Choosing the right Notebook

Based on my real experience.
When we need to have a notebook, sometimes we fell it is hard to choose the right thing since there are many products available in the marketplace. But I will try to give you tips on how to choose and select the best one for you, especially when you have tight budget.

1. Your need for the new notebook.
You must define why you need a new notebook. If you need just for typing and connect to internet, then you don’t need the high end notebook because it will waste your money. If you need for design like using photoshop, corel, etc, you might need the one with decent processor and large memory, but for gaming, I think you should consider about this, because, it is cheaper if you buy a console or PC instead of a new notebook (it is a lot cheaper and you can upgrade it someday)

2.Define your budget.
How much do you want to spend for a new notebook. Do you want to take credits or pay cash ? Credits is good only if you cannot pay cash or doesn’t have enough money at the moment. I would suggest you take a look at the creditor, they put interest about 20%.

3.Do a market research on internet.
I used to go to some computers shop before deciding which one I would have. I took some brochures and then doing a price comparison. I select some models that suitable with my need and my budget. After I found some notebooks, I did a research on the internet and search whether the product was good enough or has a lot problem with some people. Sometimes, it is hard to get a same product on the internet. But you can do like this example: suppose you want a Compaq V3613TU with Core 2 Duo T7250 2 GB RAM. But when you search on Google, nobody use this notebook since it was made for Indonesia (Asia region only). But you can search on google.com using this keyword “Compaq T7250” and you could get some references about it. Sometimes, on other countries, they use another name, so name is not always same and computer specifications are not same as well. Forum or mailing list could be a useful one. Also make a market research about the current technology that sold in the market. You can get plenty information about that from blog, forum, website that provide notebook review or it news website. If you have the Notebook that imported directly from USA, I suggest you to look at the amazon.com, because they also selling notebooks from USA and you can take a look from others user’s review. It is very useful for decision making. Check also the second hand notebook at some computer stores. Some brand like Toshiba, IBM (Thinkpad series), NEC, Fujitsu have higher price over the others brand like Compaq, ACER or any local product.

4.Get some information from Computer Show.
Sometimes they offer with bonus or lower prices than in normal market. At the computer show, you can have many information about a product especially the prices.

5.Make a comparison table and put some marks on each criteria.
First define your maximum budget. Let’s say it is US$ 1200 only and not more than that.

Define which processor the highest processor you would like to have. For example let’s say it is Core 2 Duo T7500 and the minimum is Core 2 Duo T7100 or AMD Turion X2 Tl-58 or Tl-60. If you have brands that you would like to have, make a list as well. Here I would like to have Lenovo Thinkpad or Compaq V series or NEC if possible. I would give Thinkpad with score 3, Mac with 2 or Compaq with 2 and NEC with 1. It means if I cannot afford to have Thinkpad, then I could get another one but with brand like Compaq or NEC or Macintosh. Make a comparison table to see the score each unit. If it is possible, add the picture so you can decide which one you want to have someday. Here is the table that I would draw. After you draw the table, you can have the scores. Base on the scores, you can make a decision. But you could take the one that is not in the scores. For example, I would take Lenovo Thinkpad R61 A13 because the prices is cheap for that product, and I can add new memory 2 Gb for about 30$ and actually I could save 250$ for me ;). Also, if you don’t like the design, don’t choose it. I myself like Lenovo Thinkpad and Compaq design, they were black and cool. Compaq wins my heart for the design, while Lenovo Thinkpad was my favorite over the others (I don’t like ACER’s model so I am not even consider to choose one of them, but they are good for cheap laptop). I also like the Magnesium cover on the Lenovo makes reliable. Benq S41 also has aluminium cover so it also good one.