Buying Laptop Means More Attention to Special Features

Special issues arise when you buy a laptop computer.
Most of the major specs I recommended two weeks ago in my annual spring guide to buying a computer hold true for laptops as well as desktops. That guide can be found at walt.allthingsd.com/guide. But buying a portable involves additional factors, so here are some tips for making laptop purchases.
First, you may want to wait to get that new laptop until later this year or early in 2008. There are a number of interesting new hardware features coming. One is called a “solid-state drive,” or SSD, which replaces the traditional hard disk with a faster drive made of memory chips like those used in digital cameras. Another is a “hybrid hard drive,” or HHD, which combines memory chips with a standard hard disk, for faster start-ups.
Also, more and more laptops will be using light-emitting diodes, or LEDs, to light up their screens — a method that promises to be both brighter and less power-hungry.
You also may want to wait for laptops with a new type of Wi-Fi wireless networking built-in. It’s called “N,” and promises to be faster and to have longer range.
For Windows Vista users, another new laptop feature coming soon is a small screen on the lid called a SideShow, which can display calendar appointments and new emails.
Even if you don’t wait, there are some features to know about that aren’t available on most desktops. One is a built-in Web camera and microphone, highly useful for making video calls and recording videos to be posted online. Another is a feature that allows you to play music, videos or DVDs without booting up Windows.
In addition, if you travel a lot, you may want something called a built-in WWAN, or Wireless Wide Area Network. This is essentially a cellphone modem that makes Internet connections over a cellular carrier.
Another key feature is a new kind of slot on the side of most laptops for add-on cards, like wireless modems. It’s called an ExpressCard slot and, confusingly, it comes in two sizes. Your old-style cards, called PC Cards, won’t fit in these new slots, so unless you want to buy new cards, you might look for a laptop that has both the old and new slots.
Battery life, weight and size remain crucial on laptops, unless you are buying a huge “desktop replacement” laptop, which will rarely leave the house or be unplugged. For everyone else, I recommend finding a laptop that offers at least three hours of battery life on a single charge, without requiring you to dim the screen so much you can’t see anything.
Most laptops cluster around the six-to-seven-pound range, which is fine for occasional travel, or for carrying between classes, or between home and office. But if you are a frequent air traveler and have the budget, shoot for a laptop that weighs four pounds or less and is small enough to use on a seat tray in coach even when the person in front of you reclines.
The most expensive laptops are at the extremes–huge, multimedia machines and ultra-portable models for hard-core road warriors. Most well-configured Windows laptops, with typical 15.4-inch screens, are between $900 and $1,500.
I find that laptops with 13.3-inch widescreen displays make a nice compromise between mobility and power. At the moment, there are very few brand-name models in that size, notably Apple’s $1,099 MacBook, which weighs 5.2 pounds; and Sony’s Vaio SZ line, which weighs 4.1 pounds but costs roughly twice as much. More 13.3-inch models are coming later this year from other manufacturers.
Finally, there’s the perennial issue of Windows versus Mac. Apple’s two laptop lines, the MacBook and MacBook Pro, are very good. They have better built-in software than any Windows laptop I’ve seen and don’t suffer from the security issues that plague Windows. And they can even run Windows software, if you need that.
But the Mac laptops lack some features that are common on Windows portables, such as slots for camera memory cards and built-in cellular modems. And the MacBook even lacks an ExpressCard or PC Card slot.
Among Windows machines, I think Sony and Lenovo make especially well-designed laptops, but almost any name brand would be fine.
Addendum: I’m happy to say there is a new, expanded and redesigned online home for all my columns. It’s at walt.allthingsd.com and access is free. It contains the current versions of the columns with the accompanying videos, plus a searchable two-year column archive and a new blog called Mossblog, which I will update occasionally.
This new column home page is part of a larger new Web site called All Things Digital, at allthingsd.com. In addition to my columns and blog, it contains technology news, analysis and opinion from journalists Kara Swisher, Katherine Boehret and John Paczkowski, and guest blogs from prominent technology figures.
My columns will still be published on The Journal’s main Web site, WSJ.com, which is available to paid subscribers and includes a much larger archive, going back more than a decade.

Solid-State Drives Versus Hard-Disk Drives in Laptops

Solid-state drives outrun standard hard drives in some laptops and on some applications, but does their performance edge justify their higher price?

The idea of using flash-based storage in a notebook isn't new. Nevertheless, the high cost of flash has prevented it from replacing hard-disk drives on mainstream notebook PCs, despite some advantages in power consumption, shock resistance, and speed--until now.

