The Best Laptop for People Who Need one ...Entry Level Laptop Computers

The best laptop really, for most people who NEED a notebook computer is what I'm calling an entry level laptop. You will get into this type in the $1000 to $1500 price range on the manufacturers web-sites. It is sort of a moving target, though.

I helped a student who was starting college to choose a laptop about 18 months ago. We picked out what we thought was the best laptop for college. We didn't want him to have to tack the price of a new computer onto another loan before he graduated, so we went for something to give him 4+ years of good service.

The actual processor in it isn't available from Dell or HP today, but from a performance standpoint, it ranked between the two I priced as worthy to buy today. He needed to get the final price in under $1400 including shipping and taxes and we came in around $1250. A similar machine today (with a bunch of free upgrades that he had to pay for) is about $1100. We shopped, (hard) but I'll talk about actually shopping for a computer later. You can't shop and buy without overpaying or buying the wrong machine until you know what you want. (And what you want is the best laptop for you.)

Minimum Standards.

• Display--14 or 15 inch display. If you need to carry it around you don’t want bigger. If you want to use it comfortably, you don't want smaller. Remember resolution is 1280x800 or higher. Anything else isn't true high definition.
• Memory--3 or 4 GB or more. You won't be sharing memory with the graphics card, but this gives you some play with software bloat. Until you move into the upper end, most notebook computers won't support more than 4 GB of ram.
• Hard drive--250 or 320 GB. It's big, but file and software bloat are constant.
• Video Card--A 256 MB Nvidia or ATI card will do.
• Sound Card--Integrated sound is OK. If you're getting separate speakers an audio card improves the sound.
• Internet Connection--Wireless N card. It compatible with b and g and faster if n is available.
• Optical Drive-- you want a dual layer DVD burner. Almost everything will have one. I have light scribe or laser labeling, (or whatever the particular maker called it on their machines) but I've never used it and the disks are more expensive.
• Processor--Gets interesting here. AMD is barely a player as far as processor speed goes. It seems though, that the overall platform is still competitive with their fastest processors (ZM 80 +). We'll talk Intel now.

Intel's price and labeling structure for their processors confuses me. Higher numbers and/or different letters do not consistently show better current performance.

I've developed a rule of thumb that seems to have worked consistently for the past two years. I go to one of the web-sites like Dell or HP where you can "customize" a computer.

I find one of their lines that has a wide range of processors available. Generally speaking, starting from the bottom (stock) processor there is a set of processor upgrades with a consistent price increase as you upgrade the processor. These processors are the same "family" and you can see everything is the same except the clock speed.

Then there is a bigger price increase and another "family".

Then there is another big price increase and your last "family".

The sweet spot seems to be in that middle "family". After pouring over benchmark charts, it seems to me that there a steady performance improvement through the families, and a jump in performance between the first and second family.

The performance increase to the third family, with the motherboard and everything else in the line the same, is about the same or less than the improvements within a family.

You’re not getting your bang for your buck. The processor may well be way better, but in the actual machine, it can't strut its stuff.

That's what we bought 18 months ago. The top processor before the second price jump. That will give you a good foundation for the best laptop for you.

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