What are the factors to consider in buying a laptop?  The article below
offers a great overview.

kelly





The Wall Street Journal

    October 26, 2000

Mossberg's Mailbox

Choosing a Laptop PC
Is a Complex Decision

   By WALTER S. MOSSBERG

   There's no other major item most of us own that is as confusing,
   unpredictable and unreliable as our personal computer. Everybody has
   questions about them, and we aim to help. Here are a few questions
   about computers I've received recently from people like you, and my
   answers. I have edited and restated the questions a bit, for
   readability.

   This week's installment of Mossberg's Mailbox is a special edition
   devoted to the question of buying a laptop PC, a topic many readers
   have raised via e-mail during the past week.
     _________________________________________________________________

   Q. Thanks for last week's buyer's guide to desktop PCs, but I'm
   thinking of buying a Windows laptop. What should I be looking for that
   would be different from, or go beyond, the suggestions you made for
   desktops?

   A. Buying a laptop computer is a much more subjective decision than
   buying a desktop PC, because laptops vary much more. Things people
   take for granted in a desktop, like size and weight, the keyboard and
   screen quality, matter vastly more in a laptop.

   Also, because of their smaller size, which demands costlier
   miniaturized components, many laptops lack the same capacity and speed
   of the better desktops, or cost much more for comparable specs.

   If you are considering a Macintosh laptop, your choices are fairly
   straightforward. There are only two models, the colorful iBook,
   starting at $1,499; and the costlier PowerBook, available only in
   black and starting at $2,499. Each comes in various configurations.

   Windows laptops, however, come in a bewildering variety of sizes and
   types, brands and models. So here's a general guide to buying a
   Windows laptop.

   Size and Weight: The first thing you need to decide is the general
   size and weight of the laptop you need.

   At the small end is a group of machines weighing just three to four
   pounds. These models, which include the Sony Vaio Z505 series, the IBM
   ThinkPad X20, and the Toshiba Portege 3480CT, are designed for sheer
   mobility. They lack internal disk drives and some standard ports,
   which reside on an external module. In this group, I prefer the
   ThinkPad and the Portege, because in my view they have superior
   keyboards, pointing devices, and batteries.

   At the other end are machines weighing twice as much -- seven pounds
   or more. They tend to include huge screens and DVD drives. Such
   machines are essentially desktop replacements, meant mainly to stay in
   one place.

   These two types are the costliest. The lightweights cost between
   $2,000 and $3,000 and the big ones can easily top $3,000.

   But there's a group of laptops in the middle, in most cases weighing
   around six or seven pounds and selling for between $1,200 and $2,400.
   These machines are pretty well equipped, with a full complement of
   disk drives and ports, but they have somewhat less power than the true
   heavyweights. They include the Toshiba Satellite series, the IBM
   ThinkPad "i" series, the Compaq Presarios and Hewlett-Packard's
   Pavilion laptops.

   Like the high-end boxes, they are mainly desktop-replacement machines,
   though they can also be carried by people with strong backs who travel
   and need the built-in CD-ROMs and other bells and whistles missing
   from the real lightweights.

   Screen: The best screens are made with a technology called TFT, and
   most laptops today have them. A few low-priced models, like Toshiba's
   $1,199 Satellite 2250XCDS and Compaq's $1,499 low-end Presario
   14XL244, have a cheaper, less vivid screen technology called
   dual-scan, or HPA.

   On high-end, high-priced laptops, you can get up to a 15-inch screen,
   comparable to a small desktop monitor. But in most cases, I think
   12-inch screens are fine, and much cheaper. If mobility and light
   weight are important, you can do quite well with an 11-inch screen.

   Whatever the size, make sure the screen is capable of a resolution of
   at least 800 x 600, also called SVGA. This is a figure that governs
   how much material can fit on the screen, whatever its physical size.
   Power users will prefer a resolution of 1024 x 768, also called XGA.
   High resolution can often compensate for a smaller screen.

   Keyboard: This is a personal choice, but in general I prefer IBM's
   laptop keyboard to everybody else's. I also prefer the pointing stick,
   used by IBM and Toshiba to emulate a mouse, to the touch pad used by
   many others.

   Battery Life: On a heavy desktop-replacement machine, which will spend
   most of its life plugged in, this isn't a key factor. But travelers
   will want the battery to last at least three hours.

   The very lightest machines tend to have the least battery life,
   because their size and weight require the use of smaller batteries.
   However, the Toshiba Portege 3480, which gets about 3 hours out of the
   box, can be enhanced with a large, high-capacity battery that fits
   under the machine and nearly triples the battery life. It adds weight,
   and cost, but is a godsend on long flights.

   Speed and Capacity: If you're using a laptop as a desktop replacement,
   then I suggest you try and get as close as possible to the same basic
   specs I recommend on a desktop: 128 megabytes of memory, a 15-gigabyte
   hard disk, a CD-RW drive, built-in modem and network connection, and a
   processor running at 600 MHz or higher. A brand-name laptop like this
   will likely cost at least $2,500, and often over $3,000 -- much more
   than a comparably equipped desktop.

   If you're using a laptop as a secondary machine, you can settle for
   less -- a slower processor, a regular CD-ROM, and a much smaller hard
   disk. However, I don't recommend using less than 64 megabytes of
   memory in any computer.

   These specifications are only part of the process of buying a laptop.
   The shape and feel of the machine, the clarity of the screen, touch of
   the keyboard, even the size of the electrical adapter, matter greatly
   in these purchases. So don't buy a laptop blind.
     _________________________________________________________________

   Attention, non-techies: Don't be embarrassed by your problems with
   computers. If you have a question, send it to me at [log in to unmask],
   and I may select it to be answered here in Mossberg's Mailbox. Just
   remember: you're not a "dummy," no matter what those computer books
   claim. The real dummies are the people who, though technically expert,
   couldn't design hardware and software that's usable by normal
   consumers if their lives depended upon it.


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