Laptop Buying Guide: How to Choose your Perfect Laptop

Buying a laptop is never simple. With so many brands and all that hardware mumbo jumbo, how can anyone make any sense of it and be able to select the best laptop computer for their needs while getting the best price. While it can be daunting, there are a few main components that you need to know about to make an informed decision.

To help you understand what the best computer would be for you, we give a quick easy to understand overview of laptop hardware and then have several categories below. Read the descriptions and see which you fall into. We will then describe what attributes to look for based on your chosen category.

With a 2Ghz dual core processor and 4GBs of RAM this laptop will eat anything you through at it and the nice 250GB hard drive gives you plenty of room for your pictures and movies.

The Laptop Processor: The brain

Processors are just big calculators. They control what your computer does and are used in every task you set your laptop to run. This is perhaps the single most component in a laptop. Popular processors include the Intel Core 2 Duo, Intel Celeron, Intel Atom, AMD Sempron, and AMD Dual Core.

The main thing to look out for is the number of "cores" a processor has and their "clock speed" measured in GHz (e.g. 1.8GHz). These days computers have more than one processor, or at least on the architectural level they do, but manufacturers still package them as 1 processor for simplicity. A dual core processor therefore is actually 2 processors in one. A quad core is 4 processors in 1. Generally the more "cores" you have the faster your laptop should be. The "core speed" is how fast these processors can perform calculations. Think of it as a car, the faster it can get from 0-60mph the quicker it will get from A-B. Same with the processor, the faster the clock speed the faster it will run programs.

Other less important factors to consider are:

Front side bus speeds: The higher this is the better, written in MHz (e.g. 667MHz or 800MHz)

Cache Size: The larger the better, written as Mb (e.g. 2MB Cache , 4MB Cashe)

Laptop Memory (RAM)

The processor needs somewhere to store all of its calculations while its working away. This is what the RAM is used for. If you do not have enough RAM your processor will be slowed down as it does not have enough "work space" to store data it is working on. Think of it as having to walk back and forth to a storage room as you do not have everything you need at hand to build whatever you are making.

In General the more RAM your laptop has the better. RAM is measured in GBs (e.g. 2GB, 4GBs of RAM). Additionally, like the processor the ram has a clock speed too. Just like with the processor the faster the better (e.g. 667MHz, 800MHz).

When buying a laptop, look for the largest quantity of RAM with the highest clock speed.

Graphics Card

The graphics card is absolutely vital if you want to play games on your laptop. For the gamer a laptop should be chosen primarily on the power of the graphics card. A graphics card will also have a clock speed, once again the higher the better. It also has memory, once again the more and the faster it is the better.

The best method for distinguishing between graphics cards is to search for a review of the card where they compare its performance with other cards. Be aware that majority of laptops have incredibly weak "integrated" graphics which will struggle to play any new game.

Look for a dedicated Graphics card if you are a gamer. Students, office users and internet surfers dont need to pay much attention to graphics power.

Hard Drive

This is where you store all your files and programs. The bigger the number measured in GBs the more space you will have for your files (e.g. 250GB).

All the Rest

Other items include a wireless receiver letting you connect wirelessly to the internet, an optical drive which these days is almost always a full DVD RW letting you watch and burn DVDs, card readers, webcams and microphones and an operating system.

Office Users

Luckily you dont need much computing power at all so almost any new laptop will be more than enough for your needs. Look for the best deal you can find but bare in mind that reliability is important for the protection of your data. Go for a well known brand with a good warranty policy.

Laptop Gamers

Find the laptop with the best graphics card! Then look the fastest processor and the most RAM you can find. Computer games are the most intensive programs needing the most power.

Best Value Seekers

If you are looking to get the best performance possible for the best price you will need to balance all the components .The processor is always important so give priority to that while making sure the system has enough RAM. Consider a dedicated graphics card if you intend to play the occasional game.

In the end most of us are dependant on the price of the laptop but bare in mind that sometimes spending a little more can go a long way in the laptop world. For those of you that are looking for a pink laptop should check out this pink laptop website for the latest recommendations of the best pink laptops right now.

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