Laptops Arena

We have spoken of different laptop parts and models but how about an article about laptops in general? As many of you know, in the past there was a huge price gap between laptops and regular desktop computers. Laptops were seen as an accessory for business men as they used to cost very much and were considered a luxury product. Today, laptops have become like cell phones: a portable and useful item for most of us. Since technology has become essential in our everyday lives, most office jobs require the personnel to have a minimum in computer knowledge because everyone, from the manager to the accountant, store important files and get lots of work done with the help of a computer.
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With the help of a computer and a webcam, you can make business Skype video calls with business partners from different corners of the planet. They facilitate our work as well as communication. People today don't write letters any more, they write e-mails. They don't send Christmas cards anymore, they send electronic greeting cards. They don't use regular small computers to calculate balances; they use Excel formulas and spread sheets. Students don't bother turning in hand written essays anymore; they type them on their laptops. Old friends don't get together to drink beers and catch-up anymore, they chat using instant messaging programs. In a way, the evolution of technology helps us to simplify our lives and our work but spending too much time in front of the computer can make you forget about the other leisure activities. Kids with laptops rarely practice sports anymore. All they do is play shooting games and surf the internet. Other people forget mathematic equations because the computers help them calculate most of them. I guess it's true what they say: laptops really are the "necessary evil".

Do you know which are the main components that give power to the laptop we all need so much? First, we have the motherboard. This is a big component to which all the other laptop parts are connected, like the processor. The processor is the brain of the laptop and as we explained in one of our previous articles, it's the components that read different types of data and all the application we run have to be filtered first by the processor. There are numerous types of processors available on the market today and the newer our laptop is, the better processor it will have. Dual core processor have basically two brains that can works simultaneously, therefore application can run twice as fast. It's ideal for people that use their laptop to do several things at once.



The RAM is a special type of memory module. It is called random access memory because it can literally access different parts of the memory. One part does not have to be connected in any way with the previous module. The graphics card can also be known as the video display controller. Every image you see on the display of your laptop is made by millions of colored pixels. In order to display these images, there is a set of data that needs to be taken from the processor and translate it into a picture. This is why we have graphic cards. All the information about images that go to the processor is then sent to the graphics card. Laptop LCDs are not very different from regular monitors. The term LCD some from liquid crystal display. There are a lot of technical details that we could give about how those liquid crystals move around the display how an LCD is made and what it contains but that will probably bore most of you.



The battery is another important part of the laptop but it is not essential to make the laptop run. Laptops can run by simply connecting them with their power adapters to a power outlet. They don't even need to have the battery inside. Batteries for laptops are created for portability reasons, just like we have batteries for cell phones to use them wherever we are, the same way laptops are powered by batteries when we don't have a power outlet in handy to connect the laptop to. It is knows that the power of batteries decreases in time. A tip would be to take out the battery of the laptop whenever you have the power adapter connected to the laptop. When you use your laptop at home, you will most likely keep it plugged in so the presence of the battery inside he laptop is becoming pretty useless. Simply take it out and not only will you save some battery life, you will also be removing a heat source from your laptop (and we all know how heat sources can damage our notebooks).



Another important part of the laptop is the internal storage, also known as a hard disk. New laptops have hard disks which provide more storage room. The more GB your hard drive has the more files and applications you can store on your laptop. We have explained in a previous article how hard disk works and what it has inside. It is basically composed of platters and a needle (this is the simplest way we can explain it). Those platters are like bigger CD and the needle writes the information on the disk every time you give a command to your computer. The files you copy or install on your laptop are stored on these platters and can later be accesses. Compared to RAM, this type of memory is different because its permanent.



This mean a file will stay in the hard disk's memory until you delete it yourself, while RAM is only temporary and every time you restart your laptop, that temporary memory is erased. These are the basic components of the laptop, but there are many more features, like ports and connections that help increase the functionality of your laptop. Some laptops also have integrated webcams, microphones, Bluetooth devices, optical drives but we'll leave that information for another article.

