types such as netbooks, ultrabooks, and small business (as opposed to enterprise) notebooks.
But don't lose heart. This buying guide will point you in the right direction, whether you're shopping for an ultraportable or for something big and powerful enough to replace your desktop. We're here to help you get into the right mindset, spot the trends, and finally bring home that perfect laptop for you.
Laptop Design is a Key Differentiator
Plastic is still the most commonly used material in laptop frames, and while inexpensive, manufacturers have managed to turn them into art forms. The most common technique is called In-Mold Decoration (IMD)—a process made popular by HP, Toshiba, and Acer— in which decorative patterns are infused between plastic layers. This process has evolved into textures and etched imprints, where the patterns can be felt by running your fingers over them.
In the end, though, plastics are often associated with cheap laptops. What you should be on the lookout for are designs that employ metal. The most common choice is aluminum, found in laptops such as the Apple MacBook Pro 13-inch (Thunderbolt), Dell XPS 15z, and HP Pavilion dv6-6123cl . Aluminum has a more luxurious look and can be fashioned into a thinner chassis than plastic. In fact, a PC manufacturer would find it difficult to compete in this market without using this material in many of its laptops. Magnesium alloy is more commonly found in business laptops that place a strong emphasis on durability (check out our business laptop buying guide). Carbon fiber, which was used on the lid of the Sony VAIO VPC-Z214GX, is yet another attractive material, but is less used than aluminum and magnesium, as it is expensive to make.
Bigger Screen, Heavier Weight
Weight and screen size are directly correlated to one other. Generally, the cutoff point between a laptop that should stay permanently on your desk and one that can be a commuting companion is a 14-inch widescreen. There are exceptions, of course. The Apple MacBook Pro 15-inch (late 2011) and Samsung RC512-S02 are two of the lightest 15-inch laptops—lighter, in fact, than some of the 14-inch models on the market. A 13- or 14-inch widescreen means that you can be productive without sacrificing portability. The Toshiba Portege R835-P50X and Sony VAIO VPC-SA2FGX/BI are prime examples of superb 13-inch laptops. Fourteen-inch models like the Asus U46E-BAL5, Samsung QX411-W01, and Gateway ID47H02u offer a terrific blend of features and components, but won't weigh you down. Smaller than that, you'll be venturing into netbook and ultraportable territory.
Get a screen larger than 14 inches and you'll have to contend with deeper and wider dimensions, which your laptop bag may not have room for. Screen sizes that range between 15 and 18 inches are usually reserved for media centers, gaming rigs, and desktop replacements, such as the HP Pavilion dv7-6163cl, Acer Aspire AS8950G-9839 (18 inches) and Alienware M17X (Sandy Bridge). Particularly in the 17- and 18-inch segment, these massive systems often have luxuries like high screen resolutions, hardcore gaming graphics, dual hard drives, and a wealth of state-of-the-art features.
What to Look For in a Laptop
Even today's cheapest laptops come with many of the features you would find on a $2,000 portable. Ample USB ports (three to four minimum) are pretty standard nowadays. USB 3.0, which offers faster transfer speeds and greater connectivity bandwidth than USB 2.0, can already be found in laptops of all sizes. The port is usually colored in blue or has the letters "SS" (Super Speed) labeled next to it. Apple, meanwhile, is touting its Thunderbolt technology, which boasts data transfer rates that are even faster than USB 3.0. Look for a laptop with one of the USB ports doubling as an eSATA port, so you can expand storage capacity when the internal hard drive isn't roomy enough—although you may never need to, since most laptops nowadays come with at least 500GB of storage (netbooks are averaging 250GB to 320GB). Upgrading to a 640GB or 750GB hard drive won't cost you an arm and a leg either, but do so only if you're a video junkie or an aspiring video content creator. Most people don't need all that hard drive space.
Although VGA is still the most common way to present PowerPoint slides on a big screen, technologies like DisplayPort and HDMI are better equipped to stream high-quality videos and audio. With the exception of netbooks and sub-$500 laptops, most laptops have an HDMI port or DisplayPort. The Dell XPS 15z and Lenovo Thinkpad X1, for example, have both.
