The Perfect Laptop for College Students

I am evaluating laptops for college students. This merits evaluation because many college students must buy laptops for college and are unaware of what is truly necessary for a basic laptop. College students use laptops for a plethora of reasons: note taking, organizing, emailing, browsing the web, and various major-specific things. Many students pay too much for laptops and will never fully utilize the computing power of their laptops. Others pay too little and must deal with sluggish performance until they buy a new laptop. Also, computer hardware specifications and prices are constantly changing, so new evaluations are necessary every few months to a year. According to Moore’s law, the number of transistors that can be placed on an integrated circuit doubles every two years. In lay man’s terms, computing power doubles every two years. This creates the need to reevaluate laptops very often. Lastly, essential programs such as Microsoft Office, and Windows Operating System are coming out with new version very often. These programs have different requirements from their previous versions and quickly become essential to own. Therefore, a college laptop merits evaluation.

Laptops for college students would fall under the laptop selection category. I would compare laptops against other laptops to pick a superior laptop. For example, I would compare a Dell to a Gateway using various criteria such as price, power, and appeal.

Considering the many parts to a laptop and many different uses, there would be many criteria. First you must choose an operating system. This will be a standoff between Mac and PC. Although there are many other operating systems, they are only useful to those who already know enough about laptops to not need to read my evaluation. Second, you must choose the proper amount of RAM. RAM is Random-access memory and represents the amount of information your system can retain at once without reduced speeds. Third, you must choose the proper processor. A processor controls the amount of information that can be dealt with at one time. Fourth, you must choose a suitable hard drive. All of your system’s information is stored on a hard drive. Fifth, you must decide on a video card. Video cards process everything you see on the monitor. Sixth, you must decide on a brand. I will be evaluating the most popular brands: Apple, Acer, ASUS, Dell, HP, Lenovo, Samsung, Sony, Toshiba, and Sager. Seventh, you must consider the appeal of the laptop. Eighth, the price must be considered. Lastly, you must choose a proper monitor size. All of these criteria are essential for choosing a proper laptop, making choosing a laptop above the pay grade of the average college student. This is my inspiration for writing this evaluation. One of the problems I could run into is the social aspect of laptops and certain preference. Many people have a preference to Apple laptops because of the social influence. Apple computers are far more popular than windows, but far less efficient. That being said, even some knowledged people prefer Apple laptops to their Windows alternative.