The computer technology had continuously evolved, and the computers got more and more powerful each year. But not only that they become powerful, but the latest technologies also allowed the components to become smaller and smaller. The  monitors got slimmer, the hard drives got smaller, and the same with the processor, RAM memory and all of the other components of a computer.  And this way the engineers managed to be able to integrate all of the components of a PC, into a single device. And this is how the laptops were born. So a laptop is practically a portable computer. It has the same components, and it can do the same tasks, only that it is much smaller and lighter. So this means that it is highly portable, and can be carried with you anywhere you are going.

There are many sources from where you can buy a laptop and one of them is the store Best Buy. This is a major retail store from the United States of America (and from other countries too), which is specialized in selling all sorts of electronic devices, including notebooks. And for today we’ll discuss about one of the laptops offered on the site of Best Buy, and we’ll choose the ultra thin Lenovo – Laptop with Intel ® Core™ 2 Duo Processor – Black, Model: U 450 P- 3389.

The price for this laptop is 649 dollars, and the features offered are quite really good. The processor is an Intel Core 2 Duo, while the RAM memory is a 4 GB PC3 DDR3 SoDimm memory. So with these 2 features you will be able to handle almost any kind of computer activity. The display screen has 14 inch, so it is not so big, but not very small either. It can support High Definition resolutions of up to 1366 x 768 and combined with the Intel graphics engine, it will offer you a nice video quality. And of course like any other laptop it has media card reader and a wireless connectivity, so that you can easily connect to the internet. And you can use this laptop right after you bought it, because it comes with an installed version of the Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium Edition 64 bit.

And now here are the rest of the technical details for this model:

-Warranty Terms – Parts 1 year
-Warranty Terms – Labor 1 year
-Product Height 1.1 ”
-Product Width 13.3 ”
-Product Weight 14.6 lbs.
-Product Depth 9.3 ”
-Color Category Black
-Processor Brand Intel ®
-Processor Intel® Core ™ 2 Duo Mobile ULV
-Processor Speed 1.3GHz
-Battery Type 6 cell lithium-ion
-Display Type  WXGA widescreen LED backlight (1366 x 768)
-Screen Size (Measured Diagonally) 14 ”
-System Bus 800 MHz
-Cache Memory 3 MB
-System Memory (RAM)  4 GB
-System Memory (RAM) Expandable To  8 GB
-Type of Memory (RAM) DDR3 SoDIMM
-Hard Drive Type SATA (5400 rpm)
-Computer Hard Drive Size 320 GB
-Optical Drive Double-layer DVD ± RW/ CD-RW
-Optical Drive Speeds Drive speeds not specified
-Direct-Disc Labeling No
-Digital Media Reader or Slots Yes, digital media card reader
-Graphics Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator 4500 MHD
-TV Tuner No
-MPEG Yes
-Built-in Webcam Yes
-Modem  None
-Networking Built-in 10/ 100/ 1000 Ethernet LAN (RJ 45 connector)
-Wireless Networking Wireless- A+B+G+N
-Bluetooth-Enabled No
-S-Video Outputs None
-Audio HD with Dolby Home Sound Room
-Speakers Internal
-PCMCIA Slots None
-USB 2.0 Ports 3
-IEEE 1394 FireWire Ports None
-Parallel Ports None
-Game Ports None
-Laptop Weight Ultraportable (5.5 lbs. or less)
-Battery Life Not available
-Pointing Device Touchpad
-HDMI Output Yes
-Blu-ray Player No
-Operating System Platform Windows
-Operating System Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit
-Included Software Adobe Acrobat Reader 8.1; Win DVD; Power2Go and more
-ENERGY STAR Qualified Yes
-BBY Software Installer No

No matter where you live, you probably already used, or at least seen…or at least heard about a laptop. A laptop (also known as a notebook computer) is a device that has pretty much the same components as a desktop computer and is capable of doing the same tasks. It has a display screen (instead of a monitor), it has a keyboard, a touchpad device (instead of a mouse), and all the other internal components of a laptop (hard disk, RAM memory, processor, video card etc). The difference is that at a laptop all of these components are integrated into a single unit…a device that is much smaller, thinner and lighter than a regular computer. There are so many models of laptops available on the market, from different producers. The best notebook producers in the world are: Hewlett Packard, Asus, Dell, Acer, Toshiba, Lenovo, Sony, Fujitsu, MSI and Apple.

