If your current laptop is a bit long in the tooth and you’re thinking of buying a new one, I’d consider the current state of the notebook market to be stable. The price points right now are about where they should be, it’s tough to find a dud these days with notebooks as pretty much all of them worked out the design kinks years ago, and of course there’s Windows 7 that made notebooks great again. Just by having that OS installed alone will eke out an extra hour of battery life from superior software power management compared to XP. Yes, it’s that good.

What is the most-used CPU right now in new notebooks?

Answer: Intel Core i5

For whatever reason there’s a mountain of notebooks out there with the i5 in them – well known to be a fantastic processor. The nice part about the i5 when it comes to a notebook is that you can basically ignore the speed specs as Win7 blazes along on a mobile i5 easily – any i5.

NewEgg has over 200 notebooks – meaning not netbooks – that have the i5. Second in line after the i5 is the i3, but in all seriousness, don’t even bother with the i3 when the i5 units are so plentiful.

What is the the norm for stock RAM installed?

Answer: 4GB

Most units come with 4GB because they’re running the 64-bit edition of Windows 7. This is good because Win7 64-bit runs notably slow without at least 4GB.

Important tip: If it’s 3GB, don’t bother. Go for 4GB minimum.

What is the norm for hard drive space?

Answer: 320GB to 500GB

The two most-popular sizes that I could see are 320GB and 500GB. Yes, the TB-sized drives exist, but that’s overkill for a notebook. If you need the big-big space, consider acquiring a Western Digital "My Passport" to complement the notebook’s storage.

What is the most common physical screen size?

Answer: 15 to 15.6-inch

The 15-inch size is far and above the most common physical notebook screen size there is. Second in line is the 14-14.5-inch.

The 15′s come in sizes of 15.0, 15.4, 15.5 and 15.6. The one most used well above the others is 15.6. Trust me, you won’t have a problem locating one.

What is the most common native resolution?

Answer: 1366×768

If you have poor eyesight, 1366×768 on a 15-inch screen should be easily readable for you.

Personally speaking, I do believe 1366 is the just-right resolution for 15-inch. It is the resolution that’s the most ‘agreeable’ with the general population, you included.

For those of you that haven’t bought a laptop in a while, remember, today’s screens with the LED-backlighting have crispness that is truly amazing. In other words, it’s not the old crappy backlighting from the mid-2000s. If you haven’t seen one lately, head to a local laptop retailer and see for yourself. Be sure to stand back from the screen to test how readable the fonts truly are for your eyes.

If you have excellent eyesight and consider 1366 way too big for your eyes, don’t worry, there’s plenty of 15-inch screeners that have 1920×1080.

Does brand matter anymore?

Depends what you’re referring to.

Does brand matter concerning quality of construction/parts used? No. It’s all the same crap from China. All of it – including Apple. The goal is to buy the crap that is the ‘least worst’, so to speak. They don’t build ‘em like a Cray, obviously.

Does brand matter concerning support? YES. Yes, yes, 1000x yes. If you have a brand new super-duper-pooper laptop and something breaks on it, you want the company who made it to answer the f&^#ing phone when you call for a warranty repair, do so politely and fix your laptop quickly, right? Right. That’s all anyone wants when their laptop busts.

Before you click that ‘buy now’ button for that laptop, perform some research into the company first concerning warranty repairs. It will be time well spent.

Hot tip: If there is a local store or electronics shop near you that is an authorized service center for X brand (with X being the brand of laptop you intend to buy), that’s a huge selling point. It means if anything on the unit busts, you can have it repaired locally without having to ship it out. The tech may even be able to call in the RMA for you.

How much?

Answer: $500 to $750

You get the most choice in this price range. Yes, there are obviously units less than $500, but if you’re going to buy new, it is worth it to pony up a little extra as you’ll get the i5, the 4GB RAM, the 500GB drive, an optical drive that burns anything (labeled the "DVD Super Multi"), fully licensed Home Premium or greater of Windows 7 with none of that "Starter" crapola and so on.

It is worth it to spend the extra cash to get a laptop that literally needs nothing when you receive it other than your favorite software (browser, games, etc.) installed.

With PCs, you can do the ‘upgrade it later’ thing, but with notebooks, not really. While true you can bump up the RAM and hard drive later in a notebook’s life, that’s usually not the case for the CPU or the video card – assuming it has a dedicated graphics card. You are better off putting extra to get what you want the first time. If from that extra cash you can get 5 good years or more out of the unit, it was money well spent.

Final Notes: Things to watch out for

Got disc?

Even in the $500+ range there are many units that don’t ship with an OS disc. If that’s the case, find out if the company will provide you with one or alternatively give you a way to make a disc on your own with company-supplied software. If you ever decide to swap out hard drives, you’ll need it.

Wacky keyboard layouts

Some notebooks have some outright stupid ways of keyboard layouts. Look at the laptop’s keyboard closely, and pay specific attention to the following keys:

• Windows Flag key (One or two? If one, on which side?)
• Enter key (Square, rectangle or L-shaped?)
• Backslash key (Rectangle or square?)
• Arrow keys (All-vertical, grid or traditional T shape?)
• Esc (Is it too close to the power button where you’d hit it by mistake?)
• Page-Up/Down Home/End (All-vertical or grid?)

Yes, you really have to pay attention to that stuff, because remember, you can’t change what you get.

Wacky power button location

The standard power button location is always above the keyboard; that is where we expect it to be on a notebook. However some laptops get ‘creative’ and put it in a place where you literally have no idea where it is unless you read the manual. Yes, that’s stupid, but that’s how some laptops are designed.

Dead-center placement of touchpad = bad

It’s a common misconception that we believe a touchpad should be in the dead center of the palm rest. Wrong. It should be off-center, slightly to the left. Why? Because it better aligns with the spacebar for where your fingers are most of the time where you type.

What happens if the touchpad is dead-center? "Mis-clicks" and other unintentional jumpy pointer motion.

Got external video port?

I personally know of no full-size notebook that doesn’t have a video port for feeding a signal to a monitor. The better ones have two – one VGA and one HDMI. Cheaper ones have just VGA.

If feeding the signal out to a television or computer monitor is a factor, obviously check what ports are available before buying. If for example you go the cheaper route with a notebook that only has a VGA port, do you have a monitor or TV that even has that port?

Anything I missed?

If there’s anything I didn’t cover that’s pertinent to modern buying choices for notebooks, please feel free to chime in with a comment or two.

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