Laptop Buyers Guide - Part 3

• 1. Should I buy a used laptop?
• 2. Size and Weight
• 3. Processor Speed
• 4. Memory
• 5. Hard Disk Drives
• 6. Display
• 7. Battery Life
• 8. Expansion Ports and Slots
• 9. Network and Connectivity
• 10. Disk Drives
• 11. Direct Input Options

Expansion Ports and Slots

Expansion ports and slots extend a laptop’s functionality and allow it to talk to devices like printers and external drives. Ports include serial, parallel and Universal Serial Bus (USB). While serial and parallel are pretty much standard, USB will allow you to run many external devices available on the market today.

Most laptops also come with expansion slots, like PCMCIA for use with adapter cards which will allow you to add for example a modem or additional memory. Another way of adding ports to your laptop is via a port replicator.

Network and Connectivity

If you need to connect your laptop to a wired Ethernet network or a broadband network, you will need an internal Ethernet/network card. If you wish to go online via a dail-up connection, you will need a modem. Most modern laptops come with both network and 56Kbps modems built in, otherwise make sure it comes with a PCMCIA adapter slot to plug in a modem card.

Disk Drives

Most laptops will come with at least one bay built into the casing for removable disk drives like floppy, Zip, CD-ROM, DVD-ROM, DVD-R(W) and CD-R(W). You can also attach external drives via one of the ports discussed above, as well as via a SCSI adapter plugged into one of these ports.

Direct Input Options

A laptop keyboard is somewhat smaller than that of a regular desktop PC, but the main difference between data input methods with conventional computers is the mouse substitute. There are currently three choices to consider:

• Trackpad – This is the newest and now the most common mouse substitute. It consists of an electromagnetically sensitive touchpad that tracks your finger movements, moving the cursor accordingly. The trackpad is robust, but can take some getting used to as it can be sensitive and cause the cursor to move when your finger is merely hovering in the vicinity.
• Trackball - This is a small embedded ball that moves the cursor when it moves. The trackball offers accuracy, but can be a pain as it needs to be cleaned frequently and tends to take up more space on the keyboard than the other alternatives. Trackball's are fast becoming obsolete
• Trackpoint - This is a small rectangular button on the keyboard that often sits among the keys. The trackpoint offers accuracy, but can be slower to use than a trackpad. IBM laptops often feature a trackpoint with some models featuring both a trackpoint and a trackpad.

Most laptops have ports to allow you to plug-in conventional mice and keyboards. If you are considering buying a laptop as a desktop replacement, it might be worthwhile buying an external mouse to improve productivity.

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