Laptop Advice

[Springheel]

I'm planning on buying a laptop, primarily for work, but I know almost nothing about them. Any advice, pitfalls, or recommendations?

 

One thing that is a must have is the ability to plug the laptop into a TV screen...is that common or does it require a special video card?

[jdude]

It's common for laptops to have a VGA output which some tvs have, but if you're looking for a component, s-video or cable connection I think a specific GPU is required.

 

Depending on what you are going to use on your laptop I recommend:

 

If just web browsing, note taking, word processing ect, get a netbook. Their cheap, small, lite and awesome ($300-400ish)

 

If you want a larger screen get the cheapest and lowest spec laptop you can find. ($700ish)

 

If you want to do things like run doom3 (probably on low) you will need a higher end laptop ($1000ish)

 

Anything higher you'll have to be willing to spend a lot of money on the laptop.

 

Just keep in mind:

Battery life, and

Your likely not going to upgrade anything other than the RAM on it.

[Komag]

Many laptops will have the S-Video out, and like jdude says most will have a VGA out (which you can set up like any dual monitor, with the second monitor either as a clone of the first or an extended screen. Keep in mind that the S-Video option will be low resolution though, something like 800x600 at best (in my experience at least). If you get a very awesome modern laptop you could shop for one with a super multi-media setup with all sorts of connections, like HDMI out even.

 

But usually people ask advice like you are because you have a few needs and want to spend as little as possible and meet those needs. So if you have a TV with VGA input that will usually work great for you. If you have a TV with S-Video input you may be able to find a laptop with an S-Video out, and just deal with the low res.

 

Also, less expensive laptops almost NEVER have a real video card, extremely rare. They usually have stupid on-board JUNK. So you will have to just spend more, or shop around a LOT, or shop online on eBay or buy.com or something. Look for either ATI or NVidia video card, avoid Intel onboard junk or any other name. But all this is if you want to play games. If you really don't care about games at all, on board video will be fine for work.

[HappyCheeze]

Yeah going on what jdude said, netbooks are the way to go as far as a general use laptop for least amount of money. I believe most of them have linux on them, so if you don't mind that than this could be a possible option for you, you'd have to check for s-video/other video out.

 

I'd consider getting a warrenty or replacement plan if possible, because if an internal hardware piece gets damaged chances are slim for cheap repairs. Even if you wanted to do it yourself, it can be a real pain, because laptops tend to integrate a lot of things together.

 

All other points have already been touched on for the most part.

[jdude]

Yea laptops are very strange after dealing with desktops. In desktops it's so easy to take part A out and replace it with Part B. Where-as with a laptop, most wont even let you upgrade the gpu, you'd need a entirely new motherboard.

 

If you are looking for graphic performance go to www.ati.com or the geforce site because they have laptops for sale there.

[Baal]

If you plan to use it outside under bright light conditions you need a bright display (I think at least 200 cd/m^2).

 

Netbooks are great only if size and weight are important. They are easy to carry around but don't compare to a cheap notebook performance wise. Some of them have really good battery life time though (4 hours and more). Most notebooks don't reach that.

 

If you want to use an external monitor on high resolutions the VGA out that all current netbooks have is not optimal. I'm not an expert on this but I know it's something to consider.

It all depends on what exactly you want to with it.