Laptops of luxury - and more
Parents and grandparents who are considering buying a laptop for a favorite graduate this spring will have more choices than ever before.
What used to be a fairly easy decision over what to buy has become more complex, as companies fight for share in the same general market.
To cut through the maze, think in terms of three price categories: low-end, midrange and high-end.
Low-end notebooks run anywhere from $500 to $900, and are priced that way because they don’t come with lots of software and they scrimp on graphics cards and processors.
They typically come with 128 or 256 megabytes of memory and an older-generation processor — Pentium III or earlier.
The mid-range laptop group, from $900 up to $1,500, offers the largest number of choices. Gateway, Dell, Toshiba and HP, for example, all offer several notebooks that come with 512MB of memory, hard drives starting at 40 gigabytes, and high-quality processors. They all come, as well, with built-in wireless cards to ensure fairly easy network connections.
The next range, above $1,600, is usually a category for the road warrior or serious business user. In this range you’ll find the sportier Apple PowerBooks, some pricier IBM Thinkpads and Sony Vaio models.
These higher-end pricier models are come all decked out with 512 or more megabytes of RAM, plenty of hard drive, high-performance graphics cards and speeding-bullet processors. They’re built to replace any high-end desktop PC and let the average user handle multiple tasks with ease.
If you want to shop in that category, consider two major factors: battery life and built-in hard-drive protection.
Battery life is important whether the user is flying on a business trip or doing a homework assignment in a wireless coffee shop. Look for notebooks with options that prolong battery life.
The hard-drive protection option protects against data loss or damage, something that can happen if a notebook is dropped, tossed on a bed or simply put down too hard on a desk.
The IBM ThinkPad line all use patented Hard Drive Active Protection System, a design similar to shock absorbers on vehicles. Other manufacturers are now following suit with versions of the same idea.
The necessities
Most parents, I’d guess, would rather shop for a student laptop either at the low-end or midrange prices. One guideline: if the laptop will be replaced in three or fewer years, buy the lower-priced model.
If you want to spend $900 or more, here’s the list of necessities: 60 gigabyte hard drive (more is better if offered at a decent price); 512 megabytes RAM; 15-inch or larger LCD screen; 1.5 gigahertz processor or better; built-in wireless card; two or more USB 2.0 ports, plus one Firewire port; and a CD-RW/DVD combination drive.
Sure you can spend more on processor speed, but I’m not convinced that’s the best investment. Choose more memory and more hard drive instead if this is a laptop expected to be used for the next four or more years.
Another option for students is the choice of a larger screen. Lower-priced systems run in the 12-inch to 14-inch range. The mid- and higher-priced units now all start with 15-inch displays.
Units with 16- and 17-inch displays are increasingly common.
Another feature worth considering is the widescreen aspect that most manufacturers have adopted. I got my first taste of widescreen testing a Toshiba Tecra A4 notebook (suggested retail $1,349). Traditional laptop screens are designed with a 4-to-3 aspect ration (width versus height).
The widescreen displays stretch the horizontal-to-vertical ratio to 16 to 10, resulting in a 30 percent net increase in overall readable screen. So even with the Tecra’s 15.4-inch display, the size of the screen feels huge.
That dimensional shift makes a big difference when Web browsing, with the ability to open the browser to near full size, but still have room for other applications open.
The other key consideration is keyboard feeling. You wouldn’t fork over ten or 12 grand for a car without getting behind the wheel and tooling up and down the road.
Same thing applies when buying a notebook. Take your daughter, son or grandchild to a retailer to test-touch different keyboards. Too often, the appeal of a Pentium M processor drives the purchase decision on a notebook that later turns out to have a keyboard that’s too hard, too small or poorly configured.
Also worth keeping in mind is the tech-support record of each manufacturer. Check out Consumer Reports magazine if this issue is critical to you; as Consumer Reports found, some makers — namely Apple and Dell — score well on tech support. Others, like Sony and Compaq, don’t score as well.