Friday 10 June 2011

10 things to know when you buy a laptop

1. What is made for.. (GAMING, MEDIA, BUSINESS, LEISURE) 

2. Battery Life...
- Typical Battery Life these days should range anywhere from 3-6 hours depending on the battery, and use of the batter. Remember when you have your wireless on and bluetooth and your screen brightness set to high your going to lose a lot of battery life. 

3. Weight of the Laptop WITH THE BATTERY
- The weight of the laptop is really dependent on the size and purpose of the computer and the weight can really range for most common laptops the weight can range from 4lbs to about 6lbs

4. Hard Drive Space
- Remember this is a laptop your not storing your life on here and this should not be your primary computer. If it is get an external hard drive to back everything up. Your average laptop comes with a hard drive of at least 500GB's

5. Amount of RAM
- RAM is dead cheap these days, your most likely looking for a laptop with at least 4GB
- RAM DOES NOT NECESSARILY MAKE YOUR COMPUTER GO FASTER. It may help in some of the process your computer processor may do.

6. Speed of Processor
- Speed is key if your looking for a computer to just do basic work and not too much multi-tasking then go for a i3- or i5 with a high clock speed you don't need the extra cores the i7 offers
- If your one of those people that works with graphics and multiple things all at once you'll need to go with a i7
- Good Clock speed should be anywhere from 2.6 Ghz -3.2 Ghz

7. Size mainly thickness
- Size is just in correlation to weight and what you would be comfortable using on a day to day basis.

8. Keyboard  (Bi-lingual or US)
- THERE IS A HUGE DIFFERENCE IN THE KEYBOARDS
- What I tell my customers is to try to type a paragraph or something on both keyboards and see which one they are most comfortable using. Most people are used to the STANDARD US keyboard... Crazy french people..

9. Matte or Glossy screen
- Most Computers come with a glossy screen just because of the hype of watching movies and crap on your laptop gives you better colours.
-Matte screens are typically found on business computers and such better to work with when there is direct sunlight shining onto your screen

10. Is it pretty... what is it made out of ... will it get dirty easily... 


Intro-this....

Forgive me for anything I may say that may offend people.
I'm creating this blog to document my experiences working in a computer store the questions the attitude and the products. Credentials well to be honest I don't have any formal credentials in the computer industry, I've worked at this computer store for the past 3 years of my life while studying Architecture at school. 
So realistically I know electronics and Design... my past jobs have been all in the service industry from working at a hotel parking cars to working in an architecture firm. 
Amazingly working in a store for 3 years you encounter stupid questions and amazing stories. Everyone needs a computer and everyone uses a computer. BUT everyones needs in those computers are different, to many people don't realize that and just go about day to day buying what ever those mindless drones at Bestbuy, and Future Shop tell them.