As prices continue to drop, flash-based solid-state drives (SSDs) have become viable options for handling your notebook's primary storage requirements. Moreover, today's roomiest SSDs have 32GB of memory, enough to do more than satisfy basic storage needs--making them competitive with 1.8-inch hard-disk drives, which range in capacity from 30GB to 80GB. These SSDs, available from companies like Samsung and SanDisk, are lightweight (the SanDisk UATA 5000, for example, weighs 59 grams--just over 2 ounces) and can be found in portables from Dell, Fujitsu, and Toshiba.

Are they worth the extra dollars? In spite of price drops, SSDs cost $400 to $500 more than ordinary hard drives of the same capacity. To justify the price difference, SSD notebooks must demonstrate significant performance benefits over notebooks equipped with standard hard drives. To find out whether they do, we tested three pairs of ultraportable notebooks from Fujitsu and Dell.

The two test models in each pair of laptops were identically configured, except that one had an SSD, and the other a typical 1.8-inch 4200-rpm hard drive. Two of the notebooks--Dell's 6.25-pound ATG D620 ($3015 with SSD, $2815 with a 80GB hard-disk drive) and Fujitsu's 2.5-pound LifeBook P1610 ($2578 with SSD, $2029 with a 30GB hard-disk drive)-- ran Windows XP Professional. The third notebook, another LifeBook P1610 ($2548 with SSD, $1999 with a 30GB hard-disk drive) ran Windows Vista Business.
Results were mixed: In several cases, our tests bore out the advantages of SSD, in other cases, the hard-disk-based models led the way.

Our benchmark suite for testing system performance, WorldBench 6, Beta 2, showed no definite pattern in overall results between SSD systems and hard-disk-drive systems. For example, the two Dell ATG D620 models, packed with a 2.0-GHz Core 2 Duo T7200 CPU and 1GB of memory, each earned a mark of 76 on WorldBench 6. In contrast, the two Fujitsu LifeBook P1610 units, configured with a 1.2-GHz Core Solo U1400, 1GB of memory, and Windows XP Professional, differed in performance: The SSD version received a score of 42, while the hard-drive version received a 39.

Interestingly, the performance difference was even more pronounced in the pair of Fujitsu P1610 models running Windows Vista Business. Here, the SSD version of the notebook finished with a 36 on our WorldBench 6 beta tests, while the hard-drive version posted only a 30. The Vista-based Fujitsu system with the SSD did especially well on our Adobe Photoshop CS2 image manipulation test, besting the hard-drive version by 36 percent, and on our Nero 7 Ultra Edition disk burning test, where it outperformed its counterpart by 76 percent.

The SSDs achieved superior performance in all three pairings on only two types of applications: drive-intensive tests like our Nero 7 Ultra Edition disc burning, and WinZip 10.0 file compression tests. The SSD versions of the two Fujitsus also earned higher marks than their hard-disk doppelgangers on our Photoshop CS2 test, but on that test the hard-disk Dell outran.

the SSD Dell by 10 percent.

SSDs Rock on Hard-Drive-Intensive Tasks
We did see decisive performance wins by the SSD models on the file read and write tests that we use for our hard-drive testing. (The read and write tests consist of reading and writing folders of files, and searching for files on a drive.) On these tests, the SSD models bested their hard-drive counterparts in 11 out of 12 instances. Occasionally, the scores were close: On our Windows file search of 6.1GB of data, for example, the SDD Fujitsu Vista Business system notebook finished the test in 86 seconds, while its hard-drive-based twin finished the test in 100 seconds. Still, in most cases, the SSD models were dramatically faster. The most extreme example: The XP Pro Fujitsu finished our large-file reading and writing test in 199 seconds, far ahead of the hard drive-equipped model, which finished the test in 533 seconds.

