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Just because the laptop is made by Dell or HP doesn’t mean it’s the best laptop to buy! I’ve learned that there are three main things to look for when shopping for a laptop. And now that Vista is out, these three thing are not only preferred, they’re mandatory! #1. Ram #2. Processor #3 Hard drive speed RAM stands for Random Access Memory. It’s what your programs, background operations, and OS (operating system) are running on. When you launch a program it pulls it up off the hard drive and sets it on the ram. The ram is operating the program. To operate Windows XP, it takes at least 128MB (MB = megabyte – a byte is one bit of information - just one little pocket of data. Mega is million. So, a megabyte is an amount of data one million bytes large). Windows Vista takes a minimum of 512MBs, and that’s just to run the OS itself! You’ll want at least 1GB (GB = gigabyte - 1024 megabytes) of ram. That should be enough to run the OS and some regular tasks like email, office programs, and to perform light gaming. I highly recommend 2GBs of ram. The processor is the “brain” of your computer. Highly important: DON’T get a cheap processor. The processor organizes or processes all the information that is being sent around the computer. There are two main processor manufacturing companies, Intel and AMD. With AMD you’ll get more bang for your buck, but Intel leads the industry. It’s slightly faster (meaning it processes the information more rapidly) and its energy consumption is more efficient. Both are very important with a laptop. But AMD isn’t far behind. Both make the duo core processor. If you do go with AMD I’d get the 64x2 which is a duo core processor, 64 bits in each core. A little history: when the processor was first made it only had one core that was usually 32 bits. Up until now, that’s what we’ve used but these days they are making them with two cores which is very efficient! The best have two cores that are 64 bits each. I highly recommend the Intel Core 2 Duo (T5500) processor. Pricy but well worth it! The hard drive speed is one of the most overlooked specs. Sometimes it’s not even on the spec list! But it’s very important to have a fast hard drive. Most people think, “Oh, if I have a large hard drive my computer with run nice and fast.” Well, not so true. It’s important to have a “good sized” hard drive but it doesn’t affect the speed so much. If you max your hard drive up then you write information over what could be virtual memory (virtual memory is the part of the hard drive that works like ram). But that’s not a big threat because most new hard drives are at least 80GBs. Laptops run from a battery, so you’re naturally going to want a long lasting one. A slow hard drive won’t take up as much juice as one that’s fast. But if you have a slow one (I’m talking rpm’s) then you’ll have a slow computer. 4200 rpm’s is considered slow. If the laptop says, “low power consumption,” you can bet it has a 4200 rpm hard drive. The faster the hard drive spins, the faster the computer can read the information off of it and onto the ram. So having a lot of ram with a nice processor isn’t good enough. I mean, you’ll be able to launch as many programs as you want but they’ll all take FOREVER to finally load because the hard drive is so slow. Now a medium hard drive speed would be considered 5400 rpms. And for a laptop hard drive that’s about the max you’ll find but for desktops (which you don’t really care how much power they suck up), they go up to about 7200 rpms (that’s really fast)! Anyhow, I’m sure I’ve board you all to death! LOL I can’t really help you find a laptop unless I know what your budget is. Just remember you get what you pay for. And that’s especially true with computers! I wouldn’t spend less than $1,000 on a laptop. If you planned on only spending $800, then just wait. Save a little more money and spend the full $1,000. I would recommend HP, Sony, or Dell. If your budget is $1,500, I would probably recommend the HP BrightView. It’s running Vista Premium (way better than Vista Home). Intel Core 2 Duo (T5500) processor Built in 802.11a/b/g Wireless Burns and plays DVDs and CDs 2GB of DDR2 ram 200GB hard drive 5400 RPMs And an pretty good sized graphics card to run Vista’s Aero (GeForce Go 7600 with 256MB VRAM) This laptop comes with a bunch of other cool things like a built in webcam and remote for watching movies, controlling PowerPoints, and just navigating through your computer. You can buy this laptop anywhere. I found it myself at Circuit City. Anyhow I’ve said enough. Please comment if I’ve mis-communicated something or if you feel I’m flat out wrong! Click here to view my other boring blog.
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