TechOh!Tech

Which notebook is suitable for you? The answer you can find it in this short information. Choosing the right notebook is not as difficult as we imagine. However, you need a little knowledge to choose notebook so that you will not be tricked by any marketing or by misleading technical quotes.

A high commodity price is usually the common problem for future notebook buyers. However, with present technology, production process is more efficient and production cost is less, thus the retail price is also decreased. This production/output efficiency which results in lowering the notebook retail price challenges the manufacturers to make their products different from other competitors. Thus, there are many varieties of types and models of notebooks available, such as notebook for games, extra small notebooks, notebooks for business, for multimedia, PC substitution notebooks, even an integrated notebook that combines wireless 3G, with PC tablets.

Technologies which base those notebooks also have interesting names: Centrino, Turion, Core 2 Duo, Pentium Dual Core, and many more. That is why it is difficult for buyers to differentiate one another, except with the help of the sales representatives which often only sell products that can increase sales. In the end, customer buys a notebook that is not according to his needs.

The first thing is to decide how much money you want to spend on this notebook. And, you have to have basic knowledge about notebooks so that you will not be mislead by the sales representatives.

This article is written to give you a basic knowledge and tips for the popular notebooks’ categories. Not
only that, I will give you tips on how to buy notebooks according to your budget. For those of you who have a limited budget, this first topic will help you a lot. This article only talks about choosing notebooks with 12” and above.

CHOOSING NOTEBOOK ACCORDING TO YOUR BUDGET

Buying notebook according to how much money we want to spend is the topic that readers would be interested to know. The following is a brief guidance on how to choose notebooks with limited budget :

1. Set your budget

It is very important to set your budget in the beginning. This will make you have a clear financial reference so that you will not be over buying. Best example is when the sales representative tries to offer you a higher price notebook.

2. Set your needs

Since you have a limited budget, a realistic need is a priority in choosing notebook. For example, you wouldn’t need a notebook with Bluetooth or biometric sensor if your priority need for notebook is just productivity and mobility.

3. Do not be tricked with high specification

For business, Celeron processor is more than enough to support productivity application, such as editing document ( Word, Excel, Powerpoint) and to watch DVDs. Pentium Dual Core and Core Duo are more than enough to meet the needs in basic multimedia and basic pictures editing application.

4. Use an alternative operating system

Since you have a limited budget, you can use an alternative operating system, such as Linux that can you get free of charge. Free document editing application is 100% compatible to Microsoft office so you don’t have to worry working with alternative software. There are many variety of alternative software now. Almost every similar application is available in Windows for free.

Those four points are a brief guidance that has to be kept in mind. This is useful for you when you have to
deal with the sales representative, they will do whatever they for upselling or to guide the buyer to buy similar product. This case is when they are trying to clear stocks or just to upsell. Therefore, as a consumer you have to have basic knowledge and determinate first so you will not be deceived.

Another example, a sales person usually offers notebooks with a higher specification where you need to pay a little more. When you refers to Point 3, then you will think that you use the notebook only for editing documents, Celeron 512MB is more than enough.  Definitely, first you will have to learn the notebook specification and correlation with the available budget before you buy. This brief guidance hopefully can give the best result in choosing notebook with your budget.

CHOOSING NOTEBOOK ACCORDING TO YOUR NEEDS
A need is a need, something you need by ignoring the price to pay for that product. Thus, this part is about choosing notebook without having to worry about budgeting.

1. Notebook for business/work

Choosing a notebook for business/work is a very easy choice for everyone. The only think to remember is to use notebook to increase output by using document editing application and simple pictures editing application. Editing document applications, such as Microsoft Word, Excel, Outlook, and Powerpoint need a standard processor. Intel Celeron processor is enough to meet your needs. It applies also for simple pictures editing application. Free of charge picture editors can work just fine on Intel Celeron Notebook.

