Best Laptop for Teens

Posted on February 2, 2013 by admin — No Comments ↓

Teenagers come in all shapes and sizes, and no two are alike. It is also true that no two teenagers are going to agree on which laptop is perfect for them, but there are some good overall choices to consider that will serve different types of teenagers very well. The three best laptops with broad appeal to different types of teens are: the ASUS Zenbook UX31, the Alienware M18x, and the Dell XPS 10.

The three best laptops with broad appeal to different types of teens are: the ASUS Zenbook UX31, the Alienware M18x, and the Dell XPS 10.

Teenagers looking for a sleek Windows laptop that will make MacBook Air owners drool need look no further than the ASUS Zenbook UX31. With a suave brushed aluminum surface sporting an understated ripple of concentric circles across the top, this laptop has plenty of good looks to spare. With either an Intel i5 or i7 ultra-low voltage processor plus 4 GB of system memory, the Zenbook is not designed to break any speed records. What it is designed to do is offer a modest amount of computing power and top notch inputs/outputs in a tight package that will last through an entire day of class or work.

The Asus Zenbook is an excellent choice for teenagers

Ports include a mini VGA port, a pair of USB 3.0 ports, a Mico-HDMI port, a combo audio jack, and a full SDXC card reader. An integrated SATA III SSD keeps data moving along at a reasonable pace while only sipping energy from the battery. While the 50W battery is not user serviceable, it is rated for a full 7 hours. While the base UX31 comes with a standard 1600 x 900 screen, the Prime model upgrades the screen to a slightly brighter full-HD experience and the Touch version adds touch to the crystal clear screen of the UX31 Prime. In short, the UX31 starts at just under $1000 and is a great laptop for teens who are artistic and/or go-getters.

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Posted in Best Laptops For College, Uncategorized

Notebook vs Tablet

Posted on February 1, 2013 by admin — No Comments ↓

There is one persistent question that no one may ever really agree on: tablet or notebook?

There are so many differentiations to the two items that you can’t choose one over the other:

They are both relatively portable, useful, entertaining, and productive. Tablets are ultra portable, convenient, user friendly, and used more for entertainment consumption than work production. Notebooks do more for the money you spend on them, have more power, they are more compatible with everything, and are useful for producing work.

While tablets are used for practically everything under the sun, it is much easier to use them to consume information and entertainment, rather than produce it.

When you are at a coffee shop with a small table, which device would you prefer to use: a notebook that takes up the entire space or a compact tablet? Tablets exceed notebooks in this category, because they can be used anywhere. The screen size is usually around seven to ten inches, and the thickness never really surpasses a few millimetres. This makes them light and easy to hold. Notebooks are usually a centimetre or more in thickness, and have screen sizes that range from a few inches to about 17 inches. This would make them a few pounds or more, and cumbersome to carry. With a tablet you can just grab it and go. You might want to put it in a little bag for protection, but that’s about all you would need. When carrying a notebook you would need a bag with a shoulder strap, charging cable, and maybe a mouse if you hate using the track pad. That would be two pieces of hardware too many for some people.

notebook vs tablet

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Posted in Good Laptop Brands, Uncategorized

Computer Repair Companies

Posted on January 29, 2013 by admin — No Comments ↓

No matter how expensive or state of the art your computer system might be, the chances are good that sooner or later something will go wrong. Unfortunately, that something will probably shut down your usage and will happen outside of the original warranty, so it will be left to you to find a competent, reliable expert that can fix the damage and get you running again.

Most cities and towns have at least one local, independent repair service. Freelance repair experts are a dime a dozen in the phone book and listed on the internet. But besides calling around for references from people you trust on each and every one, how can you be certain they’re not a scam? Even if you’re using the local branch of a well-known computer repair chain, still ask around or do research on a site like Angie’s List to get referrals and reviews. Just because a service has a well known name doesn’t mean they will do a good job.

So what are the best computer repair companies?

These are some of the most popular computer service companies in the U.S. and the types of repair services they offer:

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Inexpensive Laptops for Students

Posted on January 28, 2013 by admin — No Comments ↓

Five Inexpensive Laptops for College Students

Laptops have become as ubiquitous as backpacks and textbooks at colleges and universities across the United States. Gone are the days of having to reserve a public desktop computer at the library or the lab; college students these days are expected to bring their own device in terms of personal computers.

Most college students will probably be very happy snuggling in their dorms with top-of-the-line MacBook Pro or a high-end Alienware gaming laptop, but with rising tuition fees and exorbitant textbook costs, many students are better off considering portable systems they can actually afford.

The good news is that the following five affordable laptops, notebooks, netbooks, and hybrid tablet/laptops have what it takes to be admitted into the demanding curriculum of daily college life, which means that they meet the following criteria:

They are light, portable and comfortable enough for classrooms and dorm rooms.
They perform adequately in terms of speed and connectivity.
They include entertainment options like gaming and multimedia support.
They feature a reasonable battery life adequate for lessons and lectures.
They cost less than $600.
Acer C7 Chromebook is a very inexpensive laptop

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Posted in Best Laptops For College, Cheapest Laptops

Best Small Laptop

Posted on January 18, 2013 by admin — No Comments ↓

Generally when talking about small laptops we mean netbooks, however recently with the advent of faster, cooler CPUs that use less and less power, increasingly power is becoming more and more portable. One of the many reasons people go out and buy a laptop is for pure portability, something that they can easily slip into a bag, or use with ease around the house that doesn’t weigh a ton and that has all day battery life.

