Thursday, June 16, 2011

Laptop buying guide

2 years ago i bought my first laptop for further studies
and i did a lot of research on all laptop
here to share with you guys :)

firstly, of course your budget
if budget is not your problem, then you may skip this








Choice for budget within range
< RM1500 netbook, normal word processing and web access
RM1501-RM2200 low end graphic card, light gaming, multimedia purpose
RM2201-RM3000 mid range spec, enough for gaming
RM3001-RM4000 more than enough for gamer or designer
>RM4001 for rich freak


second is the brand, everyone is asking which brand is better
in Malaysia there are few brands of laptop selling nationwide
click the brand name to access into their website

Acer - a lot of critise on this brand. for few years ago, yes! acer laptop is horrible. But recently they do improved a lot and quality better and low price to get a good spec. mostly 3 years warranty

Asus - well known brand. nice quality but a little over price. good choice for high budget buyer.

Dell - worry about after sales service? get dell. their after sales service is the best! but they only free 1 year and it's hell expensive to extend warranty.

Fujitsu - not really sure about this brand. but it offers middle range notebook.

HP - 2 lines of product. Compaq and Pavilion. Compaq is economic wise laptop. offer free DOS. Pavilion is more classy look laptop and higher spec. but of course much more expensive also

Lenovo - quite hot selling brand in west malaysia. not really know about this brand also. mid range laptop.

Sony - not recommended brand. they are good in look. but is way too pricey. within rm3000-rm4000 range, but it's spec you can get it for around rm2500 with other brand.

Toshiba nice brand either. a little pricey but can get nice spec.

For extreme gaming purpose, is better if you go for a clone desktop. email me if you need assistance :)
but 1 or 2 years ago, dell got the authorised reseller for alienware.
for gamer you can look for alienware at dell website.
but for 11" laptop will cost you almost rm4000.
another is Sager, also a well known gaming laptop brand, but it don't has reseller over malaysia.

oh ya, i left out an important brand. APPLE MACBOOK!
i dont know much about macbook. i just know it's a luxury stuff.
running with MAC OS. thats all.

the next thing is SIZE.
11", 13", 15", 17", 18"
these 5 sizes are more common size of laptop
and this is the diagonal screen size

which size you are more suitable with?
do the measurement and decide yourself!

following is the specification (spec),
is the main concern of buying laptop for myself.
bear in mind, there are only 2 hardware are upgradable for laptop.
harddisk and RAM.
processor, GPU, display, wifi, bluetooth all built in with motherboard.

processor -
i3, i5, i7 depend on yourself. i5 and i7 have turbo boost technology. which can boost your core speed higher like 2.0Ghz to 2.9Ghz. cache speed is the speed of transferring data with your system. 3MB, 4MB, 6MB and so on.

display -
HD screen display and FULL HD screen display. HD screen is common for mostly laptop and it's max resolution is 1366x768. FULL HD screen normally is used for high end laptop and the max resolution can be set as 1920x1080. Bluray movie required FULL HD screen to see the effect.

RAM -
2GB, 3GB, 4GB, 8GB. this can be upgrade even after few years. nowadays most of laptops are using DDR3. how many GB you need and how many GB your system can support. please refer here.

harddisk -
320GB, 500GB, 640GB. nothing much to concern about this one. if your space are not enough, there are a lot of external harddisk in the market. but there are few types of harddisk. the normal one, and SSD (Solid State Drive). SSD is getting hot in the market. but the price is damn expensive. when it's just release, is 1GB for RM10. which mean 64GB SSD will cost you RM640. But SSD drive has their advantage. Will explain this further next time. 7200rpm and 5400rpm. rpm is round-per-minute of the harddisk processing. 7200rpm can process data faster than the normal one.

GPU -
also known as graphic processing unit. simple saying is your graphic card. for gamers, you should know this very well. there are various of graphic card model in the market. if you not sure which graphic card is better. you may refer this link.

WIFI -
usually you will see 802.11b/g/n at your wifi card section. b/g/n refer to the signal strength. if your wifi card can support up to n will be better. but also need to check whether if your wireless router support N or not.

Window -
some laptop offer freeDOS. freeDOS is without install window inside. original window 7 cost around rm300-rm600. freeDOS laptop will become cheaper. no window how to run? no worries. you may request the shop to install a pirated window. no harm to your laptop, just that you cant update your window as usual.

that's all for the specification detail of laptop.
choose wisely because a laptop is not really a cheap stuff for most people.
dont get attracted by those FREE 10 MYSTERY GIFT! seller. those accessories are damn cheap and no quality.