Desktop, Laptop, or Netbook(Coffe Table-Top) ?

Salam. Peace be upon you.

This is the season where most of my colleagues are going to further studies in tertiary level education. Regardless of what kind of course or profession that you are into, medic or engineering, law or accounting, or even teaching, most probably there are some of you desire your very own personal computer either be a desktop, notebook or laptop. I can tell already, since some of you have already rained me with questions on which laptop(mostly ask about laptop) to be best bought.

Well to be truth, there are couples of things that should be taken into consideration.

In this post, I am going to make a little comparison and bring out some things about these stuffs to make many of you clarified about this area. A lot of my friends expect that a good laptop(usually) is a good brand. Well this is quite true in some occasions. But holistically, there are certain aspects that should be taken into consideration that defines how good a laptop is.

Lets begin with re-clarification of what laptop, PC, netbook are.

This is a normal desktop PC, (in case if you just came out of living in a cave for the past 10 years)

And this is a typical laptop. Most of you must've seen this before. Besides, it is a netbook. Notice that a netbook is smaller, means laptop has more powerful capability in terms of doing works, gaming and stuffs.

Between these, which one should you chose for a life in a college/university ?

Most probably a laptop or netbook isn’t? Well, that is not absolutely correct though. And to make a correct decision, consider how’s your life’s like, what kind of assignment you’re going to do, the frequency of using these machines in a day, e.t.c. Once you’ve listed and pictured how you’re life’s gonna be with these machines, take a look at pros and cons of each category.

Desktop PC – Most acknowledged and liked feature : extremely upgradeable. It is cheap and easy to upgrade. This suits to those who thinks of long terms and decide to live with it for a long period.

It is also much powerful than the other category even it comes in it’s basic form-out of the box. Nevertheless, PC is heavy, and not portable. You can’t drag it around to any coffee shop just to check e-mail or facebook status. Ridiculous. It also consumes more power (although some of motherboards are built to reduce the consumption) but it still consumes a lot. But bear in mind that, it has a capability of tanking more than a terabyte disk and processing power up to 6GHZ and memory of up tp 20G. Much less like a supercomputer(if upgraded) eh?

Basically, those who should live with it are ;

-Electric and electronic engineering stundent (calculation software requires more processing power)

-architecture students

-Graphic, motion graphic, outer and inner graphic designers

-Web developer

-Software and game developer

Laptop (lappies some called) – Most people will say the most significant feature is it’s portability. Yes It is. A machine weighed around 2 kilo can fit on a table in any coffer shop. And anyone can seize it and bring it around. Yet, it has computing power rival to the desktop thanks to ever accelerating technology. Basically, 2GB of memory (RAM) and a dual core processor (AMD or Intel ) is good enough for a typical university student.

However, this regarding on how you live your life. And to have more power out of a laptop, the more it takes. Starting 3GB of ram with dual processor, you should have already equip your lappy with a cooling pad to make it lasts longer. But still, to its greatest extent, it still cannot rival desktop because as far as it seems today, only up to Intel i5 quad-core processor a laptop can handle. More than that, you’ll have a small bomb in your house or instant egg cooker in your room. IT IS HOT. Laptops also have their own graphic card, sound card which enable better performance.

But the dark side of this is that it is not upgradable(totally) and costs more to repair if damaged. Anyway, Hard Disk and memory(RAM) can still be upgraded. But processor or graphic card? Overhaul. Change everything.

Those suggested for laptops;

-typical university student (engineering, medical, accountancy and business stream)

-those who only make a light assignement (words, basic photoshop)

-those who love outside air

-those who prioritize BOTH PORTABILITY AND COMPUTING POWER

Netbook – As its name indicates, most probable activity that this has to offer is just the internet. Although you still can run Words or Excel or anything the same, but it can’t offer more than that. The best card it has is only portability. Also good in taking instant notes from lecture or talks. This really suits those who love travelling, without works related to computers, having fun staying connected via twitter or facebook. Also, as the size shown, small, the price is lesser.

Suitable for :

-Law students maybe?

-Girls

-any people who doesn’t bother computing capability and not doing much work related to these machines


Choose wisely, the decision is in your hand. And purse(money) of course. LOL
Well, end of today’s post. More to come, specifically about laptops. Keep connected !