I've always wondered: how can I monitor my laptop temperature. I mean, I read every day about laptop overheating problems and how high temperatures can damage the components inside and eventually shorten the life of my laptop. My Toshiba (Satellite L300) gets really hot on the left side of the keyboard, where the air vent in located and under intense usage the touchpad is so hot that I can't use it anymore so I always have an external mouse in handy. When laptops reach high temperatures, they simply shut down with no warning, as a measure to protect the parts inside from actually melting. You must not turn them back on immediately; just leave it turned off for about 20 minutes so things can "cool off".
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Since new software is being developed constantly, we now have special applications that run quietly in the background and they monitor the temperature of your laptop. Thank God the question "How can I monitor my laptop temperature" has an answer. These programs keep track of degrees for the processor, the graphics card, the hard disk and other components and it shows a table that refreshes every second with the temperature for each of these parts. You can still do your job in the meantime because such application do not require a lot of RAM and don't eat up significant laptop resources that could stop you from using your laptop. When a certain component reaches an alarming temperature, the program will pop up on the screen and warn you that your computer needs special attention. You can shut it down or out it to sleep for a couple of minutes or maybe just close some of the many programs you are running simultaneously.

For example, one such useful program in Coretemp. It's an application that shows the temperature for every of your laptop's core separately whether you have Windows XP, Windows Vista or Windows 7. The thing is, I believe this program only works for the CPU so if the overheating problem comes from the GPU the program could turn out to be pretty useless. The temperature is displays in the tray bar so you don't have to keep opening and closing the main window of the application. Since it does not waste many laptop resources, it will keep running no matter how many simultaneous programs you are using.

Another application that could help is MobileMeter. This software is available for free download at www.softpedia.com. All you have to do is unzip the files (there is one executable and one readme file) and the program will work on its own, with no other installation required. This application will show you the speed of your processor, the temperature of the processor, the charge rate (how fast the battery of your laptop is charging or discharging) and the temperature of the hard drive. Not only does it show the actual temperature of these components, but it will also show a small graph with the evolution of the temperature in the last minutes. A new icon will appear in the system tray whenever the program is running. With a simple right click you can toggle the item plus the graph display. The left click you reveal a list of possible actions which you can take. The "options" tab will allow you to snoop around the useful features, and you can even see some battery information.



Aside from using special software that monitors your laptop temperature, there are some measures you can take to prevent overheating problems. For instance, the main definition of the laptop says it's a portable computer which can be used on your lap. As you know, human body can generate a lot of heat and when this heat is combined with the heat of the laptop, the total temperature rises for both your lap and the unit. When the laptop is not place on a flat surface and you just put it on the sheets in your bed, the air vent can be blocked. This means that hot air is stuck inside the unit instead of it coming out for proper cooling. This can also lead to severe heating problems that shorten the life of your laptop. There are special cans, filled with air, that allow you to clean the air vent by simply blowing out the dust that gets inside the laptop.



When you laptop is getting too hot, to fast, you may need to open it up to properly clean the cooler. There may also be dust clogs inside the heat sink. The problem here is that the heat sink is generally soldered to the motherboard so it may be difficult to gain access to it. If your laptop shuts down without a warning, the first thing that should come to your mind is that there may be a problem with the temperature. Check and see if the laptop is too hot in the key areas, like the palm rests and at the bottom, where all important laptop parts are located. No matter where you put your laptop you have to make sure that the air vent is not blocked. Even if the notebook is on your desk or table, there could be several objects, like cups or books which are located to close to the place where hot air should be coming out from the laptop. I can't tell you how many times I placed my cup of coffee next to the air vent and when I picked it up to have sip the cup was basically burning. Well, it's a way to keep my coffee warm all of the times but I'm sacrificing my laptop for it.



The temperature of the laptop is something that has to be taken seriously as it can cause damage like dropping your laptop on the floor. Too much heat damages the internal parts of the laptop and you may end up with a useless machine just because you didn't pay more attention. Also try to consider buying some laptop cooling pads as they are a great solution for laptop that generally have a problem because of powerful components that generate a lot of heat.

