This laptop buying guide will show you the most important things to consider when purchasing a laptop computer. The laptop buying guide also looks at some of the mistakes that are made when getting a new computer.

Laptop computers refer to larger portable computers, these generally have 12″ monitors or bigger. Smaller portable computers are referred to as notebook computers and are covered in our notebook buying guide. The distinction between the two is not always clear, but this is how I see it.

One of the mistakes people often make is to get a laptop computer that is too much. Too many features, too many extras. Take the time to analyze the primary uses and get a laptop computer that is ideally suited to those. Any computer can do just about any task, but the primary activities will take the vast majority of your time, and so your computer should be designed for those in particular.

Broadly there are three categories corresponding to the kinds of programs that will be used:

• Basic programs
• Moderate intensity programs
• High intensity programs

I’ll cover them below in more detail.

Basic Programs

This involves the programs that almost anyone uses day-to-day. These programs are light and require little from the system. Any new computer would offer enough capabilities to run these programs easily.

Some of the programs include:

• hello
• Web browsers (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, Safari, etc)
• Office programs (Word, Excel, OpenOffice.org)
• Email programs
• Chat programs (Skype, MSN, Google chat, Yahoo! Messenger, etc)
• 2D games (Pacman, tetris, puzzle games, pop the bubbles, etc)
• Music players
• Video players

These are a lot of the programs that would come bundled with your operating system, which for a PC, would usually be Windows, or possibly a version of Linux. With lower performance systems, it might be necessary to shut down some of these programs while running others, but with 1GB or more of RAM, things should keep running smooth.

These computers will usually have 1GB of memory, 50GB or more of hard drive space, an Intel Core or Core2 processor (low speed versions) and 13″, 14″ or 15″ monitors.

Moderate Intensity Programs

Moderate intensity programs need a little bit more from the system.  These programs start to tax the system, and if more than one of them is run at once, then the system will need more processing power and more memory. Otherwise the programs will need to be used one at a time.

Some of these programs include:

• Image editing programs (Adobe Illustrator, CoreDRAW, Photoshop)
• 3D software (AutoCAD, 3D Studio)
• Video players (with high-definition movies)

Quite often just more memory can make a lot of difference to the general performance of these programs. But with heavy use, more processing power is necessary.

These computers will generally have up to 2GB of memory, faster processors, widescreen monitors of 12″ to 15″ is size, extra USB ports, firewire ports and security features like fingerprint recognition.

High Intensity Programs

This mostly involves 3D games, where renderring of complex 3D scenes is happening all the time and very quickly. These require a lot of processing power, as well as a good graphics processor. This level of programs is usually better suited to the desktops covered in our desktop buying guide, but there are laptops that can perform quite well.

Some of the games include:

• Quake
• Unreal
• Half-life
• and others

These laptop will have cool designs to reflect their intended gaming market. 2GB or 4GB of memory would be standard. The monitors can read up to 19″ in size. The computer processor will be fast mobile version of the latest kinds, including Quad-core. Graphics features include dedicated graphics processing units with dedicated memory.

Conclusion

Know your intentions. Getting a laptop of the right size will leave money for programs you need to buy and any extras you need. Don’t buy more because of a “maybe”, keep consulting this laptop buying guide and only get more powerful if the programs you’ll run require it.