I think it’s safe to say that netbook fever has died down to a dull roar at this point and that people are looking more towards traditional (as in 13-inch and above) laptops again. While netbooks continue to improve concerning speed, battery life and so on, people tend to like the larger screens better.
Price Range
Five years ago the price range that gave you the most choice for a decent laptop was between $750 and $1,200.
Today that price range is $500 to $800.
Yes, you could go below $500 easily if you wanted to, but if you want the most choice with laptops, $500 is the starting point.
Things to avoid
32-bit
You will find that a good swath of new laptops do come equipped with 64-bit CPUs, so much so that it might even be a challenge to even find a new laptop with a 32-bit CPU. Personally I wouldn’t even bother seeking one out.
“But what about my legacy programs that may not run in a 64-bit environment?”
Chances are good most if not all of your older programs will run in a 64-bit environment with no issues at all. If you want to play it on the safe side however, install VirtualBox and load in a 32-bit edition of XP.
32-bit at this point is mostly netbook territory, and that’s fine given the low-power nature of a netbook.
Anything over 1366×768 on a 15-inch screen
1280×800 or 1366×768 is the “sweet spot” of sorts for a native resolution on a 15-inch LCD laptop monitor. This is the resolution everyone can read easily with no squinting involved – especially for those of you out there with poor eyesight.
Yes, there will always be that lucky guy or girl with perfect 20/10 vision. If that’s you, then go ahead and buy a laptop with the ultra-tiny 1920 resolution on a 15-inch screen. Have a ball. The rest of us have to use something we can actually, y’know, read. 1280×800 and 1366×768 are both great on a 15-inch screen.
“Starter Edition” Windows 7
This is a terrible version of Windows 7 because it’s very limited as to what it can do. Always go for Home Premium or greater. For anything less like Basic or Starter, avoid those.
What you get
RAM: 2, 3 or 4GB’s is what you get. You might as well go for the one with 4GB.
Hard Drive: You’ll still be using a 2.5-inch SATA and not an SSD because the prices for SSDs are still too high. You’ll see sizes start at 250GB and 320GB.
CPU speeds: When it comes to mobile CPUs, avoid Intel Celerons because they’re just too darned slow. Stick to a minimum Intel Core 2 Duo or AMD Turion II. Both are decent and get the job done without a lot of wait time. Just remember however that you don’t start getting to the “good CPU” range until around the $600 mark. That’s just the way it is unfortunately.
Optical: Every one of them comes with a slim DVD burner, typically labeled “DVD Super Multi”. Some have LightScribe if you want it.
DVD Super Multi means it the drive will support a ton of disc formats. The list of what it will support is usually this:
- CD-ROM
- CD-R
- CD-RW
- DVD-ROM
- DVD-R Single Layer
- DVD-R Double Layer
- DVD-RW
- DVD+R Single Layer
- DVD+R Double Layer
- DVD+RW
- DVDRAM
The format support you would appreciate the most other than DVD-5 is DVD-9. That’s a single-sided double-layer format that can store 8.54GB/7.95GiB and is arguably the second most-compatible format (meaning they should work as far as reading is concerned in any other computer you own).
Battery: I haven’t seen one that doesn’t come with a minimum 6-cell battery. Battery life varies greatly from laptop to laptop, but you can expect somewhere in the neighborhood of 3 to 5 hours. If you’re really stingy with power you could probably get up to 6, but you’d have to put the screen brightness down to the lowest possible setting and not use wi-fi in order to achieve that.
Wi-fi: They all do 802.11 b/g/n, but not a, and that’s not a problem since nobody uses a anymore.
Card reader: The vast majority – but not all – comes with some type of memory card reader. You’ll have to read the specs for what you’re looking for to see what types of cards it will support.
Upgradability?
As with all portable computers, upgrade options are limited compared to desktops.
The HDDs are still easy to replace because they still use 2.5-inch 5400 RPM SATAs. If you have a particular laptop in mind and the 320GB simply isn’t enough space, this isn’t a cause for concern because there are plenty of 500GB laptop HDDs available. There are also 640GBs and even 1TBs in the mix. If you want the 1TB, that will run you around $170 to $190 to get it. The 500GB on the other hand is $70, so it’s the better deal at the moment.
The RAM in this price range and above tops out at 4GB. This is crappy being that a 64-bit architecture can support so much more than that, but 4GB is the max for what you have to work with. Why? Keeps the heat down.
The video memory is shared for most units in this price range, so there’s no upgrade options there. If you spend more you can get dedicated video, but to be honest unless you’re doing some super-super HD video editing or gaming, it’s not required.
Brand recommendations?
This is one of those times where I can’t actually recommend any specific brand because build quality has vastly improved everywhere in the last 5 years.
I could not spot any particular brand of laptop in the $500+ range where I said to myself, “No, don’t get that one.” Whether it’s Toshiba, Acer, HP, ASUS, Lenovo, MSI or whatever other brand you can think of, what you get for the money is decent and won’t be anything that falls apart in less than a year.
The only recommendation I can give is to watch for units that offer free “accidental damage” protection for 12 months. ASUS in particular offers this for a few models. This was something never offered for free before, and it’s a nice insurance policy of sorts to have.
Where to start looking?
NewEgg of course is a good starting point to begin comparing models. Their $500 to $750 range has a whopping 78 different units to choose from.
I would recommend that if you have any negative bias for a particular brand, remember, they’ve all improved. For example years ago I would have never recommended a Compaq notebook to anyone for any reason. These days however they’re not bad at all – but don’t take my word for it. Read the user reviews and see for yourself.
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