Though industry experts routinely boast that flash memory consumes less power than hard drives do, our battery tests found little real-world difference between the two drive types on this measure.
The SSD version of the Dell ATG D620 lasted 5 hours, 40 minutes in our test, just 3 minutes longer than the hard-disk-equipped version lasted. The SSD Fujitsu P1610 with XP held out for 3 hours, 11 minutes--7 minutes longer than its hard-drive counterpart. And the SSD Fujitsu P1610 running Vista Business bested the hard-drive version by 9 minutes (2 hours, 26 minutes versus 2 hours, 17 minutes). The advantage in battery life boost would almost certainly increase for the SSD models if they were matched against hard-drive laptops with drives larger than the 4200-rpm components we used. The faster a disk spins, the more power is required to spin it.
Numbers don't tell the whole story about solid-state drives. SSDs also tend to be more rugged than a standard hard drive because the NAND flash memory they use lacks the moving parts found in a hard drive. Drop your notebook, and the data on your SSD will be safe--even if the notebook's screen doesn't survive unscathed. Also, unlike hard-disk drives, SSDs don't generate heat and don't produce a lot of electromagnetic interference.
Manufacturers first incorporated SSDs into ultraportable notebooks designed for people working in healthcare, insurance, and similar fields. But as prices drop and storage capacities increase, you can expect manufacturers to begin promoting SSD notebooks to a broader range of users.
Indeed, the movement toward the mainstream has already begun. This summer, Dell introduced SSD into the company's Latitude D630, D830, and D430 business notebooks, which target power business users and travelers. Choosing the SSD option to replace the standard 80GB 5400-rpm hard drive on any of these units adds $540 to its overall price. Toshiba is expected to begin introducing SSDs into select notebooks later this year, too.
Ultimately, with an SSD in your notebook, you'll see somewhat better system responsiveness, and a positive change in the way the system handles drive-intensive tasks such as reading data from and writing data to the drive, coming out of standby mode, and booting up from scratch. If you're a mobile worker who tends to bump your laptop around a little and who would benefit from performance boosts in those areas, the extra cost of having "SSD inside" might just be worth it.
The performance boost from SSD varies from notebook to notebook, but using SSD is clearly beneficial for hard-drive-intensive tasks.

Battery Won't Charge at All

If your computer runs normally on the AC adapter, but the battery won't charge, please try the following troubleshooting steps:
1. Check the Battery and Connections:

1. Remove the battery from the system.

How to remove the battery

2. Look at the connectors in the bay and on the battery for signs of physical damage.

3. Check the battery charge by pressing the status button or image on the batter near the LED's.

Note:
The lights indicate the current amount of charge on the battery. If all the LED's come on when you press the button, the battery is fully charged. If fewer lights are lit, then the battery is partially charged. If any lights flash, or blink, there could be a problem with the battery.
Consult the Tell Me How guide for more information on battery LED's:
Where to find the Dell Tell Me How and User's Guides
4. Reinsert the battery; push until it locks into place and the latch snaps back to the locked position.

2. Swap Bays or Try A Second Computer:

• Some systems can run with the battery in either bay. Try swapping bays if you have one of these systems.
  Click here to see a list of systems that can use the battery in either bay
• If you have access to a second computer like your own, try to charge your battery in that system.

3. Flash the BIOS:

Flashing the BIOS can correct many hardware issues.
How to Flash the BIOS

4. Run the Recalibration Utility if Your System has One:

This utility runs the battery all the way down and then recharges it completely. The process takes several hours so it is best to run it overnight. Use only the recalibration program specified for your system. Using any other program could void your warranty!

• Latitude LM, Inspiron 3000 and Inspiron 3200 systems use this recalibration program:
  BATRECAL.EXE
• Inspiron 5000, Inspiron 7000, and Inspiron 7500 systems use this program:
  I75BRCA0.EXE
• Latitude LS, Latitude L400, Latitude X200, and Inspiron 2100 enable a recalibration option on the Power page of the BIOS Setup Program:
  How to Enable Battery Recalibration

5. Try to charge a second battery like your own if possible.

If the second battery won't charge, the problem may be caused by the charging system in your computer.

6. If the battery still won't charge after you have done this troubleshooting, please [Reply] to this message and be sure to include the following information:Company name (if applicable):Owners Full name:System service tag:Physical address (No PO boxes, include city, state and zip code):Telephone number (with area code):A detailed description of your troubleshooting (step numbers will mean nothing to the assisting technician):
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When to Buy a Laptop

Retailers have great sales during the holidays--but that's not the only time to get a good laptop deal.