Aside from 802.11 Wi-Fi, Mobile Broadband (3G), and Bluetooth, wireless technologies have grown to include two new ones. The first is called WiMAX, a wireless broadband access technology that provides performance throughput similar to Wi-Fi, except the coverage area spans an entire city rather than one occupied by a house. These embedded chips can literally replace your current Internet package for less than you're paying now. You can find these chips in the Samsung NP700Z5B-W01UB, Dell Latitude E6420, and Lenovo ThinkPad X220.
The other up-and-coming wireless technology is Intel's Wireless Display 2.0, or WiDi 2.0 for short (the second generation supports 1080p video streams, protected content, and 5.1 surround sound). It's very similar to a wireless version of HDMI, except there's no dongle or piece hanging off the USB port—the technology is built into the laptop. With WiDi 2.0, you can wirelessly connect your laptop to an HDTV without the use of clunky VGA or HDMI cables. You do, however, need to purchase the Netgear Push2TV HD (PTV2000), a $100 receiver that has to be tethered to your HDTV. WiDi 2.0 is available in laptops like the Asus U56E-BBL5, Toshiba R835-P50X, and Toshiba Satellite P745-S4320.
Unless you're talking netbooks, a DVD burner is the de facto standard for internal optical drives. Blu-ray drives are coming down in price, and you can find one in laptops like the Dell XPS 15, Samsung RC512-S02, and HP Pavilion dv7-6163us.
Of course, the lack of an optical drive isn't a deal-breaker anymore, especially if you're intent on minimizing weight. The Apple MacBook Air 13-inch (Thunderbolt) and Samsung Series 9, for instance, give you everything but an internal optical drive. A Webcam and a media card reader are already integral parts of any laptop or netbook, as video conferencing and digital photography are as common as surfing the Web.
Once you check off all of these standard features, you can go on to look for ones that are specific to your individual needs.
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 standard 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 extended warranties that work on top of a standard one, so you might end up spending close to $300 for three years of comprehensive coverage. Apple offers a maximum 3-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% of the laptop, 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. Faulty components usually break down during the first year; anything after that is probably your fault.
Weighing Netbook and Ultraportable Options
A popular fad a few years ago, netbooks—those under-$400 little laptops with 10-inch screens, small keyboards, and a skimpy 1GB of RAM—are still passable Web surfing and word processing devices, but have been increasingly upstaged by Apple's iPad 2 and other tablets. More capable minis sell for less than $500 today; the HP Pavilion dm1z, Asus EeePC 1215N, and Lenovo ThinkPad X120e have screens that range between 11 and 12 inches, a full-size keyboard, and an HDMI port.
The classic netbook recipe includes Intel's Atom, a not blazingly fast but extremely battery-friendly processor available in single- and dual-core flavors, and Windows 7 Starter Edition. Netbooks with AMD processors often offer higher performance (with lower battery life), 2GB to 4GB of memory, and Windows 7 Home Premium. Netbook batteries start with 3-cell (~30Wh) units, but many netbooks are now standardizing on 6-cell batteries. Our battery tests have shown that the smaller packs will get you anywhere from three to four hours of battery life on a single charge, while the bigger ones range between seven and nine hours.
Netbooks' high-end (and higher-priced) cousins are ultraportables—extra-thin and -light 11- to 13-inch laptops with all the features and processing power of larger models. Examples include the Apple MacBook Air 11-inch (Thunderbolt), Samsung 300U1A-A01, and Toshiba Portege R835-P50X. At this writing, manufacturers were rolling out models based on Intel's answer to Apple's popular MacBook Air line—so-called "ultrabooks" like Asus' Zenbook UX31, which are not only super-svelte but combine solid-state drives with onboard flash memory to allow near-instant on and resume, in mid-work session, from many days of standby.
