For many first time laptop buyers deciding how to go about buying a laptop is indeed a very tricky process. ReadersZone comes to the rescue of many such harried buyers by providing them with a detailed and easy to understand description of the various important specifications

Processor: Sometimes referred to as CPU or central processing unit of your laptop. This is the most important part of your laptop It’s always better to go with the fastest processor that you can afford. AMD’s mobile processors are usually more affordable than Intel’s.

Memory: Always look for laptops that have easy-to-access memory slots because memory is the first thing that a user would generally want to upgrade. Having more main memory is vital for system performance and more main memory lets you run more applications simultaneously.

Display Size: Unlike the desktop computer laptops are shipped with thin LCD screens. Wide-screen notebooks, which have an aspect ratio of 16:9, offer larger, sharper, and all-round better image than their 4:3 standard-screen cousins. 17-inch wide-screen laptop is a nice luxury if you’re not planning on traveling with it.

Hard Drive: Hard drive provides you the space for storing your personal data on magnetic disk. Generally a 160GB hard drive is good unless and until you are planning to store a huge amount of multimedia content like songs and movies. Hard Drive capacity alone does not make a good hard drive. The hard disk’s rotational speed also makes a big difference; a 7,200rpm laptop disk delivers significantly faster performance than a 5,400rpm model. The faster the disk spins, the better your notebook will perform overall, though a faster disk will also shorten your laptop’s battery life.

PC Cards and Express Cards: PC Card can plug into a slot on your notebook and can provide you with a number of connection types including modems, USB connections and wireless WAN radios which are all available in PC Card form. PC Cards are handy because they’re easy to upgrade and because you can buy third-party PC Card solutions after you purchase your notebooks. It’s always better to look for a laptop that has more number of PC Card slots. PC Cards and slots come in three sizes: Type I, II, and III. Type I cards are normally used for memory, Type II for input/output devices, and Type III for mass storage and firewalls. Express cards are the successor of PC Cards. Express Cards are smaller then the PC Cards and provides the twice the data transfer rate as compared to PC Cards.

Networking Options: Wireless networking has now become an essential part of any laptop. Most notebooks ship with a choice of 802.11b or 802.11b/G. Capable of data throughput of 11Mbps, 802.11b is fine for ordinary use. Public hotspots typically use 802.11b or 802.11g.

Video RAM: If you are not planning to play 3D games or do some graphics work then shared video memory is best suited for you otherwise if you are high end graphics user then go for a graphics chipset that at least share 64MB of system Memory.

Battery Life: If you do a lot of traveling with your laptop then it’s always good to have a battery that has the longest battery life available in all your models. Look for Battery capacity (measured in milliamp hours, or mAh), and the number of cells. Typical batteries have a mAh rating between 2,000mAh and 6,000mAh; higher the better. Cells are the actual compartments where power is produced and can range from four to 12; the more the better.

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