Tips for buying a laptop

In this mini device technology world we live in today it is almost a necessity that the technology we own must be smaller the better. If we can't fit it in our pockets or take it with us in a briefcase it's almost a crime. Despite the fact that laptops have been with us for around two decades they are becoming better with hundreds of giga-this and thousands of mega-that. For a common folk like myself I like the idea that someone could tell me what is better for me and tell me the common behaviors of laptops in plain English so I wouldn't have to worry about blowing it to smithereens. From the time you start shopping around until after six months of being a new owner you are extremely careful and paranoid. Never fear. I wrote this article for those folks such as you and I who are not on the up and up of the techno world. Please understand that everyone's experiences with laptops are different and that this is based upon my experiences only.

First of all, when you are shopping around for a laptop you need to know what you are going to use it for. Perhaps you only want to keep your typed files and photos on it as well as browsing the net. The basic $700 laptops are perfectly fine. If burning music is your thing, they're fine for that too. If you want to do all of that and burn full length movies then you may want to consider a price range of up to $1,200 to $1,500 with memories of up to 200 gigabytes or more. The $5,000 range? Sure, if you're planning to run it all day and all night for a couple years and install a few hundred programs on it. Not really necessary in my opinion.

Shopping for brands is the fun part but I recommend asking your friends about their laptops to see what they have to say. One of my friends owned an Acer and she told me that hers literally burned up inside. Mind you, these brands are changing for the better everyday. Acer, Toshiba, Dell, HP, Vaio and all of those common household brands are fine. I ended up going with Dell because they customized my laptop to my needs, their technical support is fine and they are a reliable computer.

Now, you have your laptop all set to go and the first frightening thought, "What happens if I break this thing? Who's gonna fix it?". Don't fret. You have at least a six month warranty to send it back for repairs. If the warranty has expired then you find someone who deals with computers. There is literally someone around every street corner who will help you.

If you have owned your laptop after about a year it will develop an attitude and give you some odd quirks. Programs may turn on when they are not supposed to or the clock may change a few hours ahead causing your Anti-Virus program to expire early. It's OK. Just click out of the program and change the clock back to the right time. No biggie.

If you do use you laptop as often as I did when I first bought mine (every single day for a year) the hard drive may suffer a crash as a result of burnout. It only cost me around $210 to get it repaired because they had to buy a new hard drive for it and put it in the laptop. I have also heard that it is normal for the monitor to go after a year as well. I have owned mine for almost three years and it is fine. The AC Adapter/battery charger cord can be quite sensitive if it is constantly being bent and twisted. Mine is always bent at the end and now some of the wires inside are broken. I need to have it replaced at an estimated cost of $50. If you think that's expensive, wait until the battery life begins to fade. Batteries are an estimated cost of $155. Thankfully mine has lasted.

I had the scare of my life yesterday when my 'H' key fell off the keypad and I tried to super glue it back on. I was talking to my friend and she told me to press it down toward the keypad and inward to myself so it will snap back on. Evidently the keys come off to enable you to clean between the keys of the keypad. See? I still have much to learn. Now I am waiting to see what else I am going to learn.

It is my opinion that your personal laptop is going to be different than the others and it will almost take on its own personality at times. The best and only way you can learn your way around it is if you take the time to fiddle around with the laptop yourself. You should never be worried about breaking it because it was equipped for non techies like us. Even in the rare even that something does happen there will always be someone around to help you so please, let down your Fort Knox security system and activate some programs.

by Nicole Oickle in http://www.helium.com/tm/807858/device-technology-world-today