New Intel Technology
As for the rest of the laptop market, the most dominant processor chips come from Intel. You can pick one that maximizes performance or one that favors battery life. Or you can choose one that plays to both strengths: The company's Second Generation (codenamed Sandy Bridge) Core i3, Core i5, and Core i7 are currently the most popular processor brands and have the benefits of both power and battery efficiency. If you desire all-day battery life, it's best to go with a low-voltage or an Atom processor, such as those found in the HP Pavilion dm3t and netbooks, respectively.
Intel also has quad-core Core i7s for laptops, which are ideal for performance enthusiasts and avid gamers. AMD has its own triple- and quad-core processors as well, called Phenoms. Most of these CPUs can be found in desktop replacement, media center, and gaming laptops.
Unless you're a part-time gamer or a CAD user, you'll likely find that an integrated graphics subsystem is more than enough for graphics-related tasks, even more so now with Intel's Sandy Bridge (which quadruples the graphics performance of Intel's previous integrated graphics technology). High-end, discrete graphics cards are terrific for 3D games, transcoding 1080p video, or watching a Blu-ray movie, but like fast processors, they also feast on laptop batteries. Nvidia (Optimus) and Apple (Automatic Graphics Switching) have technologies that leverage two graphics chips—an integrated and a discrete version—and the switch is done seamlessly, depending on what application the laptop is running. You can find switchable graphics technologies in laptops like the Dell XPS 15z and Apple MacBook Pro 15-inch (late 2011). AMD has its own switching graphics technology, too, although the switch is done manually, in software.
Battery Life
A big battery can be your biggest ally in a travel hectic day. Many laptops, including netbooks, are sold with multiple battery options. Apple laptops and most ultrabooks, on the other hand, have non-removable batteries, but are so because they're bigger than the average ones. In this case, 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 single 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.
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 big battery is accompanied by some heft, but the weight gain is well worth it if it means leaving the system unplugged from dawn 'til dusk.
Go online or walk into any store's electronics section to find a laptop and chances are you will feel paralyzed at the sheer variety of models available. Most shoppers have a general idea of what their laptop should look like and what they want in terms of features, but are often intimidated by the sheer number and baffling complexities of the laptops available, which have grown to include types such as netbooks, ultrabooks, and small business (as opposed to enterprise) notebooks.
But don't lose heart. This buying guide will point you in the right direction, whether you're shopping for an ultraportable or for something big and powerful enough to replace your desktop. We're here to help you get into the right mindset, spot the trends, and finally bring home that perfect laptop for you.
Laptop Design is a Key Differentiator
Plastic is still the most commonly used material in laptop frames, and while inexpensive, manufacturers have managed to turn them into art forms. The most common technique is called In-Mold Decoration (IMD)—a process made popular by HP, Toshiba, and Acer— in which decorative patterns are infused between plastic layers. This process has evolved into textures and etched imprints, where the patterns can be felt by running your fingers over them.
In the end, though, plastics are often associated with cheap laptops. What you should be on the lookout for are designs that employ metal. The most common choice is aluminum, found in laptops such as the Apple MacBook Pro 13-inch (Thunderbolt), Dell XPS 15z, and HP Pavilion dv6-6123cl . Aluminum has a more luxurious look and can be fashioned into a thinner chassis than plastic. In fact, a PC manufacturer would find it difficult to compete in this market without using this material in many of its laptops. Magnesium alloy is more commonly found in business laptops that place a strong emphasis on durability (check out our business laptop buying guide). Carbon fiber, which was used on the lid of the Sony VAIO VPC-Z214GX, is yet another attractive material, but is less used than aluminum and magnesium, as it is expensive to make.
