HOW NOTEBOOKS/LAPTOPS WORK
SPECIFICATIONS AND EVALUATION
PREPARED BY
RICHARD NELSON
09.12.05
GENERAL
From what I read notebooks (ALSO CALLED LAPTOPS) are currently outselling other computer configurations such as desktops and towers.
The big deal of course is that notebooks are small and portable. I use my notebook to give lectures and workshops that I conduct outside my residence, and like most people I take it on vacation. At home I use my notebook as a regular computer. It now seems that a notebook and a laptop are the same thing.
Recently a smaller version of a notebook appeared on the market called a netbook. They appear to be designed primarily for use on the Internet. (hence netbook) But is appears that they can be used as a regular computer with some adjustments on the user’s part.
Bits and Bytes
Computers only know two things: a zero or a one. To
accommodate computers, the human alphabet is translated into a coding system
called the American Standard Code for Information Interchange or ASCII that
uses just zeros and ones.
As an example: a = 01100001, and b = 01100010, and 1 = 00110001 and 9 = 00111001.
Each zero or one is called a bit, and it takes 8 zeros and ones to make a
character called a byte.
Below I talk about MB and GB. The B stands for Bytes and the M stands for one million (six zeros) and the G stands for one billion (9 zeros). So 256 MB is 256,000,000 Bytes, and 2.0 GB is 2,000,000,000 Bytes. Translating this into alphabetical characters One Byte is equal to one alphabetical character like an A or a B or a z or a y. So a RAM of 2.0GB would hold 2,000,000,000 alphabetical characters.
SPECIFICATIONS FOR A NOTEBOOK (LAPTOP)
WINDOWS THE OPERATING SYSTEM SOFTWARE
Computer hardware cannot do anything by itself. Computer hardware needs software instructions to make it work. Windows is a popular Operating System software used to make the hardware of notebook computers (or desktop computers) do operations for you. An operating system controls the hardware and the computers peripheral equipment like the keyboard, and mouse, printer, and finally Windows controls the computer applications software that do work for humans like word processing (word processing is typing on a computer) and Internet access.
Windows 7 is the latest of the Windows operating system. It replaced Windows Vista. It comes in at least 3 versions: Home Premium, Professional, and Ultimate. I believe the Home Premium will satisfy most users. My experience and most of what I read and hear, Windows 7 is a good operating system. Windows Vista the last operating system is almost phased out. Vista comes in a few notebooks now.
WINDOWS XP
Windows XP has been around for about 8 years and is a good solid system. At least one of the manufacturers is still offering XP and Windows 7 on one of its notebook computers, and Windows XP is used on most all netbooks.
Your hard drive is where your programs reside and where you can save your documents... It is the main storage unit in your computer, 160 and 250 GB is common.
Hard drives are getting bigger and cheaper. With 180 GB, your main storage unit will hold 180,000,000,000 characters or bytes. The more expensive notebooks have 250 GB or more. I feel that 250 GB is more that ok for most users. If you are going to store a lot of pictures (graphics) then you should go for the larger one.
Random Access Memory (RAM)
RAM is the main area where all the work is done, so it is very important when it comes to processing large files and especially graphics, video and music.
The standard on medium to low priced notebooks seems to be 2.0 GB or 3.0 GB. Some are even 1.0 GB. I suggest you get 2.0 GB as a minimum, but 3.5 GB is getting common. Usually the larger the RAM the faster your computer will run particularly with the advent of more graphics and video on the Internet. Also compared to some of the earlier versions of Windows, Windows 7 and Vista use a lot more RAM.
Screen
Most notebook screens are about 14 to 17 inches and that seems to be adequate. Some people including myself attach a regular monitor to their notebook when they use it in their home. The screen on a notebook seems to be brighter if you tip it at the best angle.
There are notebooks with larger screens but they get pricey. The new netbooks have a screen sizes from 8 to 10 inches. All notebooks have a VGA port, so you can plug an external monitor into them if you want a bigger display. That’s the route I always take.
VIDEO ADAPTER
For Vista and Windows 7 the video adapter is very important
The specs go something like this: Support for Direct X9 graphics with a WDDM driver, 128 graphics memory (minimum) Pixel Shader 2.0 and 32 bits per pixel (I am not sure what all this means)
Or
NVIDIA 256 MB graphic adapter card. NVIDIA is an American company that manufactures graphics and video cards for computers
Or another video adaptor
An Intel 950 which is an Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator 950 chip built into the mother board
Or
128MB ATI X1600 – this is another graphics adaptor card
It is not clear yet what all this means as far as the operation of your notebook .
