Now I keep an eye on HP Tablet PC TX2500 series.

The criteria that I’ll look before buying a laptop computer is;

1. CPU – This is the most important thing.

2. Graphic card – Laptop is not capable to change graphic card, so better choose the best but still bound to the 1st criteria.

3. Screen – Yeah screen.

4. Size – The smaller, the better. But must have all feature come together as DVD-rom drive.

5. RAM – This is upgradable, just to see what’s that store offer.

6. Hard Drive Capacities – Upgradeable, but still want a better offer from that particular store.

7. OS – Some store just selling a Free DOS laptop where we buy our own OS. I will prefer for the one who’s capable to run Windows Vista. Keep up to date man. Those store that says XP is better is just want to clear off their stock…

There… I’ve finished.

- Speed, speed, and more speed so it must have a great
processor and a ton of RAM to support all the programs that I need to run at the same time.

- Lightweight

- Battery that is worth a flip (haven’t found one yet)

- Enough USB ports to satisfy my needs (usually 4+) and wide enough apart that the plugs won’t interfere with one another space-wise — on the back

- card slots for every type of card possible or some sort of exchangable slide-in gizmo that will accomdate each size.

- Decent mouse pad and NO stupid little nub in the middle

- large screen

- keyboard that can take a horrible beating

- off/on button for Internet connection

- built in camera

- something that is HARD to crash…. I think my next one will be a MAC. Stop the crashes, stop the vulnerablities, stop the gaping holes that Microsoft can’t shut off.

- wireless “N” card built -in

- More durable electrical supply cords that don’t fray so quickly– tired of black electrical tape! I would like a more secure plug in that doesn’t stick out an inch too.

- How about a false bottom for the hot air to escape so your lap isn’t fried????? Even as an accessory would be good. There are all sorts of cool mats but nothing seems to be user friendly. I’d go for thicker if there was some space to allow for air flow.

I have thought about all these things and no one seems to have them all. It is all the little things that drive me nuts so I’d love to find the brand that can satisfy ALL of my surfing needs.

Ginger

To continue on his choice of 200GB – 7200rpm/16MB cache over a 320GB – 5400rpm/8MB cache. Someone looking to use the machine for massive data gathering would want the 200GB hard drive & for a stay at home mom with lots of pictures of kids, a 320GB hard drive is good. Speed is a definite matter, if you had a 5400rpm drive & were doing data gathering, you would run into a problem. But, the mom who can plug in the camera & go, is fine with the 5400rpm drive.

1 – For a stay home mom who will be surfing, checking email, and saving a ton of digital photos (doesn’t like touchpads mouse):

Look for cheap, wireless, DVD Player, and pointing stick option. You may need to look for a huge hard drive, but maybe not. I’ll come back to that. You can find a good fit for this solution on auction sites or when employers cycle out and replace old machines. The last one is how I scored a $100 laptop (2 Ghz, 1 GB Ram, 40G HD). I had to add a PCMICA wireless card. As for storage, you may be able to make use of a networked server/workstation shared drive to Backup and store excess photos. This box can be a Mac, Linux or Windows machine.

2 – Road warrior network security engineer running virtual machines on the laptop and doing extensive data gathering (packet captures and vulnerability assessments) in addition to email, browsing, and document creation/editing (including detailed network diagrams and data manipulation using spreadsheets and databases).

Get a fast machine, with a good amount of memory and storage space. It must be fairly light weight and it MUST run Windows XP or Server 03 (MAC is a bad choice). You must run a dual boot feature with Linux or at least have a copy of Linux running in a virtual machine that executed from your hard drive. Other virtual machines are often useful, but they can be stored on removable media.

That leads me to my final point. Don’t get to wrapped around the axle on hard drive space on this machine but rather go with the largest drive that is available at the fastest speed category available on the market. For instance, I would go with a 200GB – 7200rpm/16MB Cache over a 320GB – 5400rpm/8MB cache. Hard drive performance (i.e., spindle and read/write speed, cache, etc) is one of the most overlooked performance features on PCs and laptops. As for additional space, you will likely need some removable media anyway. Removable storage is dirt cheap at less than $150 per TB. As for solid state drives, they still have some maturing to do before a serious road warrior whould trust them.

Well, when buying a laptop (or helping someone else purchase one) – the first thing I determine is it’s primary usage. This is of course key because if someone wants it for music & video they will obviously want to a quality screen & speakers. Likewise, if someone wanted a powerhouse machine to do a lot of database work on or something, I would recommend an upped CPU & RAM.

Once I’ve determined the usage & what they (or I) need most, I begin to look at prices. This also includes checking out all the deals I can find, be it online, clearance, or etc. Now, price is not always the determining factor, because I like to look into the brand name’s history a bit too. If it is a company not well known for laptops then I would probably go for a laptop that is a bit higher priced but from a more reliable brand.

And, from there, I usually will have picked a good machine.

I hope that my answer/comment fits your criteria for your contest.

Thanks,
–JPF–