Category Archives: Basics

Basics, Buying a New Computer, Computers, Hardware, Online Shopping Tips

How to Buy a Laptop – The rest of the numbers and specs

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This is part three of our series on buying a new laptop. We’ve already covered CPU comparisons as well as the meaning of the primary specifications that you’d see in a laptop ad. Today we’re going to look at the secondary specs to give you some idea of what they mean. The big number, the price, is only one of the things you should look at. A low price does not always represent good value. Sometimes, spending just a bit more money can get you a lot more computing power. Here are the links to the previous posts on this topic:

How to Buy a Laptop – Comparing CPUs

How to Buy a Laptop – What do all these numbers mean? 

Take a look at this photo which compares three different laptops:

Photo of Buying a Laptop - The other numbers 1
Something is missing in the middle one. Can you find it?

 

These specs apply to the laptops that we compared in our last two posts. The things to look at on this comparison, and almost all sites have a comparison setup like this, are these:

Native Screen Resolution – This is where a cheap screen will show up. All three have good resolution but if one had lower numbers, the display would not be as crisp as one with higher numbers.

LED Backlit Display – You should ONLY look at laptops with LED screens. If the spec says ‘LCD’, move on to something else (that includes big screen HD TVs as well). LED screens mean longer battery life, plain and simple, as well as cooler temps and substantially lower power usage. There is no difference in how the screen looks to you so only buy a laptop that has an LED display.

Touchscreen – With Windows 8 and its crazy new features, plus the preponderance of tablets, touchscreen is something that is offered on laptops these days, usually at much higher cost. We can’t see these sense of this so we’d advise to stick to a mouse/touchpad arrangement.

Processor Cores – Four cores is better than two cores, two cores is better than one. Once you’ve checked out the CPUs by reading our previous post, you’ll know all about these specs anyway. Higher speed often means higher power consumption. Unless you’re editing video or recording sound frequently, you don’t need anything extreme here.

RAM Slots – The left and right laptops have one open RAM slot. This means that you could add more RAM later on. The middle laptop has both slots full but it has three times the memory of the other two. If you sacrifice some RAM for a lower price, check to see if there is an open slot so you can add more later on.

Optical Drive –  We think we’re experts, right? When we saw that the middle laptop, the one with all of the great specs, DID NOT have an optical drive, we were shocked. An optical drive, in case you don’t know, is a CD/DVD unit. This laptop, even with all of its delicious specs, does not have one. Make sure you check that the laptop you want has one of these. You can always add an external drive for $20 to $30 but that removes the portability factor. Can you see why you have to make a shopping list AND check the specs before you buy a new laptop?

(Please note that Chromebooks and ‘netbooks’ do not come with an optical drive. No use looking for one that does, NONE of them do. Chromebooks and netbooks are different beasts completely. We’ll do a post on these hybrids later on.)

Built-in Card Reader – Virtually every laptop has a card reader like this. This makes taking the photos from your other mobile devices (phones/cameras) much simpler. Take out the SD/micro SD  card and pop it into your laptop. No wires and no fuss.

Here are more specs to check:

Photo of Buying a Laptop - The other numbers 2
Blah, blah, blah…right? No, there are a couple of important specs here.

We won’t explain all of these since most of them don’t mean much to the average buyer. Here are the ones that we think you should look for:

Bluetooth – This addition would make using a Bluetooth earpiece for conversations on Skype very smooth. It’s not something we would look for but the middle laptop has ‘integrated Bluetooth’. If you use it, you need it. If not, it’s not something we’d add to our shopping list.

Approximate Battery Life/Battery- Number of Cells/Battery Capacity – The hours of use are fairly irrelevant since we don’t know the criteria used but all three of these have decent times shown. The second part, the number of cells, is more important. If you see a good price, make sure they aren’t scrimping on the battery. Dell has recently supplied two cell batteries with their low end laptops. Two cells? That’s not only cheap, it’s just about criminal since very few people look at this spec. The middle spec reads ‘4’ cells, right? The spec that comes next explains why there are only 4, not 6. The middle laptop is sold with a battery that’s over 50% bigger, as far as mAh (milli-amp hours) is concerned. That’s a hefty rating, believe us.

