HELP! I DON'T KNOW WHICH LAPTOP TO BUY.    

 Today is Thursday, 26th July 2013 and I had this sweet lady come by my office; she wanted to buy a laptop, having seen different models and types from friends, she was all confused about which laptop type to buy. I had to do a lot of lecturing before she could come up with a choice of laptop, so I decided to drop this piece; it will help readers to conclude on the best type of laptop to buy considering the budget and the computer’s intended use.

   First I’ll like to point out that a laptop is mostly an indoor gadget, i.e. it is not like the phone that we get to show off with, and it doesn’t get much attention from people. So, a good laptop isn’t the finest, it’s not the slimmest, it’s not the most expensive nor the largest or smallest, it is simply one that serves its purpose for you and of course it should be quite presentable. I’m going to tell u about this old school uncle of mine that has an I-phone 5 and a blackberry Q10 sent to him by his sons abroad and you’ll probably not be surprised that all he does with these phones is make calls, he rarely texts. You will agree with me that this man should be using a Nokia torchlight phone; for God sake, he is underusing those phones; Apple and Blackberry should probably get him sued for underuse and abuse of their creation.
    Now to the business, when you want to buy a laptop, 2 major things should be considered:

• The range of amount you have to spend on a new laptop,
• What you are going to use the laptop for, 

I did not list RAM size and HARD DRIVE size as you might have expected because these components are easily upgradeable, they can be changed to higher ones easily if u consider them insufficient, but I should tell you that I advise a minimum of 2g ram, hard drive can be of any size since you can easily get a back- up external hard drive.

 After noting these two things, you will need to visit a laptop sales market, and get a list of laptops within your price range, having a list of these laptops, you should then begin to eliminate or select some laptops in your list according to the guidelines below:

• If you are not going to do any large graphics work like serious gaming, video editing etc; eliminate all AMD laptops. This is because AMD laptops tend to get easily hot and this makes them less durable if not probably maintained. If your budget range is low, you may probably have only AMD laptops on your list because they tend to be relatively cheaper, so u may have to just go for one of them.

• If you are going to be doing large graphic work like serious gaming, video editing etc; select all AMD laptops and all INTEL laptops with ATI or NVIDIA graphic processor. You can also select other Intel models if and only if you can make sure that they have enough graphics memory that you need (like some Intel Acer laptops have high graphics memory). AMD laptops are good for graphics, just that you may have to cope with its hotness and maintain its cooling system on a regular basis. Intel laptops with ATI or NVIDIA laptops are better; they get less hot and they tend to produce very good graphics too, but they are relatively more costly.

• If you are a typical lady such that all you want to do with your laptop is watch films, word editing, and other small processes, I will advise that you go for mini laptops if u don’t mind the small screen size, don’t worry it can play the almighty Zuma, Chicken Invaders and the likes; of course it has a WEBCAM! You can also get an external cd-player if you have to play cds or dvds.

• If you are going to be doing a lot of simulations like mat-lab, chemcad and the likes with your computer, you should want to go for laptops with multi-core processors, AMD have dual-core and quad-core processors, INTEL have dual-core( Intel Pentium) Intel core i3, Intel core i5, Intel core i7 in increasing order of processing power.

• If you are into Maps, or if the size of image that your laptop screen must cover per time must be much, then you will have to consider buying a laptop with larger screen size (15”, 17” etc.), but these laptops tends to be very heavy and not so comfortable to move about.

    I guess this is all I can cover for now, I should have helped you narrow down your list to a few laptop models, asking questions and comparing will lead you to a laptop model that is just good for you.
I must emphasize that it is so unnecessary to buy a laptop that has features you wont use; I mean: why buy a 140,000 Naira laptop just to watch films and edit word, when a 60,000 Naira one will do the job perfectly?.
    If you have any questions, do well to leave it in the comment section. Thank you for reading.

Why your laptop gets hot; the solution!!

WHY YOUR LAPTOP GETS HOT; THE SOLUTION!!!

    Many a times, our laptops gets abnormally hot when we feel the temperature towards the bottom-side of the laptop, this gives some people so much headache, some others just ignore it. Most people end up finding solutions that are inefficient for correcting or cooling down the hot laptop, while only a few finds the lasting and efficient solution.

    My work with computers over the years have made me to know that the killer of many of our laptops/ devices in this hot part of the world is overheating of these devices, so, by popular demand, I'm gonna take time out to explain the whole laptop overheating stuff.
    Let me first of all point out that it is normal for your laptop to heat-up slightly; just a bit above the room's temperature, you should not feel hurt when you place your hand on this heated part of your laptop for a long time, but some laptop's heated area can boil water, they get so hot that u can hardly place your hand on their heated side for 5 seconds: that is abnormal heating.

   

Why should laptops get heated-up in the very first instance?

     Hmmmmm!, good question; Components like the CPU, graphics card, etc. emits heat when the laptop is turned on. AMD laptops tend to emit more heat than INTEL laptops, also INTEL laptops with ATI or NVIDIA graphics card emits relatively more heat.

    How is a laptop designed to get rid of this heat?

     Like the saying: “the white man that made the pencil also made the eraser” similarly, A set of heat-sinks, fins and fans that help conduct and blow the heat away from the laptop’s body is put in place, this is why when u place your hand close to the window-like opening of your laptop, you feel hot air blowing out of it.

      Why then does your laptop still get abnormally hot during usage?

     Here comes the real question. Our laptop gets exposed to the environment which most time has dust particles, these dust particles find their way into the laptop; they then either clog the fan and stop it from rotating or block the airways and prevent hot air from getting out of the laptop. All these things lead to accumulation of heat in the laptop, thereby causing an abnormal increase in its temperature. These abnormal high temperature if not stopped can damage the laptop motherboard or some components in the laptop.

      Symptoms of an overheating laptop!

·         The laptop switches off without notice.

·         The laptop gets abnormally hot.

·         The laptop freezes or hangs after being in use for a while.

·         The laptop comes up with a blue screen error.

·         The laptop comes up with an overheating message.

     The solution!

       Hmmmmm, this is the point where technicians differ, some believe that using a vacuum pump to force air through the closed vents will solve this problem, yes, it will solve it temporarily, this is because the so called dust is blown back into the laptop, and since these dust is still within the laptop’s body, it is easier for the dust to go back and block the vents within a short period of time, sometimes within 2 or 3 days. This method is also harmful because the force of the air from the pump tends to spoil the fan. This method is not advisable because; It is not effective and it tends to damage the laptop.

      The effective and best solution to an overheating laptop is to open the laptop completely and remove all the dust in the laptop using a light brush, also the fan should be opened and all dirt and dusts removed.  Yes I know; that might be a freaky thing to do, you might wanna get the help of a technician! 
      Thanks for reading, if you have any questions, you can do well to drop it in the comment section, you are sure I'll kindly respond.