Portability

One of the things that I noticed is that people don’t pick up the laptop when going to purchase one. It was very frustrating from a sales point of view, as people don’t understand that a laptop’s weight will effect your ability to use it.

Some laptops have amazing features, multi-gigahertz processors, a gigabyte of ram, and video cards that can run the latest of games, but those features come at a cost. A machine with the ability to replace your home computer will most likely have a high weight and thus it might just sit on a desk and may as well be a normal personal computer rather than paying the price premium no getting a notebook.

This is becomming more the case now that manufacturers are creating 19″ and 21″ laptops that can weigh as much as twelve to fourteen pounds. No matter how good your laptop bag is, something that weight will eventually feel heavy and awkward.

For the longest time the most common sceen size for laptops was in the 12″ to 14.1″ range, as it was cheaper, lighter, and could easily be taken just about anywhere in any backpack or laptop case, but now the more common range is 15″, and growing. Many laptops being released next year will feature 14.1 inch widescreen and 15.4″ widescreen displays, and no doubt more people will be opting for a 17″ screen than they were this year.

I can understand getting the larger sizes if you are going to use your notebook as a desktop replacement and only bring it somewhere every once and a while, but if it is going to be a highly portable machine, I suggest going for the 14-inch range to make sure the screen is big enough you don’t have to squint, but small enough that it does not drain your battery in less than two hours, and it will most likely be lighter and thus more portable than its bigger screened brothers.