Pre-loaded Operating System – All three have Windows 8, of course. The two on the right use Windows 8 64-Bit. What does that mean to you? Basically, it means the two on the right are better laptops. They have a better CPU that can handle the load that comes with the 64-bit version of Windows. The laptop on the left is under-powered and can only manage the 32-bit version. But, and this is important, the laptop on the far right has only 2 Gigs of RAM. Remember that. Windows 64-bit needs/eats/consumes RAM and, even though it’s offered with 2 Gigs on the laptop on the right, don’t expect it to set any speed records. Your computing will be slow and you’ll be very frustrated while you wait for things to happen. As we said earlier, 4 gigs is a minimum these days, 6 or 8 is what you should look for.

We’re done! Now you’re armed with enough knowledge to make an educated decision when you’re in the market for a new laptop. If we’ve missed something, let us know. If you have questions about anything on this (or any other) topic, make a comment below and we’ll answer as quickly as we can. We love comments, questions, suggestions from our readers.

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Basics, Buying a New Computer, Computers, Online Shopping Tips

How to Buy a Laptop – What do all these numbers mean?

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This is part two in our series on buying a new laptop. We talked about the brains of the computer last time, the CPU, showing you how to compare one CPU to another. If you missed it, check that post out here: How to Buy a Laptop – Comparing CPUs . This time we’re going to take a look at some of the other numbers that you might see in an ad for laptop computers.

Here’s a typical ad:

Photo of Buying a Laptop 1
If you’re looking for a laptop, you’ll be seeing lots of ads like this.

 

We’ll do some comparisons in our next post but let’s take a look at some basic information that the little blurb beside each computer contains.

 

1. Screen size – all three of these laptops are 15″, actually 15’6″ measured diagonally across the screen, not including the plastic bezel around it. In our opinion, this size is the minimum for an everyday working computer. By this we mean a laptop that can be used for just about anything; writing, photo editing, video processing, etc. If all you do on a computer is email and Facebook, you can get by with something smaller but, keep this in mind, smaller doesn’t mean cheaper. The best prices by far are in this size category, barring special deals at certain times of the year.

2. Brand Name – While you may not recognize all the names you see, laptops made by the large vendors (Lenovo, Acer, HP/Compaq, Dell, Toshiba, Asus, Sony) are all quite dependable and offer at least a year’s warranty, sometimes with product pickup and repair. Additionally, you can always purchase warranties that extend the basic one year period to two or three years. We don’t recommend this but you might like the security that this offers.

3. Color – Believe it or not, this actually makes a difference to some buyers. Sometimes there is a premium to be paid for a cool, modern color. You’re on your own here. Black, silver, pink or blue is fine with us, just as long as it doesn’t cost more.

4. CPU – As we showed you last time, you can quickly compare CPUs. In this case, all three are made by AMD. It stands to reason that the laptop for $349 has a faster processor but that’s not always the case. It’s better to check out the speed, cache, etc. using the technique we showed you before.

5. HDD – This is storage capacity, sometimes mistakenly called ‘memory’. In computer terms, memory is temporary, storage is, more or less, permanent.  When you save something ‘to your hard drive’, it is permanent, at least until you delete it. The numbers in the ad, 320 GB or 750 GB in the ad shown above, translate to 320 gigabytes or 750 gigabytes of storage. To put these numbers into perspective, a movie that you can download using a torrent is usually 700-1200 megabytes. An mp3 music file might average 5 megabytes, sometimes more if the quality is better. The larger hard drive in the ad would be able to hold about 500 movies or 100,000 mp3s, allowing room for the Windows operating system and other files. For the average user, 320 GB is just fine but if you can get 500 GB or more for a little bit higher price, it’s something to consider. In the ad shown, the 750 GB hard disk drive is well worth the extra money.

6. RAM – Officially, RAM is memory. How much memory do these laptops have? The cheaper ones have only 2 GB of RAM while the $349 laptop has 6 GB. How does this relate to anything? Today’s norm is 4 GB of RAM. This number gives you relatively fast computing with some additional room for extra tasks. 2 GB these days is ridiculous. Yes, you can always add more RAM but that just costs extra money. You’d be better to take the 6 GB at $349 and be done with it. As to how RAM affects your daily computing, think of it this way: more RAM lets your computers think about more things at the same time. If you are writing something in Word, listening to tunes on iTunes and browsing Facebook in your browser, the paltry 2 GB of RAM would slow your computer down to a crawl. With 6 GB, you wouldn’t be taxing your laptop at all, it would be just as fast as ever.

