Guide to Laptops

A laptop is a foldable computer usually designed for mobile use and powered by rechargeable batteries. It contains all the components of a desktop computer, but in compact versions to fit into a lightweight package. Most laptops weigh less than eight pounds. It is ideal for frequent travelers, students, and users who need mobile computer access for taking down notes or making reports.

Ultralight laptop

An ultralight laptop, also called a sub-notebook or ultraportable, is very compact and weighs four pounds or less. It is usually too small to contain large components, such as a CD-ROM drive, floppy drive, or network card. However, it accepts external drives and storage devices through the USB or FireWire port. Its screen is usually limited to 12 inches, with a video resolution of 1024 x 768. It is ideal for traveling businessmen.

Notebook laptop

A notebook laptop is thicker than the ultralight and weighs between four and six pounds. It has a screen size between 12 and 15 inches. It has a built-in CD-ROM drive, a floppy drive, and network card. It can also contain combo bays for installing external floppy, CD drives, and extra batteries. It is ideal for home and small office use.

Media center laptop

A media center laptop is designed for multimedia use, such as watching movies, editing photos, and listening to music. It contains a heavy-duty processor, a big hard drive, and high-end graphics, video, and sound cards to maximize audio and video quality. Its screen is at least 15.4 inches wide for displaying high-resolution graphics. Because of its heavy features, it can weigh as much as seven pounds. It usually comes with built-in floppy and CD drives, network cards, and other connectivity ports.

Gaming laptop

A gaming laptop has a discrete graphics or graphics chipset that produce fine detail in 3D computer games. Its screen is 17 to 20 inches wide. It comes with a fast processor, high-end operating system, a hard drive of at least 100 gigabytes, up to two gigabytes of memory, a dual layer optical drive, and numerous connectivity ports used for hooking up headphones, speakers, and various game controllers. Some models have customized paint jobs.

Hard drive: Choose a laptop with a large hard drive if you have a large collection of video, image, and audio files. For media center laptops, look for one with a 120 GB hard drive or higher. If you need more hard drive space, consider getting an external hard drive compatible with your laptop.

Graphics card: For basic laptops, choose one with a 256 MB graphics card or higher. For gaming and heavy graphics applications, choose a laptop that comes with a graphics card with a larger capacity for better resolution.

Display screen: If you work with large, high resolution graphics, choose a laptop with a screen size of 19 to 20 inches for clearer images and sharper detail.