Holiday and year-end sales can be extremely seductive. As of mid December, HP was offering $100 to $200 off its consumer laptops. Dell had cut up to $314 off its Inspiron models. And Circuit City was offering the Acer Aspire 4315-2490 for just $400.
But is this truly the best time to buy a laptop? Maybe, maybe not. Read on.
Yes, the big-box stores and e-retailers do offer choice discounts this time of year. And if you need a fast, big tax deduction before 2007 is over, this is a good time to buy.
But the fact is, you can find laptop deals anytime. I can't recall a visit in recent years to the e-commerce sites for HP, Dell, and other laptop makers in which absolutely no laptops had been discounted.
The back-to-school period is another time you'll find attractive laptop sales. According to Men's Health's Tech Guide 2008, laptop prices are lowest on average in July, August, and September.
Another good time to find deals is when a laptop model is about to be, or has just been, replaced by a newer model. When this happens, stores and e-tailers want to get rid of existing inventory to make room for updated models. It's the same principle that savvy shoppers use when buying cars: Shop in late summer, when dealers are making room for the new models arriving in autumn.
But how can you know when a new or updated model is expected--particularly from notoriously tight-lipped vendors such as Apple, who rarely announce products before they're available?
Many laptop makers introduce new models with at least some regularity. If you study the press releases in the computer maker's media archive, you may notice patterns. (A company's press releases are available to anyone online. You can often find them by clicking the About Us link on a company's home page, followed by Newsroom or Media Center, and so forth.)
For example, I noticed some patterns for Apple and Dell when studying their press release archives.
Apple: Apple tends to update its MacBook Pro laptops every eight to nine months. The first model, with a 15-inch screen, was introduced on January 10, 2006. Nine months later, on October 24, Apple announced new revised MacBook Pro models with faster processors. The line was refreshed again on June 5, 2007--eight months later.
If past activity is any indication, it's likely that Apple will revamp the MacBook Pro lineup in February or March 2008. That means if you're planning to buy a MacBook Pro, you might want to hold off until then--either to look for deals on discontinued models or to see if you'd rather have one of the new releases. Keep in mind that Apple hosts its big Macworld confab--in which it introduces new or revamped products--every January. (The 2008 conference/expo is from January 14 to 18.) New MacBook Pros may be announced at the show.
One rumor making the rounds is that Apple plans to unveil a 13-inch touch-screen laptop.
In the MacBook's short life thus far, Apple has updated the consumer laptop about every six months. The MacBook line debuted on May 16, 2006. It was updated nearly six months later on November 8, and again on May 15, 2007. As of this writing, it's been seven months since Apple's last MacBook update. This could imply that the MacBook line is overdue for a refresh, meaning you may want to hold off a purchase for the time being.
Apple's press releases don't tell the whole story, however. For example, sometime after May 15, 2007, the company bumped the top Intel processor in its MacBook line from 2.16 GHz to the 2.2 GHz currently offered. There's no mention of this upgrade--a minor one, admittedly--in any press releases I saw on Apple's site.
Dell: With far more laptop models than Apple, Dell's product introduction patterns are harder to discern. Looking through its 2005 to 2007 press releases, however, I noticed that Dell tends to introduce the bulk of its new laptops in the first half of the year.
For example, in 2005, I counted nine new laptops introduced between January 1 and June 30 and only one afterwards. In 2006, Dell introduced six new laptops before June 30 and only one after that. In 2007, the company unveiled several more models. But the bulk (12) came before the half-year mark, with the rest (7) after.
Also, I noticed most new Latitude business laptops tend to be announced during the first quarter.
Admittedly, reviewing a laptop maker's product introduction history provides only anecdotal information at best. And the best time to buy a laptop is when (a) your current laptop is simply too slow, inefficient, or is broken; (b) you have the money (or at least a sizable chunk of it); and (c) you know what you want.
As anyone who's bought a computer knows all too well, there's always something newer, faster, and cheaper on the horizon. If you're going to buy a computer, there's no way to avoid that kind of buyer's remorse.
But you may be able to time the market with a little homework. Before buying a specific laptop, try to determine when it was first announced or shipped. If it was more than, say, six months ago, you might want to hold off. Chances are, its successor is already waiting in the wings, and you may get a good deal on the laptop it will replace.
Holiday Gift Advice: Still struggling to find the perfect gift? Use PC World Shopping to browse for holiday deals. And take a look at the products you should steer clear of as holiday gifts: "What Not to Give for the Holidays, Part I" and "Part II."
Five Things We Don't Miss: Remember the Osborne-1, the first portable, self-contained PC? It weighed a mere 24 pounds--and in its day, it was considered a mobile breakthrough. If you're getting all misty-eyed about the days of tech past, take a spin through "Five Things We Don't Miss About Old-School Computing."
Wi-Fi in the Sky: JetBlue recently announced it was partnering with Research in Motion and Yahoo to offer free e-mail and instant messaging on its flights. Find out what the latest Wi-Fi offerings are from American, Alaska Airlines, and Virgin America, too.
Is there a particularly cool mobile computing product or service I've missed? Got a spare story idea in your back pocket? Tell me about it. However, I regret that I'm unable to respond to tech-support questions, due to the volume of e-mail I receive.

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