7. OS – Just about every computer you see for sale runs Windows 8. (Macs, of course, run the Apple OS.) At this point, you don’t know which version of Windows 8 comes with each laptop so this information is fairly useless. If one of these listed Windows 7 as its OS, we’d say buy it immediately! Fewer and fewer Windows 7 laptops are around these days but we do consider it a superior operating system. More on this in our next post.

These are the basics, hopefully helping you narrow down your search for a new laptop. Next time we’ll delve further into some of the obscure numbers and terms that you’ll see in the ads. Stay tuned!

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Basics, Computers, Hard Drives, Hardware, Online Shopping Tips

How to Buy a Laptop – Comparing CPUs

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In the last few months, we’ve purchased two laptops. Because of our interest in this area, the process was relatively stress-free and, believe it or not, quite fun. For you, this whole strange world of confusing numbers and specifications might be very scary indeed. Over the next few posts we’re going to outline some of the differences you should look for when buying a new laptop. By the time we’re through, we think you will feel a lot more confident when shopping online. Why online? Our experience tells us that the customer service reps in the various stores do not know what they’re talking about. The presence of a salesperson just adds more stress, something you don’t need when you’re spending a few hundred dollars of your hard-earned cash. Shopping online can be done at your leisure, any time of the day or night.

The Basics

Laptops are the portable computers that have a screen that folds down onto the keyboard. That may seem obvious but you will see many other mobile computing devices, tablets for instance. Tablets don’t have a separate keyboard as standard equipment and the simple act of inputting words is much less convenient. For these posts, laptops are our concern. We don’t consider tablets to be real computers, they’re more of a toy, at least as far as getting work done.

Laptop Categories

Right now, laptops come in a few different forms. Not only are there different sizes, there are at least two different types you might see. The difference between these two types has to do with their storage capacity. Google has recently come out with what they call a Chromebook. HP, Samsung and some other manufacturers make these Chromebooks. They differ from all other laptops in two ways. First, they don’t run a standard OS (Operating System). Instead, they use the Google OS, as opposed to Windows or the Apple OS or Linux. Second, the Chromebooks have very small storage capacity. Google figures that most of us are online all the time anyway, so they’ve come up with the idea of storing everything online, in the Cloud, instead of on a hard drive. We just bought a Chromebook but these posts deal with laptops with conventional hard drives. We’ll do a separate post on Chromebooks at a later date.

Laptop Sizes

Small laptops, often called ‘netbooks’, can be as small as ten inches. This is the measurement of the screen, measured diagonally. Netbooks are fun, very portable but difficult to type on and, usually, very slow. Beyond that the sizes range from thirteen inches up to about eighteen inches. If there is a standard size, one that matches portability with usability,  you would likely want to look for a laptop that has a 15.6″ screen. This size usually has a full keyboard, often with a number pad on the right, and large keys, not the ‘chiclet’ kind that you see on a netbook.

Comparing CPUs

We’ll get into some of the other laptop specs later but we’re going to demystify the CPU today. What’s a CPU? Basically, it’s the brain of any computer. If you personify any computing device, the brain controls how fast that device thinks. Remember those ‘Intel Inside’ ads from a few years ago? These ads were telling you that the brain inside that computer was made by Intel. At that time there were other CPU manufacturers but these days there are two main makers, AMD and Intel.

Here’s what we see when we check out laptops on a popular website:

Photo of Comparing Laptop CPUs 1
Two Lenovo laptops, different specs and different CPUs.

Pricing and other specs aside, these two laptops have different CPUs. The top one contains an Intel Pentium 2020M while the lower one has an AMD E1 1200. How on earth is anyone supposed to keep track of these numbers or know what they mean? Most of this is deliberate on the manufacturer’s side. Even if you do manage to remember one type of CPU, the names are always changing. Here’s how you can compare CPU specs very quickly.

1. Go to google.com

2. In the search slot, type in the first CPU name, e.g. Intel Pentium 2020M, then type in ‘vs. then the name of the second CPU, AMD E1 1200 in this case. This is how it should look:

Photo of Comparing Laptop CPUs 2
No caps needed, just letters and numbers.