Laptops under $400 are not an endangered species as they used to be in the past. It was pretty hard to find such a cheap unit and in our opinion, even today’s laptops under $400 act accordingly to their price: cheap! You cannot expect any kind of performance from these laptops so you have to understand that cheap notebook can only cover the basic and, sometimes, mainstream computing needs.
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On www.newegg.com you can find a couple of laptops under $400. One of them is the Acer Aspire AS5732Z-4510. It has a 2.1 GHz Intel Pentium T4300 processor which is combined with 2 GB of RAM. If the 2 GB are not enough, you will be happy to know that you can easily upgrade to a maximum 4 GB. It comes with the Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bits operating system so now is the time to check this OS out and see what everyone is so amazed about. The graphics card is the Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 4500M so no video performance for you here. 160 GB is acceptable when it comes to hard disk space and it’s a sign that you could use this laptop as your primary computer. In case the space isn’t enough for you, you can always buy an external hard drive to cover all your storage needs.  The 15.6 inch display has a native resolution of 1366 x 768 pixels and it features the Acer CineCrystal Technology. Other features of this laptop are the dual layer DVD burner, the 2 built in stereo speakers and the integrated webcam. We could not find too much information about the ports and connections but we do know that this laptop has 2 USB ports, one VGA port and a 5-in-1 media card reader - Memory Stick PRO (MS PRO), Secure Digital (SD) Card, Memory Stick, (MS), MultiMediaCard (MMC) and xD-Picture Card (xD). They say the battery lasts about 2 hours and 30 minutes and the total weight of the laptop is 6 lbs. The laptop is brand new and you get 1 year limited warranty.

Since it’s one of the most important factors that determines in some cases if a person buys a laptop or not, we’ve looked into some user reviews about this specific laptop model. From a total of 15 users, 26 % have rated this laptop as being excellent, 53 % think it’s good, 7 % consider it average, 7 % think it’s poor and another 7 % see it as being very poor. One user said that this laptop runs great with the Windows 7 operating system and that he really loved the display and the keyboard. However, some reviews stated that users had to return this laptop because of various problems (such as the optical drive that would not run). Other users did not appreciate the variety of software that came installed with their unit as they considered it useless and even called it “spam”. In general, people think they got the right specs for the money they paid and in the end you get what you pay for. Users say that this laptop is easy to set up and even a person that doesn’t have previous experience with this laptop can easily learn how to use it. One user complained about the touchpad being too slow and another user didn’t see the point of having an integrated webcam if you don’t get an integrated microphone to go along with it. Overall, the users are happy with the keyboard and the display above all the other aspects and features of this laptop. It seems to be a great laptop for its money and it covers all the basic needs. Users have bought it for their wives that use it mostly to surf the internet or their kids who want to listen to music and watch music and use some casual chatting programs. Some users would have liked longer battery life and better sound quality (they say that the maximum volume output is quite low). Come on, what did you expect from a $400 laptop, 4 speakers and a subwoofer. Sound problems can normally be fixed with a good pair of external speakers or some headphones.



$400 is also the price for the Asus K50IJ RX05. It has the 2.0 Intel Pentium T4200 processor and 3 GB of DDR2 RAM. Notice the improvement compared to the laptop above? You get 320 GB of free disk space instead of 160 GB like you did on the previous laptop so that means you’re probably not going to need any kind of external hard drive. The graphics card is the same Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 4500M with shared video memory. You have a DVD optical drive, 4 USB ports, one VGA port, and the regular headphones out and microphone in jacks. It has an integrated 1.3 mega pixel webcam and the dimensions for this laptop are 14.80" x 10.24" x 1.30" - 1.40". It weights 5.7 lbs and if you are wondering what the catch is, well… this laptop is refurbished.  This means you only have a 3 month warranty.



The nice thing here is that you can get some nice combos at special prices. This means that for some extra money that you pay, you can get another item that goes with your laptop. For example, $478 is the price of the Asus K50IJ RX05 and the LINKSYS WRT320N dual band wireless router which is a great item if you want to establish a wireless connection at home and get internet access even in your back yard.



If you pay $509, you can get the Microsoft Office Some and Student 2007 edition licensed for 3 PCs (plus the Asus laptop, of course). Deals are found all over the internet, you just have to know how to look, where to look and who to trust. Maybe laptops under $400 are not such a bad idea if all you ever do on the internet is chat on Yahoo! Messenger or upload pictures to your Facebook account.

