How to Buy a Laptop for Different Users
Shopping for a laptop takes a serious amount of time and research. This is especially true if you are buying a laptop for a different user, such as your college teenager, entrepreneur spouse, or a videographer friend. To help you decide on the type of laptop to buy, read on the buying guide below for a few basic tips.
For the student: A lot of students nowadays rely on laptops for their school papers and other projects. What most students need is a laptop that’s portable and easy to carry from class to class. Thus, Netbooks make a good option to begin with. Low-cost Netbooks are very handy and affordable at less than $500. They also feature low-power systems, but the downside is they have smaller screens. However, your other option is a 13-inch, thin-and-light laptop which provides comfortable experience when the student begins writing papers and doing research. Look for a laptop with at least 1GB of RAM; 160GB or larger HDD.
For the business traveler. A laptop is a must-have for any business traveler for safeguarding important data and accessing management tools. Lenovo’s ThinkPad and Dell’s Latitude are two great options for people in this category. They offer security features, such as Intel’s vPro platform and TPM chips, internal software and hardware components that will satisfy the user’s IT department. Other factors to look for include 2GB to 4GB of RAM; 160GB or larger HDD; 12- to 15-inch display; Windows Vista Professional or Windows 7 Professional; mobile broadband modem.
For the photographer or videographer. People who work with high-definition video or high-resolution photographs need a laptop with powerful processors, discrete graphics, and fast hard drives. Two popular options to consider are Apple’s 15- and 17-inch MacBook Pro laptops. One of the key advantages of Mac laptops is that Final Cut, the widely used video-editing software, is only available for them. Additionally, you should look for a laptop model that has plenty of RAM (up to 8 GB) and a large 500GB hard drive that runs at the faster 7,200rpm speed.