One of the main things for us when discussing size, is also weight and design. If you are going to use a small laptop, you should most definitely be sure that it doesn’t weigh a ton as that counteracts the whole point of having something portable, and secondly that its well designed. Especially for smaller laptops good design matters. You need a keyboard and trackpad that are comfortable to use, a screen that has quality viewing angles and colour/contrast, and a chassis that dissipates heat efficiently so the crammed together components don’t burn your thighs when you use it for longer than an hour. It also of course needs a large enough battery to support hours of use, after all, what’s the points of portability if your battery dies after two hours.

Find out which laptops gain our seal of approval as the best small laptops

Below you’ll find the laptops we feel meet that criteria and then some. Many smaller laptops can do all of the above well, but these are the laptops that do it the best.

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Posted in Best Laptops For College, Uncategorized

Best 13 Inch Laptop

Posted on January 17, 2013 by admin — No Comments ↓

13 inch laptops are taking the mobile computing world by storm lately. While the division generally used to be light-weight netbooks (10 inches) and 15 inch and greater laptops for those who wanted greater performance, the new 13 inch laptop segment has been growing by leaps and bounds.

Thanks mostly to Intel’s new Ultrabook specifications, 13 inch laptops are able to bridge the gap between the lightweight, long lasting battery life of the netbook with the higher performance and power of the 15+ inch laptop. This is thanks to a few things, namely lower wattage CPU cores which allow for greater performance while minimizing power usage, and thus battery size and weight, and also the slow decline in the need for either an ethernet card (for plugging into internet) and an optical drive. The availability and ubiquitousness of wireless internet and downloading entire programs/music/movies directly from the internet means that both of these former requirements have begun to fade in importance.

Because of the popularity of 13 inch laptops, more and more manufacturers are beginning to offer a variety of models to consumers, meaning the field is getting more and more crowded for those trying to pick out a laptop. ON the plus side this means we have some high quality entrants in the 13 inch laptop segment, but it also means that you have to sift through plenty of duds to find the best of the best.

There are many MANY choices when choosing a 13 inch laptop

Below we will examine 5 models that could all vie for the title of best 13 inch laptop and hopefully help you decide which is the best for you.

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Posted in Best Laptops For College, Good Laptop Brands, Most Expensive Laptop

Laptops vs Desktops

Posted on January 16, 2013 by admin — No Comments ↓

One of the toughest decisions when deciding to buy a new computer is whether or not you will purchase a laptop or a desktop. Both have numerous pros and cons that have to be weighed in the purchasing decision. Laptops while being more convenient and mobile also tend to be more uncomfortable to use, significantly more expensive for similar performance and have magnitudes higher failure rates over their desktop counterparts due to the cramming of heat filled components into a poorly ventilated area.

In some cases picking a laptop or a desktop is a very easy decision, for example, if you require some kind of mobility then you know you are purchasing a laptop. This article is designed to help those who are torn between the two make an informed and hopefully easier decision

Below, we will examine laptops vs desktops and outline the reasons why you would want to pick one or the other, hopefully helping with your future buying decision.

Laptops vs Desktops…which do you choose?

Where to Buy Laptops

Posted on January 15, 2013 by admin — No Comments ↓

In this post we will examine some different places you can purchase laptops and the pros and cons of each. From brick and mortar retail shops to online stores, each type of business offers various perks and conveniences that the other cannot.

To start with, we will look at all the different ways one can buy a laptop, secondly we will break it down into specific retailers so you know where to start. Remember us not looking a retailer does not necessarily mean that the laptop you might purchase from them is

The line can be blurry when deciding where to buy your laptop

bad, it just means that in general a better experience and price may be found elsewhere.

When discussing where to buy laptops, we generally think of 2 places, either in person at a retail store, or online. Lets examine the pros and cons of each.

Online:

Pros:

Generally the best prices can be found online. Stores have to pay for rent and employees, and those costs are passed on the consumer
Generally stores will install bloatware as they get store specific type laptops. Stores make more money for selling these laptops and often they have
Obviously buying online is convenient, you simply select the product you want and purchase it

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Posted in Good Laptop Brands

Buying a Laptop for College

Posted on January 14, 2013 by admin — No Comments ↓

College.

The most fun and exciting time of your life. Where outside of the occasional exam and assignment, life is a blur of meeting people, hanging out with friends, and going to parties. Picking the right laptop however could make your 4 (or 5…) years of college much worse than they could be. Buying a laptop for college, or more importantly the right laptop for college can be a huge decision, as it will be something you’ll probably spend thousands of hours on over the next few years.

Having its keyboard be terrible, or its screen give you a headache, or having the hard drive fail as you finish off your 10000 word paper due tomorrow because you picked a brand of laptop that has a failure rate in excess of 20% can be a big part of the college experience.

This keyboard could give you hand cramps for the next 5 years

Luckily, Good Laptop Brands is here to help with educating you on:

what matters with regards to laptop computers for college students, and
what brands to look for and what brands to avoid

Laptop Brand Market Share

Who said buying a laptop for college had to be hard?

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Posted in Best Laptops For College

What is A Good Laptop Brand

Posted on January 13, 2013 by admin — No Comments ↓

What is a good laptop brand and what does it mean to us here at Good Laptop Brands? First off, I would recommend reading our inaugural post here regarding some comparisons between good laptop brands, including information on market share and failure rates.

But here at Good Laptop Brands, we want our readers to know what is important to us when we review a laptop or provide advice on what type or brand of notebook is our absolute favourite as our opinion and how we measure what a good laptop is, and more importantly what a good laptop brand is, is much different from what you may feel is important.

For example many MANY people are far more concerned for design of their laptop over functionality, performance, durability or price. We strongly believe that the latter four are far more important then simple design, HOWEVER that does not mean that beautiful but functional laptops are not available. In fact see here, for 5 laptops we absolutely loved with head turning good looks.

So how do we measure what a good laptop brand is?

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Posted in Good Laptop Brands