LAPTOP (from the English. notebook – a notebook, notebook) – a portable laptop computer. He may have all the usual functions of a desktop computer, but always has an important advantage over him: a laptop – a portable computer that can be used anywhere, including on the road. It can be powered by its own battery and the network adapter.
If the power of the processor (CPU), RAM (RAM), hard drive capacity (HDD) of today’s notebooks are comparable with the corresponding parameters of desktop computers, the price of them in equal technical characteristics about two times higher – a payment for mobility.
Laptops so on average last longer than PCs, and in the selection of a particular model of laptop need more responsible. In this article we will examine the basic parameters that serve as criteria for choosing a laptop, make recommendations for its choice, the selection system for different applications, will talk about what’s inside your laptop, unlike a desktop computer, consists of the components, and what features are important for a particular application.
Now more and more people are buying laptops instead of regular desktop, PCs. Of the advantages of a laptop are attracted small size and weight with full functionality, the ability to easily carry the computer and the mobile office, harmless to health flicker-free and absolutely flat liquid crystal (LCD) display, low power consumption, ability to work offline.
A huge advantage for people working at home and at work, or on different objects. They are journalists, accountants, auditors, etc. You will never get stuck in their files and not lose them, constantly driving them to work from home and your computer (often forget where new, and where the old revision of a file.) With you at all times your usual working environment of your application in which you do not spend time getting used to and finding the right programs, files and shortcuts. You can effectively use every spare moment. On the road or waiting for someone, you can continue to work productively, but you can relax, listen to music or watch a movie. For a business laptop – a great way to gain independence and to be in touch with the outside world through the Internet, no matter where he was. For some laptop – it is also (or only) element of prestige.
Which companies are the best laptops?
In our opinion and in the opinion of many experts laptops Intel-ovskogo directions from companies such as IBM, Toshiba, Dell (as in days of old and legendary Compaq) – the best laptops. Apple’s laptops with alternative processors undoubtedly though expensive, but very high quality product. In these industrial giants together the best developers, sophisticated, analysis and another’s mistakes. Here literate circuit solutions, high production, quality control. The tremendous experience of their own production, stockpiling and recycled for decades and transferred to the new technical and technological solutions. Competent, reliable design. The use of expensive, high-quality, durable materials. Optimally designed cooling system and heat treatment laptops provide extremely rare inclusion of the cooling fan (CO). The rarer the fan, the less power, the less dust is deposited on the CPU fan and heat sink, the more effective work with, and therefore, the reliability of the entire system (less likely to “freeze” and “glitches”). These laptops little warm, quiet, they have less power consumption, respectively, smaller and lighter power supply (charger). With a higher initial price, they are cheaper to maintain because of the lack of a minimum of repairs and cleaning is necessary JI. Expensive plastic, sound design, durable metal swivel hinge in the cover screen – the key to long life and covers the entire body. Aging in them – almost exclusively moral. Physical aging is very slow. Often laptop 3 – 7 – age looks and works better than some new ones.
These leaders should be firm Hewlett-Packard, Fujitsu-Siemens, Asus, releasing laptops with a good price-performance ratio. To the level of the producers hardly fall short of media brands such as Samsung, LG, Acer, leading to the most recent aggressive (downward) price policy, of course, to the detriment of the quality of (alas, there are no miracles!). And closes the chain of lower quality with the cheapest and most reliable laptops grim statistics and Iru Roverbook. Cooling fans they work almost always quickly depleting finite resource fan (until it breaks), even in a cold place in the winter and therefore are easily damaged. The cooling system works continuously as a vacuum cleaner, sucking in the year of a lot of dust and debris, thereby reducing the impact of its activities to zero. “Bugs”, “hanging”, the failure of the processor and chipset are quite common. Substandard rations and its destruction of vibration and (or) the excess heat is also not contribute to reliability. The paint on the corners of the body rubbed a few months careful operation. The cracks in the cover of steering hinge leaves no chance for a long life, even if the owner of the housing of the miracle luck with electronics. Most laptop power consumption (consumed in heating the environment, or your apartment – there is still good!)) – Is a hard, solid power supply – the cross, which would have to bear to compensate for the low price.
What you should know before you buy a laptop?
Screen size (display) usually indicate measuring it diagonally in inches (1 “- inch = 2.54 cm). Optimal for extended use with a laptop is the size of the LCD 10 to 14 inches. Laptops with 15 “(or more) screens, better use of both stationary desktops. Important parameter is the resolution of any display. Modern notebooks is at least 1024×768 pixels. Given that the actual size of the screen (working area) in LCDs more than conventional cathode-ray (CRT) monitors of the same size, and the fact that the user is usually closer to the laptop screen than conventional displays to look at the flat flicker-free LCD display is much nicer and safer. Even the 14-inch LCD display corresponds to about 15-inches of screen c CRT.
