The Laptops Specs Explained

The Specifications (specs) you usually find in Laptops brochures and what they mean


Brand:
The brand is the all important criterion needed to be stressed when buying a new laptop. Consumers usually opted the most ‘value’ laptop meaning good specs with good price. Thus, ending up buying non-mainstream names like Hyundai, Twinhead, Prestigio, etc., Unfortunately, these names although not all bad but the reputation remains to be questioned. The result is spoiled laptops just after the warranty expires (usually after 1 year) or at least spoiled hardwares like cracked lcd and hinge, dead battery and popped-up keyboard. The wiser steps to avoid the scenarios is to at least consider mainstream name like Dell and HP although the best way is to go for name instead of price like Fujitsu and Lenove Thinkpad.

Price:
Different users have different needs and of course different budgets. In my brief stint working in Toshiba Lowyat, Malaysians consumers spend an average of RM2700 for a laptop. That’s is actually a favorable budgets these days with the low price of electronic gadgets. As I mentioned above, it’s smarter for a prospective buyers to consider the brand first before the technical specs.

CPU: Brand, Type, Clock Cycle, FSB, Cache
No doubt this is the second thing a consumer would notice in the flyovers/catalogues after the price. Nowdays, Intel is way better known than it’s closest rival Advance Micro Device (AMD) in term of Processor (CPU) chip. This is due to Intel’s better and faster Research and Development to come out with faster, smaller, cooler and more efficient (specifically means power consumption per task) chips. In the catalogues, the CPU is usually written for example as this:
Core2Duo Centrino T5600 1.86gHz (1MB+1MB L2 Cache).
Core2Duo= The main Processor itself. Duo means there are 2 microprocessors embedded inside the Motherboard although most of the time, mistaken as 2 processors. This would give the processor the dual input and output paths to information (codes) sent to/by it. Hence, better information management to give better multitasking.
Centrino= This is more apt to described as Intel marketing strategy. To qualify for a Centrino chip, a laptop should have the CPU, Graphic and Wireless chips manufactured by intel itself and claimed to give better speed and battery life to the laptop. Centrino chipset only serve as a technology boosting the CPU and not the CPU itself.

Battery: Battery come standard with 6 cells pack or 4000+mAh giving a standby hours up to 3.5hours. Simple application like playing songs with Words work will dramatically reduce the life to merely 2.0hours. A user who travel a lot would consider a 9 cells-battery laptops like Lenovo Thinkpad and Fujitsu tablet PCs.

RAM: Short for Random Access Memory. RAM is simply a physical memory that a computer utilize to execute a task, say a Slideshow. The more the ram is, the faster the execution and processing speed. The commonly found RAM capacity in a laptop is 1GB ideally means the users can execute multiple programs up to 1 GigaBytes of requirement.

HDD: Unlike RAM, Hard Disk Drive is known as Read Only Memory (ROM), which briefly means the total idle/active capacity of bytes/bits that the laptop can store or hold. 120GB HDD means the computer can store 120 GigaBytes of information inside the Hard Disk. The higher the Hard Disk capacity the laptop hold, the more programs and files the users can keep inside his laptop without deleting them.

OS: These days, there are a lot of types of Operating Systems e.g., Mac OS X and Linux Linpus but the most commonly used is none other than Windows XP. 2007 is the year which mark the introduction of highly anticipated new Windows called Windows Vista. Although with the much hypes, Vista, unfortunately, thou, expectedly tainted with compatibility issues. Specifically the softwares. For example, some applications like Engineering softwares called AutoCad is not supported by the OS. Now, 1 year has passed, the issues should be well tackled. Microsoft corp. not longer manufacture Windows XP for laptop markets.

Screen: Yet again, this feature depends very much on the type of users. Business users usually opted for small 14” screen and below maybe a table PC. Normal users like students would prefer choose 14” and 15”. Hard gamers may spend their money on performance laptops with up to 17” screen laptops.

Warranty: The warranty by definition means, the period of which the manufacturer guaranttee that they products are free of defects up to the year specified in the warranty. Nonetheless, the trend of warranty upgrade 1 or 2 years more than is actually provided means that the definition has changed to free repair service by the manufacturer.

CD-ROM: Now, all CD-ROM come standard with both CD and DVD Burner regardless of the price. This very much provides the users with the covenience of burning their datas into a CD/DVD without carrying extra weight. HP and Asus laptops even have a LightScribe technology which enable users to label their CDs using the laser embedded inside the CD-ROM.

Other features: Webcam and Fingerprint: The webcam give the user the ability to have video-conference with friends, take pictures and videos from the laptop itself with no external devices. Fingerprint on the other provide more security to data protection from outsider and faster/more efficient password management.


This is my descending preference in accordance of laptops brand:

Sony VAIO "like no other"
HP "comprenhensive in all aspects"
Fujitsu "Japaneses at their best"
Lenovo ThinkPad "best machine for business and durability"
Toshiba "Fujitsu with better price"
Dell XPS "gaming rig and stylist"
Asus "sexy design"
Acer Travelmate "business partner with friendly price"