Features to Look for in a Laptop

Video – VLog #12

Have you ever thought what RAM, screen size, HDD and features you require when buying a new laptop?

Here David Logan discusses with Willie Nicol some of the features to ask and some recommendations based on different scenarios.

Script – VLog #12

David Logan: Hi and hello, I’m David Logan, your IT Geek based here in Annan, Scotland, United Kingdom. We are here again for another video. Week No.12, I’m here with Willie Nicol. Hello, Willie – how are you and where are you?

Willie Nicol: Hi, David. I’m very well – thank you. My name is Willie Nicol. I’m in Troon, south ayrshire Scotland, where we have had thunder and lightning.

David Logan: Thunder and lightning – keep it there, please. Don’t need anything like lightning here in south of Scotland. It is warm today. Week twelve Willie. Last week had a topic from yourself. This week– it’s my turn – to answer your question. Do you have a question for me?

Willie Nicol: I do indeed, David. I was asked by a friend who’s looking for a new laptop. She intends to become self-employed, and they asked me my advice and I was only able to give a very, very brief bullet points. So what would you suggest of the criteria you looking for if you’re going to buy a new laptop?

David Logan: So firstly, please congratulate your friend on the step into self employment, and I wish her the best of luck in the job. Laptops come in various sizes, varied shapes and sizes. You have laptops which can split apart and become a tablet or a laptop, or you can have one physical device which folds in nicely. We’ll keep to the basic standard laptop, which is all one bit and it folds in like that.

David Logan: So the first thing to consider is, does your contact, are they going to use it day-in day-out? Are they sure they want a laptop?

Willie Nicol: Yes, they do want a laptop because although she’ll be working from home. There will be occasions when lock-down is lifted. She will have to go and see clients and take her laptop with her.

David Logan: OK. My preference, but I’m greedy, is I have a desktop computer at home. So I’m sitting at home a lot, I do a lot typing and number crunching. When I’m out and about I take the laptop with me, but we’ll stick to the laptop as I’m digressing, as I do. Choice of laptops need to understand it’s like driving a car, or going from point A to point B, what do we want that laptop to do?

David Logan: If it’s general admin. I always say, I assume I shouldn’t say I assume because it makes an ass of me. Is she doing documents, web browsing maybe checking emails?

David Logan: That for that, I would suggest Windows 10, which is the current operating system for Microsoft. There’s Apple Mac lovers out there, for your information Willie and the viewers I don’t look at Apple Mac, Its a decision I made a number of years ago. I’ve got nothing against them, just a personal choice. In respect to Windows, we will look at various options, look at the screen size, we’ve got the capacity of the hard drive, the hard drive that stores all your photos, all your e-mails, your operating system. The engine of the laptop, the software part of it – it holds your excel – your word. Everybody knows Word and Excel. Is that a good assumption to make, everybody knows Word and Excel?

Willie Nicol: I think majority of people, probably will use some sort of a Microsoft product. I personaly use Excel and Word – powerpoint occasionally. But. Yeah, I think we won the facility to use that. Yeah.

David Logan: So carrying on , we’re talking about RAM – random access memory. What is that for? Random access memory is it allows you to have numerous programs open. Word, Excel, email open. You may have various windows open for your Internet browser. That’s another topic for another day, but you can have Google Chrome, you have Mozilla, Firefox, Internet Explorer or the new Windows 10 one, which I can’t remember the name of right now. You have a number of these different windows, open including your other stuff. This is all stored in your RAM. So bigger the RAM you have, the more of these programs, apps you can have open. All operating at the once – same time. OK?

Willie Nicol: Yep.

David Logan: Your hard drive – we touched upon on previous video, can’t remember which one now. You have SSD drives and normal physical drives. Going forward, I would strongly suggest go for SSD. Yes, they are more expensive, but they last longer. Do you know why?

Willie Nicol: I remember you saying they don’t have any moving parts.

David Logan: Correct. SSD is solid state drive – no moving parts, whereas if you think about our bodies, our physical bodies, we get tear and wear. What’s that is where the movement is in elbow or the hips, or the neck sometimes. My eyes at night time. when I need to go to sleep. That’s not terribly exciting. Yes, it is more expensive, but at least last longer – SSD drives. So one thing to note or I would definitely recommend is SSD, for people on the budget, a low budget, you can get one terabyte drive, that’s a thousand (1024 to be exact) gigabyte. Loads of capacity for a low price. The average lifespan of a laptop, is three years when they use one of those drives. An SSD – you probably look at this another two years. The SSDs are expensive.