3. Take the first link that comes up, cpuboss.com:

Photo of Comparing Laptop CPUs 3
Click the link to find out which CPU is best for you.

We’re not sure how they do it but once you type in two CPU descriptions, a page is created that compares one to the other.

4. This is the result of this comparison:

Photo of Comparing Laptop CPUs 5
We thought the more expensive CPU would be best and we were right.

5. For the more discerning searchers, here is how CPUBoss came up with their recommendation:

Photo of Comparing Laptop CPUs 6
Various test results.

5. OK so CPUBoss thinks the Intel CPU is best. This is based on the results of the various tests they put the chips through. You might find it interesting to scroll down the page, at least in this example, to see one interesting difference between the two CPUs.

Photo of Comparing Laptop CPUs 7
Not a whole lot of reason to choose the AMD…except one.

In our example, the Intel is the better choice but the AMD CPU will use about half the energy of the Intel chip. It also has a built-in graphics processor, uses less power but, unfortunately, runs a bit hotter than its competitor. Going back to the original ad, ignoring the other specs again, we see the better CPU is also $120.00 more. Here is where you have to weigh the extra cost against the better performance. The Intel doesn’t seem to be worth the extra money, at least in this case. If other criteria were similar, we’d choose the AMD but in this case, we wouldn’t buy either one. The less expensive laptop doesn’t have enough RAM, only 2 gigs instead of our required minimum of 4, plus both are overpriced.

This exercise shows you how to compare CPUs, taking obscure combinations of numbers and letters and turning them into something a whole lot more meaningful and comparable.

Next, we’re on to the other specs in this same ad. Stay tuned.

Thanks for reading!

 

 

 

 

Basics, Computers, Hard Drives, Initialize Hard Drive, Windows

Windows Disk Management – Initialize your disk

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We added two new hard drives to one of our computers this week. It had two drives already but we wanted to install Windows 8 and decided that a new drive would be a good thing to add. We had a 2 terabyte drive ready to install then we and a 3 terabyte to the collection. That gave us four, one for Windows 7, another for Windows 8, one for Linux Ubuntu (already installed) and the last one as a spare for storing important files.

Before we could partition the drives, we had to initialize them. What does that mean? Contrary to popular belief, it does not mean ‘formatting’. Let’s say someone gives you a book. There is nothing on the outside of the book to tell you what it is. Therefore you have to look inside it to see what it is. You ‘initialize’ the book when you look inside. Now, that book has nothing in it but once you open it, you know it has nothing in it. At this point you recognize that book as a book with nothing in it. This is a rough description, of course. In reality Windows puts its own little notes on the drive so it will know what that drive is. There are two types of notes that Windows uses. Here’s how to figure it all out.

1. Add the new drive to your computer. That part is quite simple but if you have a problem with it, enlist the aid of a techie friend.

2. Start your computer and, once it’s booted up, click on the start button the look for the word Computer. Right click Computer and choose Manage. This is what this all looks like:

Photo of Window's Disk Manager 1
Start then Right Click the word Computer.

 

2. When Computer (used to be My Computer) opens, look for Disk Management down on the lower left:

Photo of Window's Disk Manager 2
Disk Management is what we want.

 

3. Windows will take a few moments to think about your request then, when it sees that one or two drives are not initialized, you’ll see this menu:

Photo of Window's Disk Manager 3
MBR or GPT?

4. We installed two drives at the same time. As it turns out, we could use the MBR partition style for one drive but not the other. Remember that one drive was 2 terabytes while the other was 3 T? MBR only works for drives smaller than 2 Terabytes or for partitions smaller than 2T. Since we wanted a full 3 T partition on one drive, which would allow Windows 8 to do what it wanted to the drive on installation, we opted for GPT on the larger drive.

5. We could use GPT on both drives, keep that in mind, so your choice might be just to opt for GPT right from the start. Unless you are using Windows XP, you are quite safe using GPT. No worries.

6. Once you initialize your drive, this is what you’ll see:

Photo of Window's Disk Manager 4
Now the drives are showing their correct size and you can interact with them.

