You’re looking for the best small laptop?

Here are 10 tips to consider when buying your latest small laptop. The right specification when buying a small laptop, is as unique as the person who is using it, so there’s no hard or fast rules. A particular colour or sleek design of portable pc might appeal to someone more than the entire processor, memory, hard drive capacity, battery life put together. Before you buy your latest portable laptop check these out to make sure its the best small laptop!

1. Memory (RAM)

Lets face it, you’re going to really judge a laptop when your using it. If your messenger program and Internet Explorer are working smoothly while Arcade Fire are blasting in your media player in the background then you’re gonna rate it. If your computer turns on fast, you’re gonna rate it.  More memory, means faster computer, and more programs working and responding quickly. Higher price models of the same brand of laptop will normally have more memory. A good amount of memory for a notebook laptop with Windows XP installed is 1GB.

2. Battery Life

If your on the move then battery life is important. A good average battery life would be 3 hours of normal use on a single charge. If your willing to pay more then you can get up to 8 hours battery life, or as the laptops probably in a bag, you could just carry an extra battery.

3. Durability/Warranty

This is hard to gauge as a true test of durability comes with wear and tear. However just like you can tell when a good car has been engineered solid, the same can be said of your mini laptop. Its worth checking, if possible, how flimsy the screen hinges to the base.Also warranty is a good indicator of the durability of a laptop. Most small laptops purchased new carry a standard 1-year manufacturers warranty, though its worth hunting for the many that offer standard 2-3 year warranty for that extra peace of mind.

4. Software/Operating System

When you want to buy your latest small laptop, bear in mind the higher priced model will usually come with Microsoft Windows XP or Vista , and the more cost effective model will probably be shipped with Linux.

5. USB ports/VGA Input

You may have your small laptop constantly connected to your printer, and your Mp3 music player. Most small laptops have one or two USB ports. If you need three check the number of USB ports. Also if you need to connect your small laptop to a monitor connected to your home pc, or another bigger display, check there is a 15-pin blue or black VGA port on the side/back of your mini marvel.

6. Wireless/Bluetooth

Worth checking to see if you have a good internal wireless card and that it is compatible with your wireless router at home. To be fair, most are compatible, some require a bit of tweaking to get working, but there definitely are some that just will not work. If you want to sync your phone to your mobile laptop, then check bluetooth is integrated.

7. Screen Size

Sounds obvious but many people don’t realise the impact that screen size has when viewing certain web pages or applications. Its definitely worth turning the laptop on and checking to see if you are comfortable with what you can see, and that your not having to strain too much.

8. Mousepad

Some small laptops have a trackball in the middle of the keyboard rather than a mouse pad. This saves an inch off the bottom of the laptop allowing for smaller portable devices. For some people this is very difficult to use, though with practice you do get the hang of it. Its worth checking that the laptop has a good mouse pad.

9. Keyboard

A small laptop rather unsurprisingly has a small keyboard. The keys are also closer together so its worth giving the keys a few ghost sentences to see you are comfortable with the feel and responsiveness. Some keyboards are too light where its hardly noticeable you touched a key. Others a too awkward and deliberate and are not designed for advanced typers. Also most keyboards have no separate numeric keypad.

10 Hard Drive

The larger the hard drive memory, the more documents and pictures and music you can store. Check the hard drive is not a solid state hard drive if you are planning to save a lot of documents or files or music or pictures on your laptop computer. Large storage Solid State Drives are very expensive compared to SATA Drives, so on an average priced laptop your gonna get more space pound for pound if you go for the SATA.

10 b   Follow your heart

What someone might consider a bad laptop, even if its had a couple of negative reviews, might still  turn out to be some ones pride and joy. If budget isn’t a constraint then buy what feels right, its YOU who will end up using it!!