The biggest consideration in choosing Notebook for business/work is the physical size of the notebook and
battery lifetime. If you buy a notebook for business purposes, then you might travel a lot for business.
Thus, it is suggested that you buy notebook with 13”monitor or below. The reason is monitor needs the
highest energy to run in a Notebook. In addition, small size monitors can also affect the physical size of the Notebook. If you have to travel a lot, then of course you will want a compact and light notebook to make your traveling easier.

User’s demand is the ability working on the notebook with a single workstation power. Industrial designers which often use Computer Aided Design or CAD software can now use a notebook for working. Graphic cards technology, QuadroFX is included to give a better three dimension editing ability. For example, Dell
Precision series. With that type of graphics card generally Precision comes with a quite high resolution 15” monitor (1680 x 1050 pixel)

2. Notebook for playing games
Playing games for some people are the main important food so this can be considered as the priority need. In the past, notebook is not a good choice to play games. But today, thanks to two well-known graphics card producers in the world, NVIDIA and ATI, modern notebooks are ready with discreet graphics card technology that makes complex three dimension games can be played in the Notebook.

To play games, I suggest that choice is made on products that have discreet graphics card and not on-board graphics card. The disadvantage of on-board graphics card is since its main purpose is to save energy thus it performs only simple graphics. Furthermore, typical on-board graphics card is it takes some memories of the system to help as graphics card memory. This sure will reduce the notebook output in overall.

Although graphics card technology on notebooks can give good output, however still cannot beat the desktop version even though using the same series names.  For example, NVIDIA 8600M GT graphics card on notebook produces the same output as NVIDIA series 8500 on desktop. It is limited by the fact that graphics card takes up large energy thus it is not efficient to be used on notebooks. Then, the producers have to take some of the features out to enable energy savings. From this fact, it is good to consider buying
gaming notebooks with a lower resolution monitor since high resolution monitor will demand a higher output of the graphics card thus if you don’t use a native resolution LCD then pictures will not be clear. You
can use LCD monitor or CRT external, but it means that you are no longer buying notebook for its main purpose, mobility.

Sound system is also important to look at. Playing games with better sound will enhance the games excitement. However, can modern notebook give a good and clear sound? The answer is yes. Some notebooks manufacturers include the latest sound system technology by the assistance of well-known sound system producers. ACER Aspire 5920G for example, is using Dolby Home Theater sound system which allows various sound enhancement with this system. One good example is virtual speakers technology supports from Dolby Home Theater. This technology can give the stereo output which will sound like output from 5 speakers. Therefore, sound system 2.1 usage and headphone will increase a significant sound quality.

3. Notebook for Multimedia
At glance, choosing notebooks for multimedia is similar to choosing gaming notebooks. However, you will not be trapped with a low resolution monitor. You can choose a notebook with the largest monitor to satisfy you visually. Therefore, multimedia notebooks can also be used to edit two dimension pictures for its high resolution monitor.

The difference between multimedia notebooks and gaming notebooks are on its technical tools which relatively lower than multimedia notebooks. Multimedia notebooks are for audio and video enjoyment. Thus, a good multimedia notebook is a notebook with large monitor and good sound system.

From its sound system point of view, to include Dolby Home Theater technology is a must. Toshiba Qosmio G30 with 17” monitor and monitor resolution 1920 x 1200 pixels is a multimedia notebook to refer to. A large size monitor, high resolution and of course, Audio Harman Kardon technology. Toshiba also seems like being low profile in this notebook features installment. The usage of GeForce Go 7600 is definitely will not be able to catch up with Geforce Go 8600M GT and Radeon HD 2600 XT graphics card.

At present, there is no mobile graphics card that can run games with maximum details on resolution of 1920×1200 pixels. But, Qosmio G30 specification is good enough to be enjoyed by the audio visual lovers.

Recently, multimedia notebook manufacturers are starting to get aggressive in putting extra features on their multimedia notebooks. Installment of Media Center application, such as Windows Media Center is included; for instance, HP with QuickPlay, Toshiba with Qosmio Player, also ACER with ACER Arcade. This all in one application combine all multimedia features in one, changing your notebook appearance as a multimedia player. This application is very good, and also one of the feature to define multimedia notebooks.