Buying computer laptops is crazy nowadays!

With the computing power of laptops quickly catching up to that of the desktop, people are snatching up laptops faster than ever before. Besides the amount of companies now making laptops, there are countless amounts of other options to consider. A lot of people might not care about all of the specs when purchasing a laptop, but I’m here to tell you that they matter. Researching them, knowing what they are, and not just caring about the color and the shape, will do you lots of good in the long run and may prevent future headache and unnecessary computer maintenance. Here are some things to pay attention to when shopping for a new laptop.

The Laptop CPU

A computers central processing unit is what keeps your day-to-day computer functions running smoothly. You want to make sure that the laptop you choose has a dual core processor. This will allow you to multi-task and browse the Internet at top-notch speeds. There are two main companies that make CPU’s, and I’m sure that most of you have heard of them: Intel and AMD. Although Intel is more popular, probably due to the catchy jingle in their commercials, they both manufacture great CPU’s. So as long as it’s a dual core processor, you should be fine.

The Laptop System Memory (RAM)

Your systems RAM is truly what will keep your computer running fast, if you have enough of it. When purchasing a laptop, make sure that it has at least 2 GB of RAM. Some laptops come with even more than that, but usually at a price. It is a great idea to upgrade your RAM upon the purchase of your computer, this will allow your computer to operate at faster speeds, and the RAM will also last longer. Be careful when upgrading your RAM though, a 32-bit operating system cannot run on more than 3 GB of RAM efficiently, so be sure to check out your OS specs before doing this.

Battery Life

DO NOT pay any attention to what the tags at Best Buy tell you about the computer laptops battery life. Computer companies cheat when it comes to measuring battery life, they turning off wireless receivers and run components at less than full power. So what you should do is take that number on the Best Buy tag and cut it and half, and that is roughly the battery life that you will get on a full charge. Keep in mind that smaller and lighter notebooks tend to get a longer battery life.

Hard Drive

The hard drive of your computer is where you save all of your files, documents, movie and music files, etc. You would ideally want to get as large a hard drive as possible so you wouldn’t have to worry about ever replacing it or buying an external hard drive, but you also don’t want to break the bank. Most laptops today come with an average of about a 250 GB hard drive. If you don’t see yourself needing more, than that would be great for you. Here’s a measurement that I use to put all of these Gigabytes in perspective: Average movie file = 1 GB. So if you’re not downloading 100’s of movies, you should be all set.

Size

The last thing that I will cover in this article, is considering the size of the laptop that you want. If you want one of those extra mini laptop computers, keep in mind that the specs may suffer a tad, simply because it can’t fit a lot of the stuff inside that larger computer laptops can. Most laptops are 3-5 lbs, any lower or higher than that would either be too heavy, or lacking way too many important specs. The size of the screen is all up to you; just remember that the smaller the laptop, the smaller the keyboard is. So if you can palm a basketball like me, you might want to stay over 14 or 15”.

There are many more things that you need to consider when buying a laptop. Here, I’ve listed a few of the most important and most basic things to keep an eye out for. Make sure when shopping around for computer laptops, you think about future upgrades and computer maintenance that you might have to do. The fewer the amounts of upgrades you think you’ll have to do the better. Have fun finding the laptop that’s right for you and I hope I helped!