If you just have decided to buy a laptop, you should know that there are some special periods of the year, when you can make a really good deal, and get a laptop with a high discount.  It depends on the country you are living in, but usually anywhere in the world there are really good special offers in the period before major holidays such as: Christmas, New Year’s Eve, Easter and so on. But if you are living in the United States of America there are some extra holidays before you can have big discounts, such as: Thanksgiving Day, Valentine’s Day, Halloween etc.

If we refer strictly to the United States of America, the answer to the question “when is the best time to purchase a laptop computer? , the answer would be: in the Black Friday, and in the days before it. The Black Friday is the Friday that comes after Thanksgiving Day, and it is known as the day that starts the sopping season for Christmas. And in this day there are some really big discounts and very special offers, and that’s why millions of people in the United States are rushing in the stores trying to buy products as cheap as possible. In 2007 there were 135 millions Americans that participated at the Black Friday shopping rush. In this day the stores are opening from as early as 5 am and they can keep the stores opened for 24 hours straight or more. This the most loved day for stores managers, because it is the day when their stores begin to go from loss to huge profits. But it is also a very good day for the customers, because they can benefit from really good discounts. So in this day everyone is happy and satisfied.

There are discounts at all kinds of products and of course you can find them at computers and laptops too. So now let’s look at a few examples of discounts that were made in the last years for laptops:

-         Acer Aspire One AOD250-1165 – $239.99, after $90.00 instant off
-         Apple MacBook Pro 15″ – $100
-         Lenovo G550, IdeaPad Y550 – up to $110 off
-         Lenovo ThinkPad X Tablet PC Series – 20% off
-         Dell Studio XPS 13 model – 25% off
-         HP Pavilion dv8t Quad – $200 instant off

These were just some examples but of course there are many more others. There are discounts on both the local retail stores and also on the websites that are selling laptops, so when the Black Friday is close try to make a lot of research, find the best deal, and be sure to be the first one to buy the product. Because like you there are thousands or even millions of other customers who also want to buy a cheap laptop.

If you are planning to buy a computer just to be in trend with everyone else, well you should know that the computers are not so popular anymore. It is true that most of the people have a computer these days, but there is a new category of similar devices that are getting more and more popular. And we are talking here about the laptops. Even though they are a little more expensive than the desktop computers, they have the same components and are capable of doing the same tasks. But besides this, a laptop is much smaller, thinner and lighter than a PC, so it is highly portable. This means that you can take it anywhere with you, and use it anytime you need it.

As we said, the laptops are more expensive than the PC-s. The cheapest laptops have prices around 500 dollars, while the most expensive ones can cost up to 2.000 dollars. So if you don’t have enough money, but you would really like to have a laptop…well you can buy a used one. But better will be to buy a refurbished laptop, because this one will have most of the problems fixed. So a refurbished laptop will be cheaper than a new one, but the best budget laptop computer would be a refurbished netbook. The netbooks are just like the laptops, only that they are even smaller. They don’t have as powerful features as a laptop, so this makes them even cheaper.

So now let’s discuss about a models of refurbished netbook, and we’ll choose the Acer Aspire One AOD 250- 1389, that has a price of just 249 dollars. And for this money it offers quite good features and technologies. But the make a better impression about it, let’s look at its complete technical details:

Acer Aspire One D 250 AOD 250-1389 Atom N 270 1.60 GHz 10.1 inch Netbook
General Features:
-Color: Diamond black
-Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition pre-installed w/ Co
-Intel Atom N 270 1.60 GHz processor
-1 GB DDR 2 SDRAM
-160 GB storage capacity
-No optical drive
-Integrated Intel GMA 950 graphics
-Integrated audio with built-in stereo speakers
-160 GB hard drive
-Multi in one card reader
-Integrated 10/100 Ethernet LAN
-Integrated 802.11 a/b/g wireless LAN
-10.1 inch WSVGA (1024 x 600) TFT LCD display
-LED backlight w /200 cd/m² brightness
-84 key keyboard, 89 % of standard-size
-Mutli-gesture touchpad
-Integrated Acer Crystal Eye webcam w/microphone
-EnergyStar compliant