Bigger Screen, Heavier Weight
Weight and screen size are directly correlated to one other. Generally, the cutoff point between a laptop that should stay permanently on your desk and one that can be a commuting companion is a 14-inch widescreen. There are exceptions, of course. The Apple MacBook Pro 15-inch (late 2011) and Samsung RC512-S02 are two of the lightest 15-inch laptops—lighter, in fact, than some of the 14-inch models on the market. A 13- or 14-inch widescreen means that you can be productive without sacrificing portability. The Toshiba Portege R835-P50X and Sony VAIO VPC-SA2FGX/BI are prime examples of superb 13-inch laptops. Fourteen-inch models like the Asus U46E-BAL5, Samsung QX411-W01, and Gateway ID47H02u offer a terrific blend of features and components, but won't weigh you down. Smaller than that, you'll be venturing into netbook and ultraportable territory.
Get a screen larger than 14 inches and you'll have to contend with deeper and wider dimensions, which your laptop bag may not have room for. Screen sizes that range between 15 and 18 inches are usually reserved for media centers, gaming rigs, and desktop replacements, such as the HP Pavilion dv7-6163cl, Acer Aspire AS8950G-9839 (18 inches) and Alienware M17X (Sandy Bridge). Particularly in the 17- and 18-inch segment, these massive systems often have luxuries like high screen resolutions, hardcore gaming graphics, dual hard drives, and a wealth of state-of-the-art features.
What to Look For in a Laptop
Even today's cheapest laptops come with many of the features you would find on a $2,000 portable. Ample USB ports (three to four minimum) are pretty standard nowadays. USB 3.0, which offers faster transfer speeds and greater connectivity bandwidth than USB 2.0, can already be found in laptops of all sizes. The port is usually colored in blue or has the letters "SS" (Super Speed) labeled next to it. Apple, meanwhile, is touting its Thunderbolt technology, which boasts data transfer rates that are even faster than USB 3.0. Look for a laptop with one of the USB ports doubling as an eSATA port, so you can expand storage capacity when the internal hard drive isn't roomy enough—although you may never need to, since most laptops nowadays come with at least 500GB of storage (netbooks are averaging 250GB to 320GB). Upgrading to a 640GB or 750GB hard drive won't cost you an arm and a leg either, but do so only if you're a video junkie or an aspiring video content creator. Most people don't need all that hard drive space.
Although VGA is still the most common way to present PowerPoint slides on a big screen, technologies like DisplayPort and HDMI are better equipped to stream high-quality videos and audio. With the exception of netbooks and sub-$500 laptops, most laptops have an HDMI port or DisplayPort. The Dell XPS 15z and Lenovo Thinkpad X1, for example, have both.
Aside from 802.11 Wi-Fi, Mobile Broadband (3G), and Bluetooth, wireless technologies have grown to include two new ones. The first is called WiMAX, a wireless broadband access technology that provides performance throughput similar to Wi-Fi, except the coverage area spans an entire city rather than one occupied by a house. These embedded chips can literally replace your current Internet package for less than you're paying now. You can find these chips in the Samsung NP700Z5B-W01UB, Dell Latitude E6420, and Lenovo ThinkPad X220.
The other up-and-coming wireless technology is Intel's Wireless Display 2.0, or WiDi 2.0 for short (the second generation supports 1080p video streams, protected content, and 5.1 surround sound). It's very similar to a wireless version of HDMI, except there's no dongle or piece hanging off the USB port—the technology is built into the laptop. With WiDi 2.0, you can wirelessly connect your laptop to an HDTV without the use of clunky VGA or HDMI cables. You do, however, need to purchase the Netgear Push2TV HD (PTV2000), a $100 receiver that has to be tethered to your HDTV. WiDi 2.0 is available in laptops like the Asus U56E-BBL5, Toshiba R835-P50X, and Toshiba Satellite P745-S4320.
Unless you're talking netbooks, a DVD burner is the de facto standard for internal optical drives. Blu-ray drives are coming down in price, and you can find one in laptops like the Dell XPS 15, Samsung RC512-S02, and HP Pavilion dv7-6163us.
Of course, the lack of an optical drive isn't a deal-breaker anymore, especially if you're intent on minimizing weight. The Apple MacBook Air 13-inch (Thunderbolt) and Samsung Series 9, for instance, give you everything but an internal optical drive. A Webcam and a media card reader are already integral parts of any laptop or netbook, as video conferencing and digital photography are as common as surfing the Web.