The image quality depends on the technology of liquid crystal screen: TFT (and earlier and MONOCHROM, DSTN), etc. The technology TFT (Active Matrix) delivers the highest image quality: high contrast, sharpness, and clarity. Technology DSTN (passive matrix or matrix dual scan) at the time also provides sufficient resolution and contrast, but look at this screen was only possible under almost right angles: from the user, but not the side. The main drawback of passive matrix – motion blur image on the display (inertia). These laptops are not very suitable for most games and especially for movies. When a still image to see the difference between active and passive matrix can be difficult. But recently DSTN-matrix no longer apply.
But as you know, the quality of the image depends not only on display, but also on the parameters of the video system. Laptop computers are available and must be purchased in most cases for office tasks, but not for graphics, so that even in not the weakest laptops often offers integrated graphics card, which takes its memory with main memory, which reduces the performance of your computer. But with the advent of a new generation of graphics chips, this situation is changing rapidly and in modern laptops with powerful processors have up to date graphics card. Such machines can already be of interest to gamers.
Virtually all manufactured today laptops come with the laser drive, except for netbooks, which are smaller and do not provide for its installation. Laptops are always a sound card Sound Blaster (SB). Starts to take root is still very expensive standard drives Blueray, operating with drives up to 50Gb.
Almost all laptops have a connector for an external monitor, at least – the TV-out to display images on a TV screen (effective for creating presentations and watching movies).
To communicate with other computers and peripherals laptop equipped with ports: LPT-printer and scanner, COM-port to connect an external modem, mouse or PS/2-dlya external keyboard. In the most advanced models of these ports are used instead of the more modern, fast, versatile and small ports. These include: USB connection which is much easier modern peripherals. Just in laptops have built-in modem for the Internet and send-receive faxes. The same can be said of the network card (usually a standard Ethernet), is used to connect computers to the wired network to access the Internet at high-speed, dedicated channels. Slot PCMCIA (types I, II, III) and its new ExpressCard extension of your notebook enables you to connect in the future, a variety of devices: a network card, modem, TV tuner, hard disk, additional memory, external CD-ROM, DVD- ROM, etc. Modern laptops often use high speed protocol for communication with peripheral equipment IEEE-1394 (Fire Wire). Increasingly popular high-speed wireless radio via Bluetooth and WiFi (Wireless LAN 802.11). Built-in infrared (IrDa) port allows the notebook to communicate with many devices (from printers to cell phones that have this feature without wires.
If you buy a laptop computer, be aware that the possibility of upgrading the laptop is more limited than with a desktop system, and the acquisition of some parts due to the problem of their uniqueness and proper installation and configuration. Upgrade for laptops are not always beneficial and sometimes harmful. Operations such as increasing memory (RAM), hard drive replacement (HDD) or CD (DVD)-drive recorder, set-replacement modem (Dial-Up, GPRS, EDGE, CDMA), wired and wireless (WiFi) network cards or Bluetooth if necessary to make sense. It is beneficial if done safely and professional. But do not recommend experimenting with the “acceleration” of the processor or its replacement by spanning more speed (even when it’s not very hard to do) – the problem most likely you will be provided. After heat treatment and a laptop without an easy one because of the compactness of the location of all nodes. So choose a laptop with features and functions that you need now, and that could be useful in the future.
When choosing a laptop buyers are often faced with a shortage of funds due to the fact that you always want the best. It is therefore important to determine for themselves what tasks it is acquired and in many cases it is necessary to make a compromise: if you are going to use your laptop mainly for office applications (Word, Excel), and sometimes also check E-mail and occasionally work in the Internet, it is not necessary to pursue a crazy performance: for this purpose may well be sufficient processor Pentium-1 or even 486, and 8-32Mb memory (another thing that to find such a miracle is not really).
Laptop today is not much more expensive than a desktop computer with a decent monitor and thus becomes a bargain. Moreover, in recent years the gap between the prices of laptops and desktop computers declined. If earlier for the same processing power laptop cost is 2.5 – 4 times more than a normal computer, but now the difference in price – about 1.5 times.
As a result, sales of desktop computers around the world are falling, and laptops – are growing! Seven major vendors represented in Ukraine, have chosen different strategies to promote their products. So, Samsung is actively conquering the initial price range. Asus, Toshiba, Fujitsu-Siemens, Dell, HP are betting on the image and functionality of the model (closer to the premium price segment). Acer typical assortment breadth proposals from simple business models to the elite and respectable laptops like Acer Ferrari.
The most successful strategy for the development and promotion in Ukraine has chosen a pair of leaders Asus and Acer, their overall market share increased from 46 to 54%. At the same time, their nearest competitor, Sumsung, share increased by only 1% – from 12 to 13%..
Pay attention to another important economic aspect: the progress on the mobile computers so rapidly, and the market they are so dynamic that the observations of recent years modern new notebook annual average cheaper by half. After this falling into the category of obsolete, markdown it slows down. So today laying 2000 USD for a new modern laptop in a year you will be the owner at best 1000 USD. Well if you are trained user, and you know why and what bought and skillfully use it for this time cardinality resources or using it in a work that would quickly recoup the costs. And if you bought it for prestige or for training, making the first steps in the field of computer? It is worth considering – whether to do it. Maybe better to buy a new or not is not the most modern laptop for 500 USD, naturally good firms, and after a year you will be able to sell it for 400-450 USD.