David Logan: It could double the price of a laptop in no time, depends of what capacity you pick. Generally they start from 64 gigabyte, 125, 250, or 500 gigabyte. Depends what you need. For starters, I would probably recommend a 125 gigabyte solid-state drive (SSD) for the new user.

David Logan: But you got to think – going back to the original question. What are they going to use it for? If they are going to do a lot of videos like you and I, a lot of photos – that is going to take a lot of capacity on that hard drive. So maybe move up the next stage – capacity level of SSD’s. If it is doing documents and spreadsheets kept it to a small one.

David Logan: So we’ve looked at random access memory, RAM. Looked at the hard drive. Did we touch upon screen size?

Willie Nicol: Yeah. You talked about the screen size.

David Logan: Screen size, you’ve got to think the size of a laptop. Now your saying your person will be working from home mostly at the start as we’re still in Lockdown in Scotland curently. When you go to move about, go to see clients, you got to think the bigger the laptop, the heavier that is. So the bigger the screen, the heavier that laptop is going to be.

David Logan: Now, I. think this is another reason why I need a computer. I have a small 10 inch netbook. It doesn’t have a DVD drive optical drive in. This is a screen that you can take it apart and make into a tablet. I got a small one because it’s light in weight and easy to move around. It doesn’t cause any damage. But when I’m in the home office, I’m used to one computer, monitor, keyboard and desktop, and mouse.

David Logan: So there’s loads of questions there that I can’t answer your question truly. So you advise you, pass information on to your friend your contact.

Willie Nicol: Yeah, thanks for that. I did tout that to her that a compromise between having a nice big screen, when your sitting at home, would mean that if you could say it. So most store, Currys, PC Word and that sort of thing will give you the information. How heavy is it, how physically big it is and then they will give you all the details of the RAM, SSD or a hard drive. The amount of memory your hard drive, with the amount of memory, your RAM. My recollection I’m not trying to correct you here was that the hard drive memory goes up in multiples of 64.

David Logan: So you’re 64. 128, 256, 512. You can probably tell me why that is. The random access memory seems to go up in multiples of four. So 4 is quite small, 8 is probably ideal and then above that, your getting into serious money, but as you say it depends what you want use it for. How long is a piece of string?

David Logan: Yeah, that’s my that’s my timer going off. I’m having to cook today.

Willie Nicol: Well, let’s that’s for next week.

David Logan: Yeah. Absolutely. Let me give you a quick rundown now. So why does is it go up in multiples of eight or 8, 16, 32, 64. Why does it do that? Do you know what a byte is?

Willie Nicol: B Y T E

David Logan: Correct.

Willie Nicol: I just know of bytes and kilobytes and megabytes or all that stuff.

David Logan: OK. So a byte is a unit of digital information, that actually consists of eight bits. Now, the byte was the number of bits used to encode a single character of text in a computer and for this reason, it’s the smallest addressable unit of memory in many computer architecture. So you see where eight comes from now?

Willie Nicol: Got it. Thank you.

David Logan: So it’s not decimal. Like 10, 20, 40 , 80 … It goes 4, 8, 16, 32 … Make note – we’ll talk about that in another video. Make note of it now.

Willie Nicol:OK. Thank you.

David Logan: I’m point to you and I’m looking down here, the screen. Right, so i think that’s us set for this week. We’re running out of time there it was well addressed. Any quick question or, you … ?

Willie Nicol: No, I think that’s long enough. David, that’s very kind of you. It’s a lot clearer to me now.

David Logan: So fantastic. It’s week number twelve, as I said, amazing how we keep going. The sun is out. No thunderstorms here today. Fantastic. Thank you to the viewer for watching. Please encourage your people you’re connected to. Go to our YouTube channel, subscribe to it. Have a good laugh, please. We’re getting more and more interaction on Facebook page, which is fantastic. Keep liking, keep sharing, keep subscribing, keep watching this channel for next week’s video. Best of luck. Best thing of all. Have a great weekend, everybody. Goodbye from me and Willie ..

Willie Nicol: Goodbye, all.