Are you planning to buy laptop computer for your education or research or personal purposes? Then how do you plan to buy them? By asking friends and colleagues around or from online reviews for laptops?
Fine! this is a guide intended for those who want to buy a laptop for almost any purpose. I have been using one from HP company since 2007 without any trouble or repair. But many other purchases by others around were not up to the mark.
Unlike top brand like Apple, other laptop manufacturing companies are mainly concerned with number of devices sold and not customer satisfaction. For this aim to provide devices at low-cost and also give maximum technical configurations at the low price to attract the customer.
But once bought and then if these specification go wrong you will need to run behind their customer care centers for repair and spend more money, yet you may not be satisfied with their service.
Since 2007 the prices of these devices did not rise but their internal configuration did, to appeal the customers and also withstand the competition among the manufacturers.
So what to consider while buying a laptop behind the cost factor is the external hard ware and not just the configuration.
Internal configuration: This is required as per the present trend of good memory in hard disk like 500GB, RAM DDR-3, processor of like 3rd generation Intel Core and ram of 3GB and above will do.
The system should have preferably inbuilt operating system like windows or mac.
The above configuration including a graphic video card will suit to most purposes for students of any education levels like playing games for teenagers to adults and also use of heavy software like drug designing or molecular modelling, statistical software, enzyme kinetics software etc. Modern research depends on use of many software for data analysis due to ease, rapidity and accuracy (without human errors) of results.
External configuration: This is the outer hardware of the laptop. Most of them given for every laptop but we need to check some
This is critical as laptops mostly encounter these problems and go for repair.
1. The hinge or joint at the back between the screen and keypad should be flexible yet tough as we close and open the system almost every time we use it. If this is the issue there may be problems in screen display, brightness or sometimes even breakage of the entire system.
2. The battery: Laptops require good battery backup for work in places where there is no external power supply like in travels, outside in places of power failures (as this is widely prevalent in developing countries)
3. Speakers are next vulnerable things in most systems. This is also sometimes due to use of audio software which exploit the speaker to levels where they get damaged. The problem appears to those who use systems for movies and gaming frequently.
4. Keypad: This is so important as we use it every time the system is opened. Yet to avoid the damage due to harsh use or wear and tear, we can rely on external keypads.
5. Power sockets and wires are to be tough. If they get damaged recharging laptops can be the problem.
6. Audio and video socket. These get damaged rarely yet check them.
7. USB sockets: Minimum of four should be available to suit most purposes.
Other requirements for use and precaution:
A) External hard disk in case you need to synchronize your data in between two systems like your laptop at home and another computer in the office or work place. This also may be required to store excess data.
B) Anti-virus: A good anti-virus to protect your data and system.
C) Head phones for audio chatting.
d) A Good carry bag meant for the purpose mostly offered by the manufacturer itself.