Once you check off all of these standard features, you can go on to look for ones that are specific to your individual needs.
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 standard 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 extended warranties that work on top of a standard one, so you might end up spending close to $300 for three years of comprehensive coverage. Apple offers a maximum 3-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% of the laptop, 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. Faulty components usually break down during the first year; anything after that is probably your fault.
Weighing Netbook and Ultraportable Options
A popular fad a few years ago, netbooks—those under-$400 little laptops with 10-inch screens, small keyboards, and a skimpy 1GB of RAM—are still passable Web surfing and word processing devices, but have been increasingly upstaged by Apple's iPad 2 and other tablets. More capable minis sell for less than $500 today; the HP Pavilion dm1z, Asus EeePC 1215N, and Lenovo ThinkPad X120e have screens that range between 11 and 12 inches, a full-size keyboard, and an HDMI port.
The classic netbook recipe includes Intel's Atom, a not blazingly fast but extremely battery-friendly processor available in single- and dual-core flavors, and Windows 7 Starter Edition. Netbooks with AMD processors often offer higher performance (with lower battery life), 2GB to 4GB of memory, and Windows 7 Home Premium. Netbook batteries start with 3-cell (~30Wh) units, but many netbooks are now standardizing on 6-cell batteries. Our battery tests have shown that the smaller packs will get you anywhere from three to four hours of battery life on a single charge, while the bigger ones range between seven and nine hours.
Netbooks' high-end (and higher-priced) cousins are ultraportables—extra-thin and -light 11- to 13-inch laptops with all the features and processing power of larger models. Examples include the Apple MacBook Air 11-inch (Thunderbolt), Samsung 300U1A-A01, and Toshiba Portege R835-P50X. At this writing, manufacturers were rolling out models based on Intel's answer to Apple's popular MacBook Air line—so-called "ultrabooks" like Asus' Zenbook UX31, which are not only super-svelte but combine solid-state drives with onboard flash memory to allow near-instant on and resume, in mid-work session, from many days of standby.
New Intel Technology
As for the rest of the laptop market, the most dominant processor chips come from Intel. You can pick one that maximizes performance or one that favors battery life. Or you can choose one that plays to both strengths: The company's Second Generation (codenamed Sandy Bridge) Core i3, Core i5, and Core i7 are currently the most popular processor brands and have the benefits of both power and battery efficiency. If you desire all-day battery life, it's best to go with a low-voltage or an Atom processor, such as those found in the HP Pavilion dm3t and netbooks, respectively.
Intel also has quad-core Core i7s for laptops, which are ideal for performance enthusiasts and avid gamers. AMD has its own triple- and quad-core processors as well, called Phenoms. Most of these CPUs can be found in desktop replacement, media center, and gaming laptops.
Unless you're a part-time gamer or a CAD user, you'll likely find that an integrated graphics subsystem is more than enough for graphics-related tasks, even more so now with Intel's Sandy Bridge (which quadruples the graphics performance of Intel's previous integrated graphics technology). High-end, discrete graphics cards are terrific for 3D games, transcoding 1080p video, or watching a Blu-ray movie, but like fast processors, they also feast on laptop batteries. Nvidia (Optimus) and Apple (Automatic Graphics Switching) have technologies that leverage two graphics chips—an integrated and a discrete version—and the switch is done seamlessly, depending on what application the laptop is running. You can find switchable graphics technologies in laptops like the Dell XPS 15z and Apple MacBook Pro 15-inch (late 2011). AMD has its own switching graphics technology, too, although the switch is done manually, in software.
Battery Life
A big battery can be your biggest ally in a travel hectic day. Many laptops, including netbooks, are sold with multiple battery options. Apple laptops and most ultrabooks, on the other hand, have non-removable batteries, but are so because they're bigger than the average ones. In this case, 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 single 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.
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 big battery is accompanied by some heft, but the weight gain is well worth it if it means leaving the system unplugged from dawn 'til dusk.
0 comments :