|
HERE’S
what you need to know about the specific components when
buying a portable PC for your college student (or
yourself). Like automobiles, computers have “stickers’’
that tell you what’s inside. It will be posted on the
retailer’s shelf, on a technical specifications screen
if you’re shopping online, and usually on a real sticker
attached to the computer itself. Here’s what to look
for:
The
screen
THE size
and shape of the liquid-crystal display will determine
the ultimate quality of your laptop experience. Like all
computers and TV sets, laptop screens are measured
diagonally.
Lightweight, ultraportable laptops have screens of 14
inches or less. Although happy Apple customers with
13-inch MacBooks will argue this point, I don’t
recommend anything smaller than 14 inches for long-term
use. Another drawback of a small screen: a
correspondingly cramped keyboard that can be nasty to
work on for extended periods.
General
purpose laptops have screens in the 15.4-inch range,
with an aspect ratio (width to height) of 4:3—the same
as a standard TV or desktop monitor. These are fine for
most purposes—large enough for comfort, small enough for
lugging around campus. Larger 17-inch screens will
please movie and game buffs, but they’re more luggable
than portable—and relatively expensive.
Widescreen laptops, with a more rectangular, 16:9 aspect
ratio, are gaining fans because they’re shaped more like
theater or HDTV screens. But be careful here—the term
“wide’’ refers to the shape, not the size of the screen.
In fact, a wide screen has a fractionally smaller
viewing area than a standard screen with the same
diagonal measurement. Practically, a wide screen lets
you view two documents side by side, while a standard
screen will display more of a single document. Your
choice.
Resolution: This refers to the number of horizontal and
vertical pixels the screen can display. Most debate over
this is nonsense. Unless your student has really good
eyes, anything more than a 1,024-by-768-pixel display on
a 15.4-inch screen is going to produce text that’s too
small to read comfortably. Higher resolutions may
improve games and photo editing.
Finish:
Flat-panel screens with glossy finishes look slick on
the shelves and may add some depth to movies and games.
I think they produce too much glare for concentrated
work.
Keyboard
LOOK for
a standard key pitch (19 millimeters between centers).
Smaller keyboards will cramp folks with larger hands.
Also, if you’re a touch typist, check the position of
the cursor keys and special function keys (Home, End,
PgUp, PgDown, Insert and Delete). There’s a secret,
industrywide competition to find the most awkward and
illogical positions for these. So try to type on any
laptop—or a model with the same keyboard—before you buy
it.
Microprocessor
ALSO
known as the central processing unit, or CPU, this is
the heart of any computer—the chip that does the actual
computing. A more powerful CPU that runs at a faster
speed (measured in GHz) will provide a smoother, more
reliable computing experience.
Laptops
generally use mobile versions of processors from Intel
or Advanced Micro Devices (AMD). Look for a PC with a
dual-core processor. This is complicated because Intel
has been playing games with its naming conventions. Its
latest processors are labeled “Core 2 Duo.’’ If the
description says Dual Core or Core Duo without the “2,’’
it’s probably an earlier model. This doesn’t mean it’s a
bad buy—in fact, it may be a better bargain. AMD Turion
processors with dual cores include “X2’’ in the model
number.
Processor models are numbered—and higher numbered models
are generally faster. But one of the best ways to figure
out what you’re buying is to look at the sticker—if a
machine is powerful enough for heavy-duty gaming, the
sticker will brag about it.
You also
might see the term “Centrino’’ bandied about. This a
marketing gimmick by Intel to get manufacturers to use
its supporting chipsets and wireless networking
technology, in addition to Intel processors. Some
manufacturers go along, others don’t. It shouldn’t
affect your buying decision.
Memory
MEMORY
chips (referred to as RAM) store programs and data
temporarily while the computer is running. Adding memory
will often boost performance more than a slightly faster
processor. Microsoft recommends 1 gigabyte of internal
RAM for its Vista operating system, and Apple serves up
1 gig in its basic MacBook line. I recommend 2
gigabytes—particularly if your student likes to play
games in those rare moments when he’s not studying.
Video
THE
computer’s video adapter determines what appears on the
screen. Even when they’re displaying moderate detail,
games and high-end graphics programs can strain a PC’s
video processor. For the best performance with Vista,
Microsoft recommends an adapter that has at least 128
megabytes of memory reserved for video.
On
laptops, this is a serious issue because the video
circuitry is built in and can’t be replaced. If your
student is serious about gaming and graphics, look
carefully for a computer with a graphics adapter from
NVIDIA, ATI or some other player that has dedicated
video memory, as opposed to “shared’’ memory that’s also
used by the operating system.
Multimedia
MOST
laptops with 14-inch screens or larger come with some
type of compact disk drive. Unless your student is a
budding video producer, a DVD/CD-RW, which records audio
and data CDs and plays DVD movies, will do fine. But a
drive that can also burn DVDs is a nice extra.
Hard
disk storage
THE hard
drive stores programs, data, music and video permanently
when the computer is turned off and shuttles everything
back and forth into memory when the PC is running.
Laptop drives are generally smaller than desktop models,
so get at least 80 gigabytes of storage if your student
collects music or video. Luckily, you’re not locked in
here—cheap, high-capacity external drives make it easy
to offload seldom used files and carry them around if
the main drive fills up.
Ports
LOTS of
useful things plug into a computer’s USB ports—including
mice, full-sized keyboards, printers, scanners, music
players, Web cams, flash drives and external wireless
network adapters. The more USB ports your laptop has,
the better. Pick up a compact, four-port USB hub (which
adds three ports to your laptop) when you buy the
machine. It’s money well spent.
Wireless
networking
MANY
laptops come equipped with wireless network adapters—a
must on most campuses and at Starbucks. If yours has
one, make sure it meets the industry’s 802.11g standard.
Some say they meet the newer 802.11n standard, which is
backward compatible with older wireless networks. But
the standard is so new that you may not get much extra
speed out of it.
If your
computer doesn’t have wireless networking built in, you
can pick up a wireless adapter that slides into the
laptop’s card slot or a USB port for not a lot of money.
Pointing
device
MOST
laptops use touchpads to replace the mouse, although a
few use trackballs or little buttons in the center of
the keyboard. They’re all terrible. Buy a mouse and use
it whenever you have enough room. Even if you ignore
everything else here, your kid will thank me for this
advice. |