Across the top you’ll see that two of the drives are unformatted but Windows knows what they are and tells you the size, etc. Down in the middle, you can right click and choose what kind of volume you want. Since there are a number of options, we’ll leave that for you to investigate. We might do another post on that later on but, for now, we’ll leave this as it is.

TIP: If you’re starting out with a new computer, a new drive and a new installation of your operating system, that operating system will take care of all of this.

How did we get into this? We tried to install Windows 8.1 on one of the new drives. During the early stages of the installation we saw a message that we’d never seen before, and we’ve installed Windows at least 50 times over the years, maybe more. At that point we thought that if we initialize the disks, Windows would install itself on one of the new drives. We were wrong.

We’ll give Windows 8 a shot next to see if it works but at least we were able to teach you about initialization, right? If you have questions, make a comment below and we’ll answer it as soon as we can. Better yet, like our Facebook page and you can ask us on it. Here’s the link: Computers Made Simple on Facebook. 

Thanks for reading!

 

Basics, Computers, Setting up a new computer

Setting Up a New Computer

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Yesterday we posted about computing for seniors. Well, today we headed out and gave some assistance to the prospective purchaser. Things worked out better than we thought and we ended up with a very good deal on a 14″ Acer touchscreen laptop. It had good specs (8 gigs of ram and a healthy sized hard drive, Windows 8) and seemed to be just the right size. We weren’t looking for a desktop replacement, but a Chromebook would have been far too small. In addition to the computer, we picked up a small wireless all-in-one inkjet printer by HP. Total for everything, including 500 sheets of paper and a spare black ink cartridge was less than $700.00, proving that you don’t have to break the bank to get online.

Photo of V5-471P
This is what we got, a slim mid-size touchscreen Acer.

Once everything was settled, we started to consider the setup process. As you  may know, there are a few things that you should do before heading to Google or Youtube. Here’s what we’d suggest, step by step:

1. All new computers come with what we call ‘bloatware’. Bloatware is software that is loaded onto the computer by the manufacturer in the hopes that you might actually buy some of it. This usually includes various versions of antivirus software, Internet ‘safety’ kits as well as games and, usually, a free-ish version of Microsoft Office. Our first step would be to eliminate as much of this bloatware as possible, starting with the antivirus applications.

Microsoft has its own antivirus application that’s free, believe it or not. It’s called Microsoft Security Essentials. Click on the words to get it. Once you install it, you’re just as safe as with any of the other professional (meaning pay) software. Windows already has a firewall built into it so that’s all you need. Make sure you update the virus database at least once a month and either scan your computer on a weekly basis or set up a schedule for scanning.

2. Every ISP lets you use their email for free. Well, we’re not fans of ISP email programs, preferring free online options such as Outlook or Gmail. Outlook has pretty much dropped the ‘hotmail’ domain name, switching to ‘live’ instead, so you don’t have to worry about being old-fashioned. Gmail is an option too but Windows 8 seems tied to all things Microsoft and Outlook might be your best bet. We have both but we use Outlook much more often.

Why use a free email service? Mainly because you will always have that address, even if you change ISPs. These online services have strong anti-malware checking built-in to the site. You have to go out of your way to get something nasty on your computer if you use one of the free sites. Lastly, your email stays on their site, not on your computer. You won’t lose your messages or photos if your computer crashes. They’re online so they’re safe.

TIP: Don’t confuse the Outlook application that is on your computer with the outlook.com site. The software that is on your computer is obscure, to say the least, and is very confusing to use. Yes, you can access your email from it but it’s much more difficult to understand. Head to outlook.com, sign up for a free account and you’re away.

TIP: Make your username as unusual as possible. If your name is Elsa, for instance, choose something like elsa_elsa_85. Why? Because spammers make up names and spam them automatically. If you use some arcane username, more than likely the spammers will never find you. We have a couple of email accounts that get NO spam at all. Others, with more easily imitated names, get spam every day.

TIP: Don’t get hooked into extra-cost warranties or anything to do with Microsoft Office. There is usually a free version of Microsoft Word on any Windows computer and, if not, there is always Libre Office , a totally free, open-source alternative. Buy the computer, that’s it, no matter what the salesman says. If they get too persistent, just walk out of the store.

That’s enough for now. Next time we’ll look at what software we would install on a new computer. If you have questions or suggestions or comments, feel free to use the form below to contact us.

Thanks for reading!