Buying a New Laptop
What to Consider When Buying a New Laptop
Buying a new laptop can be an overwhelming experience, especially if you don’t know what you want or what to look for. If you add the fact that the laptop is a good part of your livelihood, that just adds to the stress of the situation. After all, if you make the wrong decision, it could be financially devastating. So how do you go about buying a new laptop when there are so many to choose from?
A Lesson Learned
About a year and a half ago I bought a Toshiba laptop to replace the Toshiba laptop I had bought two years prior to that. Now you need to understand, I used and abused that first Toshiba laptop to the point that it should have been dead in the water a long time ago, but like the little engine that could, it kept on running. So when I went to replace it, I didn’t hesitate to buy another Toshiba. My mistake.
The second Toshiba I bought was a lemon. In fact, I wish lemon laws applied to laptops. After just six months of ownership, it was in for repair. Then it was in for repair again, and again, and again. And I wasn’t abusing this one. It was a manufacturing flaw. Then of course there was the overheating problem. See, the laptop would run for an hour or so and then just turn itself off because it was getting too hot. The reason? It had a Pentium 4 processor, which tends to run hot -- too hot for the design of the laptop -- resulting in overheating.
So what did I learn? Well, when you go and buy a laptop, you’d better do your research. Make sure that the laptop you’re purchasing has a processor made specifically for laptops.
What’s Good?
Right now I think the best thing on the market is Intel Centrino mobile technology, which uses the Pentium M processor. Unlike the Pentium 4, this one won’t overheat and will give you the speed you need. The Centrino technology also features fully integrated wireless LAN capabilities and better battery life. So if you’re looking for a laptop, right now I’d definitely recommend getting one that features Intel Centrino mobile technology.
By the way, I did bite the bullet and buy another Toshiba even though I had a bad experience with the last one. The good experiences I’ve had with the brand far outweigh the bad.