How To Buy A Cheap Laptop Computer That Will Meet All Your Needs

by bloom media

You want to buy a laptop computer. You don't want to go bankrupt in the process. You do want a computer that will meet all your needs. Is it possible accomplish all of your objectives? It sure is.

It used to be you would have to spend maybe $2000 to get a good laptop, but no more. Laptops were so expensive because they were considered the top of the line products in the computer world. Laptops now are plentiful. Because of advances with cell phones, hand held digital assistants, and tablet pads, laptops have gone way down in price.

It's easy to go into a computer store, or maybe even a good department store, and buy a good laptop at a good price. It is not hard to go into several stores and do comparison shopping for a laptop computer. The prices are actually coming down as the quality and capabilities of laptop computers is going up, because of the law of supply and demand. It is still possible to pay a lot of money for a laptop computer, but often that is only for one with extensive multimedia or gaming capabilities.

If you are an average computer user, however, you can probably buy a cheap laptop with everything you want. You can buy a Dell, Compaq, Gateway, IBM, or Hewlett Packard. Know what you need before you go shopping.

Do you need a computer primarily for word processing or surfing the Internet? Do you work from home and need to save digital pictures? Do you want to play games on your computer?

Once you know what you want, do comparison shopping at different stores and online. See which ones have the features you need. Which ones have the most reasonable prices? Look for the intermediate computer models, or even the cheaper ones, that still meet all of your needs. Consider whether the computers you look at have enough hard drive space, memory, and processor speeds. If you are not sure exactly what you need, talk with the experts in the stores. Do research online.

You will store all of your files, applications, and folders on your hard drive. If you plan to work at home and need to save a lot of pictures or word documents to your hard drive, you will need more space. Again, talk with experts or do online research.

If you plan on saving a lot of pictures or MP3's, you will definitely need a lot of hard drive space. Some suggest 80 GB as the minimum size needed for the hard drive for such uses.

You might need 512mb of memory-at least. If you plan on playing a lot of games, you might need more. The more memory you have, the faster your computer will be. For your processor, which will process how your computer works inside, you might need 2ghz or more if you plan to play a lot of games, less if you do not.

Does the laptop you are looking at have ports you can use to connect your MP3 player or digital camera? Can your computer access the Internet through a wireless means or broadband?

You no longer have to expect to spend a lot of money to get a good laptop computer. You do have to some research, however.