What's the right laptop for me?

Hello and welcome back to our "Tip of the Week". Sorry for the hiatus, the good news is that it hasn't gone anywhere, we've just been really busy. We have added several new clients, had a couple of larger upgrades and frankly we just have not had the extra time to devote to this page. Along those lines, a huge thank you to all of our clients and friends who continue to support us and help us grow, we really appreciate it and hope the excellent referrals continue. Now, on to the tip.

More folks are moving to laptops and I keep  being asked "which one should I buy?" I know they're expecting me to have a ready answer along the lines of "Oh, I really like Model x right now." Unfortunately with a laptop the answer is not nearly that simple. The reason is that unlike a desktop, a laptop is a series of compromises and what is an acceptable compromise for one person is completely unacceptable for another. You need to take a few minutes to decide how you are going to be using it and what are the most important features to you. Here's what I mean by compromises. If you want a larger screen, the laptop is heavier and battery life is shorter. If you want longer battery life then the processor will be slower, the battery is heavier and the screen is smaller. They are very much give and take machines and everything is a trade off. Here are some of the questions you need to be able to answer in order to make the correct choice.

• Am I going to be traveling a lot? If yes, then weight can be a big factor.
• Do I need to use it for presentations? Go for a larger screen and make sure it has video outputs that will connect to your company's video projector.
• Is small size and low weight more important? Look at a netbook, they are small, low cost and many have great battery life but you need to remember that they will likely have no parallel port, CDROM or video output.
• If you want it all, large screen, long battery life, high performance etc... then you're going to take a couple of hits. The screen and battery will add weight, cost and size but it could replace your desktop computer.

Thinking about how it's going to be used most of the time will help you narrow down what's truly important and you'll get the most value out of your involvement.

I must also reiterate that if you have any vital data on your laptop it is extremely important to keep a current backup. Laptops are even more vulnerable to data loss since they are much more likely to be dropped, have coffee spilled on them, stolen or left in a cab.