Supported Media:
-MultiMediaCard
-Reduced-Size MultiMediaCard
-Secure Digital
-MemoryStick
-MemoryStick PRO
-xD- Picture card

I/O Ports:
-15-pin VGA port
-Three (3) USB 2.0 ports
-One (1) RJ- 45 Ethernet port
-Microphone and headphone jacks

Unit Dimensions:
-1.0 x 10.2 x 7.2-inches (H x W x D)
-Weight: 2.8 lbs. w/battery

Regulatory Approvals:
-FCC
-CE
-ETL
-NOM
-VCCI
-BSMI
-C-Tick
-Weee

Package Includes:
-Acer Aspire One D 250 AOD 250-1389 Atom N 270 1.60 GHz 10.1 inch Netbook
-Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition pre-installed w/ CoA
-6 cell 4400 mAh Lithium-ion battery
-AC Power adapter (100-240 V 50/60 Hz 1.0 A, Output 19 VDC)
-Power cord

Additional Information:
-Notes:
-Series: Aspire One D 250
-Model: AOD 250-1389
-P/N: LU.S 670 B.228
-UPC: 8 46154 03809 0

Product Requirements:
-Available power outlet
-Compatible wired or wireless network with Internet connection

So as you can see it offers quite good features, that are just enough for you to be able to handle the simple, day to day computer activities. For example you can browse the internet, write mails, documents, but you can also watch movies or listen to music and so on. And the good part is that you can do all of these things practically anywhere, because this laptop is really small and light. So who would thought that you can have such a good laptop for just 249 dollars?

If you just decided to buy a new laptop, we can say that you made a good decision. A laptop can do all the tasks that a personal computer does, but besides this it also offers many advantages. And the biggest of them is of course the portability. Since a laptop is so small, thin and light (compared to a PC) you can take it anywhere and use it anytime you want. There are many place from where you can buy a new or used laptop, and since the internet is so popular these days and it is used by millions of people each day, you can also buy a laptop directly from the internet.

There are many sites offering good notebooks and one of the best sites for used refurbished laptops is www.geeks.com.  So in case you don’t enough money to buy a new laptop, you can buy a refurbished one. This means that most of its problems were fixed, and now it is working just fine. The site geeks.com is offering many models of laptops, from different producers and with different features and specifications. And a good thing is that the site is also offering a 90 days warranty for any refurbished laptop that you buy. So in this time you will have the chance to try the laptop and see if everything is ok or not.

So now let’s take a random model from this site and discuss more about it. Let’s choose for example the Sony VAIO VGN-NW 240 F/P which costs 649 dollars. And for this price you will get quite very good technical details. Let’s present them first, and then we’ll discuss them:

-Sony VAIO VGN-NW 240 F/P Core 2 Duo 2.2 GHz Widescreen Notebook
-General Features:
-Pink color
-Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit pre-installed w/CoA
-Intel Core 2 Duo Processor T 6600
-2.2 GHz CPU speed
-4 GB DDR2 RAM (8 GB maximum)
-320 GB SATA hard drive
-DVD ± RW DL drive
-Mobile Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 4500 MHD with Intel Clear Video Technology
-Intel High Definition audio with built-in speakers
-10 Base-T/100 Base-TX/1000 Base-T Gigabit Ethernet
-Intel WiFi Link 5100 AGN (802.11 a/b/g/n) Wireless LAN
-Built-in MOTION EYE camera and microphone
-Secure Digital (SD) memory card slot
-Memory Stick PRO (Standard/ Duo) slot with MagicGate functionality
-15.5 inch Widescreen display w/ 1366 x 768 resolution
-Keyboard with touchpad
-Action buttons: Mute/  WLAN on/ off, Display Off, Instant web
-Lead-Free
-Expansion Slots:
-One (1) ExpressCard/ 34 slot
-I/O Ports:
-One (1) 15 pin VGA
-One (1) HDMI
-One (1) i.Link 1394 FireWire
-Three (3) USB 2.0
-One (1) RJ-45 Ethernet jack
-One (1) Microphone jack
-One (1) Headphone jack
-Regulatory Approvals:
-FCC
-cULus
-RoHS
-Energy-Star