Like I always say, if a laptop is good for gaming, it’s good for about anything else. This is because new and top of the line games require the most powerful components that determine good speed and high video quality during game play. This is why, in order to find the best laptop under 2k, I looked for a cheap gaming machine. I did my homework and I’m here to show you the Dell Studio XPS 16.
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Why do I think that this is the best laptop under 2k? Well, it is powered by a 2.6 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo P8600 processor. It runs with 4 GB of DDR3 which you know that it offers high transfer rate. You have 320 GB of disk storage space with this laptop and the graphics card is the ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3670 with 512 MB of video memory. The starting price for this laptop is around $1200 but if you want specs like the ones in this reviewed unit, you have to come up with $1804.

When it comes to the design of this laptop, you are going to love it. With touches of brushed aluminum and some sleek lines, this Dell makes a beautiful desktop replacement so make sure you put in the living room for every guest to admire. It has a solid built in design with hinges that keep the display in place. Over the hinge area, Dell has added a nice touch of leather which makes another nice touch. There was no flex noticed in any of the keys area where flex is normally an issue. If you want to gain access to the RAM, hard drive and other components inside the laptop, on the bottom of the XPS 16 you will find one big access panel that reveals all upgradeable components. This is unusual because most laptops have separate access panels for each of those components. It could be annoying to keep removing 10 screws only to remove 1 RAM chip. The 16 inch display must be one of the most beautiful ones you have ever seen. The RGBLED LCD allows you to enjoy some high definition movies using the integrated Blu-Ray optical drive. The screen has a resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels and the horizontal viewing angles are great if you want to watch a movie with a couple more friends.



The keyboard on this laptop is definitely one of the nicest we have ever come across. We would have liked a numerical pad as well but it have cramped things up I guess. A numerical pad would have also prevented the 2 speakers to be located on the left and right side of the keyboard. The keys are flatter than what you are used to see on Dell laptops but the LED backlight function is one big plus for this model. Typing in the dark is now much easier. The touchpad is ok, although it may be considered a little too small compared to the whole size of the laptop. The left and right mouse buttons are ok when you press them/ the texture feel very good so it’s won’t be too tiring for your fingertips if you use the touchpad for long continuous hours. As for the ports and connection, the Dell XPS 16 has 3 USB ports (one of which is also an eSATA port), a TV tuner antenna jack which is hidden under a rubber cover, an Ethernet port, an Express Card slot, a security lock slot, a Display port, one VGA out, a HDMI port, a card reader plus FireWire and the regular headphones out and microphone in jacks. We always like laptops with HDMI ports because they provide both audio and video output. The truth is this laptop has enough ports and connections to increase the total functionality of your laptop.



Since it’s a desktop replacement, I don’t find speakers that important because you can always use a set of external speakers with a laptop which will probably never leave the house. However, compared to other notebooks, the sound quality coming out of the speakers is decent. Maybe because along with 2 stereo speakers, this laptop also has a subwoofer. When it comes to performance, this laptop has proven to be the best one under 2k. The 3DMark06 test has given us a 4855 score for this unit which is even better than the HP HDX 18t (you know, that big new monster from HP). If there is one thing that bothers people about this laptop, it is the heat output. Due to the powerful components inside, temperatures get a little too high for our taste. This means that this laptop is not to be used on your lap. Noise, on the other hand, in no problem. When you have some extra background noise, you’ll barely be able to hear the cooling fans.



Another thing I personally don’t find important in a desktop replacement is the battery life. I mean, why should we care about the battery performance if this laptop stays on my desk all the time so I can keep it connected to a power outlet all of the time? Anyway, you can never expect amazing battery life from a unit with powerful specs. If you have the 9 cell battery on this unit, you can get about 2 hours and 50 minutes of laptop usage with the “balanced” power mode under Windows Vista, the screen brightness adjusted to 80% and with the wireless function turned on. Smaller laptops with weaker components can provide even better battery life.



If I were you, I’d take the battery out of the unit while I keep it plugged in. not only does this move improve the battery life but you should know by now that when the laptop battery charges, it generated a considerable amount of heat which contributes to the overall temperature of the unit. With some minor cons, this laptop has given us many reasons to consider it the best laptop under $2000. Since there are $4000 gaming units on the market right now, I’d go with the Dell XPS 16… just to save some money.