CD’s can hold 700MB
Many notebooks now come with combination drives like DVD+/-RW /CD-RW that reads and writes DVD’s and CD’s.
And some come with Double layer DVD+/-RW /CD-RW that can use a double layer DVD disks.
Single layer DVD’s can hold 4.7 GB’s and double layer DVD’s can hold 9.4 GB’s
Most netbooks do not have a CD/DVD drive. You can purchase an external one that plugs into a USB port for about $40.00.
Read/Write CD’s and DVD’s must be formatted before they are used, and that takes burner software like Roxio or Nero. Many notebooks come with Roxio.
CD and/or DVD Disk burners are required today if you are going to do work with computer graphics, also for backing up your Hard Disk Drive in case it fails.
If your older notebook does not have an internal burner drive, an external burner drive can be plugged into your notebook thru one of the USB ports or a hub.
USB FLASH DRIVES
Within the last few years a new storage devise has come on the market that is great. It is called the USB Flash Drive. These flash drives unfortunately have several names such as USB Quick drives, USB Thumb drives, QuickiDrive, Portable USB Flash etc, etc, which tend to confuse the issue. The name thumb drive comes from the fact that these flash drives are about as your big thumb, and are very light weight so you can carry them in your pocket or purse.
Flash drives come in capacities of 1GB to 16 GB, and they are quite reasonable price wise starting at about $8.00. I use Flash Drives to back up my most important folders and files from my hard drive. Also when I use another computer or go on out of town, I carry my flash drive with me. I can do work on any computer that has a USB port and Windows XP or Vista or Windows 7 installed. All of these operating systems accommodate most flash drives automatically.
All notebooks have USB ports, usually 2 or 3 of them. USB ports are used to plug in your peripheral equipment such as a printer, scanner or USB flash drives. The most recent notebooks have USB 2.0 ports. The older notebooks may have USB 1.1 ports.
When you are using your notebook at home, it is usually better to plug a USB hub into your notebook then plug the peripherals into the USB Hub ports on the computer. See below for USB Hubs.
I find A USB Hub very handy as I add and remove peripherals to my notebook, since I mostly use my notebook like a regular computer.
There are two kinds of hubs, active and passive. The passive hub seems to do a good job in most cases.
A good feature about a hub is it saves wear and tear on your notebook’s USB ports from frequent plugging and unplugging peripheral equipment.
All new notebooks do not have a built-in floppy drive. Floppy drives are well on there way out. But if you are still using floppies from an older computer, an external floppy drive can be purchased if desirable. They cost about $75 or less.
EXTERNAL HARD
DRIVE
In addition to
being able to connect a flash drive to you notebook, you can also connect an
external mini external USB hard drive. They come in many different sizes and
prices.
External hard
drives come in many sizes, from 100 GB to 500 GB.
Most all standard printers will work with a notebook . There are some small printers available that are more portable.
All new PC computers including notebooks come with Windows Vista. There are four versions of Windows Vista: Home Basic, Home Premium, Business and Business Ultimate. Most laptops used at home use Home Premium.
As far as Applications software, a few notebooks come with Microsoft Works. Works is a suite of application software. It include a word processor, a spreadsheet, a database, and some other packages. Most people will find Works applications software perfectly satisfactory. If your notebook doesn’t have Works you can purchase it for $50.00. After market applications software is easily available and quit easy to install.
Microsoft Office is a popular version of a suite of software similar to Works Suite. Recently I bought a Home and Student version of Microsoft Office for about $125.00 and it works very well. I bought it for the Power Point software but the version Word 2003 and Excel that came with the package is very good. For Vista there is a new version of Office Home and Student version called 2007. I it came as a 30 day trial on my new Vista laptop. Subsequently I bought an official copy of this software from Amazon and installed it on my vista laptop. I have to say it is very different for the 2003 version. It includes the 2007 versions of Word, Excel, Power Point and OneNote.
Dial-up modems are what you use to access the Internet over a telephone line.
56 Kbps (kilobits per second). Dial-up modems are not used much anymore. It is too slow. A dialup line is usually provided by your telephone company.
