Buying a notebook can be a daunting task, so hopefully, this article will guide you through the key features that you’ll need to look for.

The article has been broken down into several sections, screen size, processor, memory, hard drives, graphics, optical drive and operating system.

Screen size

Screen size will in some way determine the form factor of your laptop. Thin and light laptops will have 11” to 13” displays, sometimes 14” but that’s bordering on “mainstream” laptops. Generally these laptops will have slower processors and may not have as much memory as their “mainstream” counterparts. Also, expect the thin and light laptops to not be equipped with an optical drive; this is done to save space as well as weight and power. Thin and light laptops will have 5 to 8 hours of battery life. Weight for thin and light laptops will be 5lbs or less.

Business travelers should look for laptops with biometric security features (fingerprint readers) for data encryption.

Mainstream laptops will have 14.1” or 15.4” Widescreen displays, faster processors, usually more hard drive space, though that will vary among brands/models and will have built-in (typically) DVDRW drives. These laptops will come in on the light side at 5lbs and usually top out at 9lbs. Though, encroaching on desktop replacement territory, some mainstream laptops have 17” widescreen displays.

Desktop replacement laptops will feature the most powerful processors possible, 17” widescreen or larger displays, the best DVDRW drives money can buy, will come with two available hard drive bays, powerful graphics cards but will falter in both the portability and battery life department. Weight will be 10lbs or more not including the adapter you will need to carry because battery life will be 90 minutes or less but while gaming expect no more than 30 minutes, at best.

Processor

The processor will be in some ways influenced by the class of laptop you choose, thin and lights will have dual core processors but these will be the power efficient kind and rarely operate at the fastest possible speeds to save power.

Mainstream to desktop replacement laptops will not have the fastest processors, but will feature usually a Core 2 Duo T-series processor or an AMD Turion mobile processor. As always, going with an AMD processor may be a way to save money but the Core 2 Duo series offer the best price/performance ratio. The price difference in most cases will be minimal but might matter to some.

Memory

Most laptops these days ship with a default of 1GB to 2GB of memory but again, the class of laptop will, in part decide how much it has. It may be possible to still find laptops with 512MB of memory, I would avoid these because even for the most basic tasks will be slower than those with more memory.

Thin and light and business based laptops will have 1GB of memory but if they are running Vista I recommend upgrading that to 2GB but this will depend on your budget. I would classify them as “functional” with 1GB of memory but just barely.

Sometimes it’s possible to save money buy purchasing a laptop with 1GB of memory and then upgrading it to 2GB yourself but there are some things to look for if you do this. Make sure the laptop ships with one 1GB memory module installed and has a free memory bay. This is usually the case but sometimes the laptop will have two 512MB modules installed which means you’d have to buy two 1GB modules and replace both which is not usually a money saver.

Then, of course, make sure you are up to the task of opening the laptop’s case and putting a memory module in.

Hard disk

No need to be too picky here as a hard drive is a hard drive is a hard drive, just make sure to buy a laptop with enough space for your needs. Generally 100GB to 200GB are sufficient for most users, as laptop hard drives currently top out at 200GB but don’t forget there are those laptops that have two hard drive bays so it’s possible to have up to 400GB of storage built-in to a laptop which is not counting all the external storage options available.

Graphics

The type of graphics card in the laptop will really depend on what is going to be done with it. Integrated cards like those offered by Intel are power efficient, not too terribly powerful and are just barely powerful enough for DVD playback. Thin and light and a lot of mainstream laptops have this type.

nVidia and ATi also make integrated graphics which are better than the Intel type but are not suited to gaming though, media playback and the occasional “light” game they excel at.

If you’re going to be doing any type of high-end multimedia work or gaming of any kind then you will want a laptop with a dedicated graphics card either from nVidia or ATi. Though avoid the low-end cards as laptop cards cannot be directly compared to the desktop equivalent. For example a nVidia Geforce Go 7600 card will not perform the equal of the Geforce 7600 desktop card.

Optical Drive

All laptops (save for some thin and lights) will ship with an optical drive and most of the time it will be of the DVDRW kind for burning backup discs and movies. Additional features to look for are LightScribe labeling technology and dual layer support but either way, all laptops these days can burn both CDs and DVDs as well as creating backups.

Operating System

It would be hard to find a laptop that doesn’t come with Vista though some companies are still offering XP instead of Vista though that will end next year. If you must have XP, many online stores are still stocking laptops with XP but that number decreases each day.

Also keep in mind the memory requirement. No less than 512MB for XP (though 1GB is preferred) and certainly no less than 1GB for Vista (though 2GB is highly recommended).

If you want to go the Linux route, I do not suggest downloading it and installing it yourself. There are several manufacturers that offer pre-configured Linux based laptops, System 76 is one of them, Dell offers a few as well.

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Related:

How to buy the perfect LCD monitor

Buying guide: how to buy the perfect GPS navigator

How to buy a computer

A comprehensive guide to buying a Windows notebook/laptop

How to buy a digital camera

Entry was posted on Sunday, August 12th, 2007 at 5:00 am under Computers.

Read more entries by John Pospisil.