Package Includes:

-Sony VAIO VGN-NW 240 F/P Core 2 Duo 2.2 GHz Widescreen Notebook
-Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit pre-installed w/ CoA
-Li-ion rechargeable battery pack
-AC adapter (Input: 100 – 240 V, 1.3 A 50/60 Hz, Output: 19.5 V, 3.9 A)
-Power cord

Additional Information:

-Notes:
-Part: VGN-NW 240 F/P
-UPC: 6 33030 06048 7
-Product Requirements:
-Available power outlet

So the first thing you will notice about this laptop is that it is pink. So this means that it is mostly for women…or at least for children. You can use it if you are a guy and you really like the color pink, but it is definitely not a laptop for a serious business man. Besides this, all of the technical details and features are really good. The processor is a powerful one, and the RAM memory of 4 GB is enough for any kind of multitasking activities. The hard drive is good too, and offers 320 GB of disk space. And like any model of laptop today, this one also has both Ethernet and wireless connectivity, so that you can easily connect to the internet. The screen has 15.5 inch in diagonal, the graphics engine is good too, so this means that you will have quite a good video experience. But the audio experience will be good too, thanks to the Intel High Definition audio with built-in speakers. So this laptop can be really good for watching movies or playing video games. So after all it is a  good laptop, that comes at a reasonable price, so if you want it just visit the site: www.geeks.com .

The laptops are really popular devices these days. Even though many years ago it was thought that they won’t have success on the large masses of people, this was wrong and now the laptops are quite really successful. They are not bought just by the rich business men, but also by many other categories of people…and even by college students.

It is not hard to decide whether to  buy a laptop or not, because there are so many advantages offered by one. But the difficult thing is to decide what model of laptop to choose. There are many good producers of laptops, and each one offers so many models that is really difficult to find the best deal on a laptop computer. So there are a few things  you should consider when trying to find the best laptop for you.

First of all you might think of the main activities you will be using your laptop for. If you will be using it for video games, then you need to find a laptop with a good display screen (15 or 17 inch in diagonal widescreen display), that also has a powerful graphics engine. To support complex video games your laptop will also need a good dual core processor and 2-4 GB  of RAM memory. And with all of these features you will be able to play even the most advanced video games, without having any problems.

In case you are a graphics designer the features you might want to search for are quite the same. First of all you will need a big display screen that offers high quality colors and images so this way you will notice all the details of your work. To be able to run graphics software such as: Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator or InDesign you w ill also need a good graphics engine, a powerful processor and a big RAM memory.  And of course, for both video games and video editing you will also need a big hard drive, to be able to store all your work.

But in case you are a business man and you are looking just for a simple laptop, with no fancy features and technologies…one that is able to handle simple activities such writing documents, mails and browsing the internet…then you won’t need such a powerful laptop.  You can simply buy a regular laptop, one that is also cheaper (with a price of around 500-600 dollars) or you can buy a netbook. A netbook is an even smaller version of a laptop, meaning that it is highly portable. It doesn’t offer very powerful features, but the ones it has are quite enough for the activities we mentioned before.

Or maybe you want to replace your desktop computer with a laptop…so in this case, first  of all you will need a large screen (15 or even better 17 inch), so this way you will be able to do the same things that you were doing on your PC: day to day activities such as, watching movies, listening to music, browsing the internet, writing documents etc. unfortunately the laptop speakers are not that good and powerful, but if you choose laptop with good internal speakers (for example speakers made by Altec Lansing or Harman Kardon), then you will have quite a nice audio experience. And besides all of these you will also need an optical drive for your laptop, some ports (2 or 3 USB ports, audio ports, Ethernet ports, RGB or HDMI port), a media card reader and if you want a built in webcam and microphone.

We hope that this information was useful to you, and now you know what kind of laptop to search for. If there are some features that we forgot to mention in the descriptions above, please tell us about them. Have a nice day!