Broadband Modems
Cable modems and DSL modems are replacing dial up modems. Cable modems and DSL modems are all external types. All notebooks have a network port (Ethernet or RJ 45 port) to attach to a cable modem or DSL modem. DSL works at about 10Mbps and Ethernet works at about 100Mbps. DSL (digital subscriber Lines are usually obtained from your local telephone company). Cable is purchased from you TV supplier. Shell Point provides a cable access for a reasonable monthly fee.
Wireless Equipment
One of the big deals about laptops/notebooks is that most all libraries, airports and hotels, Starbucks and some entire cities have wireless access to the Internet. You just go into one of these places and turn on your notebook and you will usually have free access to the Internet. The good news is that all new notebooks are equipped with wireless capability. However if you have an older notebook without an internal wireless equipment, you can add one. To add a wireless card to an older notebook, external wireless cards cost between $30 and $50.
The specs for wireless equipment internal or external will look something like this: 802.11a/b/g wireless. Sometimes you will see 802.11a/b/g/n. That’s the latest. Recently this new more powerful wireless equipment came on the market. It is identified by 802.11n. The range is somewhat greater and the speed is increased over the 802.11a/b/g.
Sprint (Embarq) and AT&T are offering a wireless card that can connect to the internet via a cellular connection
It is faster than a dial-up modem(57 Kbps). Sprint’s cellular wireless works at 1.8 Mbps upload and 3.1 Mbps download.
KEYBOARD
The keyboard on a notebook is flat and the keys do not stick up enough to be comfortable for some people. It is possible to attach a regular PS2 101 keyboard (and a mouse) to your notebook to make typing more comfortable. This can be done with a very inexpensive cabling adapter called a USB to PS2 adapter that costs $20.00.
A better arrangement is to buy a USB keyboard and mouse. That is what I have done.
Some notebook computers come with a keyboard that does not have words on some of the keys. An example of this is the Enter key does not have the word Enter printed on it, and the Shift key does not have the word Shift printed on it. Each of these keys had the symbol like an arrow pointing left on the Enter key and an arrow pointing up on the Shift key. I would think this would be a serious disadvantage, because the keys on a notebook are in some cases different than on a desktop or console.
If you spill something like coffee on a regular keyboard, it is easily replaced for about $25. If you spill coffee on a notebook keyboard you may be buying a new notebook. But sometimes this can be overcome by buying an external keyboard that plugs into one of the USB ports.
Also notebooks are fragile. They cannot be dropped. It has been recorded that the biggest problem with notebooks in schools is notebooks being dropped. That is why many publications recommend getting a 2-year warrantee.
TOUCH PADS
Notebooks come with a touch pad instead of a mouse. Some people find it difficult to use a touch pad instead of a mouse. I like both of them, but I think a mouse is faster. As indicated above it is possible to purchase a USB mouse for less than $20, or a USB to PS2 adapter cable that costs less than $20.00 to attach a regular mouse to you notebook.
SCREEN SIZE
Because of the desire to stay small in size and cost you are pretty limited to a 15-inch monitor on a notebook. There are notebooks with larger screens but of course the whole case is larger, heavier, and they are much more expensive. It is also possible to connect a regular monitor to a notebook. There is a monitor port on most notebooks. Adjusting the screen on the notebook monitor can make a big difference in the brightness and clarity. This is usually done by using the fn key and f8 keys together
LCD PROJECTOR PORTS
You will find that you will be giving lectures with your notebook . So it is desirable to have a monitor port available. All notebooks that I have seen have a DB15 port for an external monitors and this port can be used for an LCD when not being used with a monitor. But you must have a special cable to plug in a LCD. It is a male-male DB15 cable and they are sometimes hard to find. You can also plug your notebook into an LCD using an S-Video cable but the picture on the screen is not as good.
BATTERY LIFE
Battery life is the number of hours that the notebook will run without being plugged into a power outlet, not the numbers of years the battery will last.
One of the downsides for notebooks is the battery life. Battery life depends on the number of cells your battery has, the more cells the longer the notebook will function on its battery. Batteries come in 4 cells, 6 cells, and 8 cells etc. The less expensive notebooks usually have 4 cell batteries. So beware!
