Andrew Parker
While retaining its dominant position on our desks at home and in the office, the personal computer has also evolved into a variety of different mobile devices, each sharing a common heritage, but designed with a specific user or purpose in mind.
Sometimes, and often due to the underhand tactics of an eager salesman, people make the mistake of buying a laptop based solely on price or an arbitrary specification such as processor speed. Ranging from R2 800 to R28 000 plus, any new computer is a fairly substantial investment for most of us, so it’s wise to choose right the first time and avoid being lumped with one that doesn’t suit your requirements.
As if buying a laptop isn’t confusing enough, new laptop categories pop up all the time. In 2007 the “Netbook” concept was launched to instant acclaim in the form of the “EeePC” from Taiwanese manufacturer Asus, which I’m proud to say is the first computer even my mom can use.
Small, cheap and immensely popular when they launched, netbooks were the ideal entry-level computer for those who just wanted to browse the web, check e-mail and use online chat or Skype to make video calls. All netbooks feature a built-in webcam and a small screen, so they’re great as a sort of portable “video phone” à la Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. Kids love them too, and they’re useful as an educational tool.
Global netbook sales have slowed recently following the launch in 2010 of the Apple iPad “tablet” device, leading to a mass shift in computer sales patterns that has turned the computer industry on its end.
One of the largest netbook manufacturers, Dell, stopped producing them late last year in order to focus on their other product lines and it’s likely others will at least scale back netbook production. There’ll be more about netbooks later on in this series.
The new kid on the block in the laptop line-up is the “Ultrabook”, a term coined by Intel for a “next generation” laptop. Intel has applied to trademark the term and in order to market a laptop as an Ultrabook, manufacturers must meet certain criteria, as specified and updated by Intel with each of their “mobile platform” releases. An Ultrabook is extremely thin, featuring for example, a maximum 18mm closed height for a model with a 13.3 inch screen. They must have a minimum battery life of five hours and fast resume from “hibernation” mode – you should expect to be working again within a maximum of 7 seconds from waking up an Ultrabook.
So, they are light and thin which makes Ultrabooks eminently portable, but where’s the catch? Well, it’s less of a problem than it used to be, but if there’s any compromise, it’s performance. Very high-end, high-performance processors still generate too much heat to work within the restrictions of the Ultrabook design – there’s no point using a laptop that melts your trousers, so most Ultrabooks feature low-end or mid-range processors specially designed for mobile computers.
Hard drives are where Ultrabooks get interesting as many models feature a new, high performance hard drive known as an SSD (Solid State Disk). SSDs have no moving parts, and are the first mainstream diversion from the traditional “record-player” hard drive design of a rotating disc and roving arm.
So as you’re hopefully appreciating by now, when choosing a laptop, it’s not all about the speed of the CPU.
* More advice and musings on the variety of laptops currently on offer next week.