If anyone ever tells you that choosing a laptop for you is easy is either a person specialized in the IT field or a crazy person. People that have basic knowledge as far as computers go know that it’s hard to buy the right laptop especially with all the models that are available on the market right now and keep in mind that new laptop models are being developed every day, even now as we speak. The right laptop for you depends mostly on what you need a laptop for. There are basic laptops that cover the basic computing needs. There are office laptops which can run several applications to help you get your work done faster. There are multimedia laptops for those that use notebooks mostly to listen to music and to watch movies. There are laptop that have excellent battery life for those that are always and the do and gaming laptops for those that have some extra money to spend on a powerful gaming unit.
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This is why it’s very difficult for us to tell you which is the best laptop or which is the right laptop for you because that answer depends. It depends on what you are looking for in a laptop. Does it have to look nice? Does it have to be cheap? Maybe you just want a laptop so you can watch movies while you travel, in which case you need long battery life. This is why this article is going to be a general review of a laptop components and what they are good for. By knowing what each component does you can choose the right components for your laptop. After that, you can build your own laptop or look for one that has the components you need.

Let’s start with the laptop RAM. RAM stands for random access memory and it’s the component that allows you to run multiple applications on your laptop. When it comes to RAM, all I can say is: the more, the merrier. Today’s modern laptop comes with at least 2 GB of RAM and most of them can be upgraded. Lots of RAM is necessary especially for laptops meant to be used in the office that need several applications to be run simultaneously and they it is also important for gaming laptops because combined with the processor, it determines the speed at which your games will run. Speaking of laptop processors, they are another type of components which are vital for the laptop. Think of them as the brain of your unit. The central processing unit, also known as a CPU, is the components which carries most of the computer’s functions.  The CPU, or the processor, executes all of your computer’s applications. It decodes the instructions and writes back the results to us users. As you know, there are lots of CPU models out there. One very good choice is a Dual Core Processor. Dual core means that the CPU has two hearts instead of one and it can execute the commands at twice the speed of regular single core processor.



The GPU is the graphics processing unit which is in fact the video card of your laptop. Here we have two concepts that you need to know and understand when you choose a laptop with a certain graphics card. Graphic cards are in need of some memory so they can operate. This is why we have 2 different types of graphics card. First, there is the integrated video card which is part of the motherboard and is uses some RAM to run. These video cards are slower and not recommended for users that are seeking gaming laptops because the performance can be disappointing. On the other hand, we have the dedicated video cards that run on separate memory and they are recommended for gamers and people that have to use 3D applications. A decent video card should have about 256 MB or 512 MB of video memory. There are gaming laptops, like certain Alienware models that even come with 1 GB of video memory. You can’t even imagine what the price tag of these laptops is.



Disk space is another problem when you choose a laptop. If your new laptop is going to be used as a primary computer, it means you are going to store all kinds of files on it, like pictures, documents, games, music, movies and many more. This means that you should have lots of free disk space available. Your laptop should have at least 160 GB of disk storage if not even more. You can always buy an external hard drive if you feel that there isn’t enough space for you on your disk. If you have an optical drive, such as a DVD burner, you can copy files on your DVDs and then delete them from the laptop to free some disk space.



The number of ports and connections is also important when you buy a laptop. A good laptop should have at least 2 USB ports, an Ethernet port which is mandatory, a HDMI out and maybe a good card reader. If you picked out a cheaper laptop that does not have sufficient ports and connections, you could always buy a docking station. We have previously written an article about docking station and if you read it, you will see that it’s a reliable solution for laptops with few ports.



Think about the other laptop features that available and determine whether you are going to use them or not. Why should you pay extra for a laptop with an integrated Bluetooth if you have no need of quick transfer of files between your laptop and your mobile phone? Or why should you pay for a laptop with a webcam if you never use video chat programs? You could always talk to a friend that knows a bit more about laptops that you do, so he can join you in purchasing the right laptop for you. Personally, I don’t trust laptop sales people; they always try to sell the most expensive models with features you’re probably never going to use.