It seems about that 2 to 3 hours on the battery is average. But there are several ways of supplementing the power to your notebooks battery when it is not plugged in to a 120v outlet. One is to buy a second notebook battery as a back up and keep it charged by using it in your notebook.
Another way is to buy an adaptor to plug into the cigarette outlet in an automobile. That will extend the battery life indefinitely as long as you have access to an automobile. Another trick is to buy a Jump-It battery that you normally use to jump-start an automobile, and using the cigarette adaptor mentioned above, you can plug into the Jump-It battery and extent the battery of you notebook several hours. I used mine during the last hurricane.
It is desirable to run your notebook on its battery without being plugged into a wall outlet at least once a month. That way you can tell if the battery is still ok.
A notebook does not have to be plugged into an Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) to protect it from power surges and outages, because the notebook battery acts just like a UPS. But if the battery is no good then this protection is just not there.
SYSTEM RESTORE DISCS
This is important today because most laptops will crash sometime within its lifetime. Some of the newer laptops can be restored without using system restore discs. My latest Windows Vista laptop has that feature. I have not had any experience with restoring the laptop that way.
I have had a lot of experience with restoring my Windows XP laptop with restore CDs and it works well. If at all possible when you buy a new laptop it would be desirable to have one that has a set of system restore CDs. If not to make sure that it has a build in system restore feature.
PRINTER
It is as easy to connect a printer to a notebook, as it is a regular computer. I have found that Vista does not accommodate all printers, particularly older ones.
OTHER PERIPHERAL EQUIPMENT
Almost any peripheral equipment that connects to a desktop can be connected to a notebook. This usually can be done thru one of its USB Ports or thru an USB hub.
NOTEBOOK PLATFORMS
There is a notebook platform that can be purchased that allows you to use your notebook as a desktop and provides extra cooling and USB ports in the process. At one time these were called docks, but I think a dock also provided some other features like a port to keep your notebook battery charged. These are worth looking into if you want to add an external monitor to your notebook.
Another type of notebook platform for a HP notebook holds the notebook base at a 45 degree angle so that the notebook keyboard and touch pad is exposed and has a wireless keyboard and mouse as part of the kit. It costs about $250 extra. There are also some knock offs for much less.
IDENTIFYING THE PLUG IN PORTS ON A TYPICAL NOTEBOOK
There are usually drawings included in a booklet that comes with your notebook, that identifies the various ports on your notebook and describes their purpose.
Getting information about your notebook is easy, just right click on the My Computer icon on your desktop and then left click on Properties. That will give you important information about your notebook.
There are several very important displays for your notebook you should use frequently.
My Computer (Computer in Vista)
One of these is the My Computer display. There are several places that the button for accessing this display can be found. One is and icon on your computer desktop, and the other is found on the Main Start Menu that is activated by clicking on the Start button in the lower left corner of your screen. Clicking on either of these the My Computer buttons will activate the My Computer display, and you can see all the storage units on your computer.
Control Panel
Another important display is the Control Panel. It can be accessed from the Master Start Menu by clicking on the Start button in the lower left corner of your screen. The Control Panel gives you access to all the hardware and software associated with your computer.
All Programs
The All Programs display can be accessed from the Master Start Menu as above. When you get to the Master Start Menu just put you mouse arrow on top of the words All Programs (don’t click) and a menu will pop out, showing you all the software that is installed on your computer
If you right click on an open space on the task bar you will get a menu. Slide up to Task Manager on the menu and left click. To see how your computer is performing left click on any of the tabs and it will give you a display. Example if you are on the Internet left click on Networking.
SUMMARY
The cost of a reasonable performing notebook is now about $400.00 for the low-end models. I suggest you go with the ones that cost in the neighborhood of $500+, with at least 3GB RAM.
We have become a mobile society and because of its size, weight, and portability, notebooks are becoming the computer configuration of choice. Many of us have two residents and we move back and forth during different times of the year. Notebooks are perfect for those people.
Additionally, as indicated above many locations have wireless hotspots that give notebooks access to the Internet making a notebook valuable when traveling.
Finally as our society grows older and we move to smaller quarter’s notebooks require significant less space than regular computer configurations. Also, if there is an extended stay in a rehab center, a notebook is the perfect solution for that situation. Or if you need to get help you can easily transport the notebook to the person that can help you.
Filed in the Laptops H & E folders titled LAPTOPS_SPECS&EVALUATION_BACKUP
