Cheap Laptops

You can think of laptops as a small desktop computer. Back in the day laptops were very expensive and much slower than desktops, therefore not too many people had one. However, this has changed a lot over the past few years, and laptops are becoming very common and even smaller in size. For the very first time laptop sales have exceeded desktop sales. If you travel frequently for work or want something portable for school, a laptop is a must!

Laptops have become much cheaper and faster, being able to compete with desktops in both speed and price. Today's laptops use special processors, unlike the old laptops which used the same hot-running processor as desktops, which allow them to conserve your battery and optimize performance and cooling.

Since buying a wireless Internet setup is now very cheap, you can have your laptop hooked to the Internet, without having any cords anywhere in your house. You can browse the Internet while sitting in your comfortable couch in front of the TV or at a cozy coffee shop sipping a latte.

As with desktops, laptop prices have been falling into consumer electronic levels and companies have been trying to get a part of the market. Because of this there is almost a guarantee that there will be a laptop to fit your needs. If you're looking for a lightweight laptop, you'll want to look at ultra portable laptops. If you're looking for heavy duty performance you'll want a desktop-replacement laptop. Before looking for a new laptop, make sure you know how you are going to use it and what features are most important for you. Many of the top features people look for are:

- Weight
- Processor Speed
- Amount of memory
- Hard drive size
- Screen size
- Video card performance

Because laptops are harder to upgrade than their desktop counterparts, be sure not to skimp on features that you might need in the future. This is especially pertinent to the processor speed and screen size.

Laptop buying tips - best value laptops.

Here are a few tips for buying a laptop:

- If you'll use your laptop only for Word, surfing the Internet, or similar simple tasks, even the slowest of today's laptops will do a fine job. However, make sure you get a Hard Disk with at least 20-30GB of space so that you have plenty of room for music, pictures and any other files. Common laptop hard drives run cooler and at a slower speed than desktop hard drives, so if performance is a big concern be sure to get the faster laptop hard drives. More about hard disk drives .

- Even though 256MB of RAM is common in laptops today, try getting 512MB. It will considerably increase your laptop's performances and bring your computer out of standby mode much faster. Find out about computer memory .

- Try getting an optical writable drive if possible. You might be stuck at work and need to backup files, or you might be bored and need to burn a music cd. CD-RW is very common today, but if you can, get a DVD-RW that supports -R and +R media. This will keep you current for at least a couple years. Read about optical drives .

- Screen size usually correlates with the weight of the laptop. If you're looking for a lightweight laptop, don't expect to get a huge screen. There is also a current trend to include widescreen laptops which are great if you like to watch movies on your computer or if you like to multitask and have multiple windows up side by side. Many of the brand name laptop manufacturers have different buzz words for their screen technology but they all reduce down to the same thing, so don't be thrown by company buzz words.

- Although for desktops, it is a throw-up between Intel and AMD, for laptops we recommend choosing an Intel Pentium M processor. The Pentium M was exclusively designed for laptops, so it is cooler running, faster, and smaller than similar laptops with desktop processors.

- Many of the newer laptops have built in wireless cards that allow you to surf the internet without lugging around a separate wireless card. Also look for laptops that incorporate the ports you need. Some include SD/CF card readers, firewire, S-video out and many others. If you don't have legacy peripherals such as parallel port printers or a serial cable mouse, then get a laptop without those legacy components. You'll get a smaller and lighter laptop.

- The bigger laptop manufacturers such as DELL will send out coupons for their laptops on occasion. To receive these you want to sign up for their newsletters usually found on their websites. It could save you a bundle!

Read more about Laptops .