Laptop computer for home users

The typical home user performs a variety of activities on the laptop computer, also known as laptop, laptop notebook, notebook, or notebook computer.

Home user profiles

The husband. The husband creates his presentations, works on spreadsheets, Word, takes printouts, does accountancy work like calculating bills payable for household expenses, watches movies, listens to songs, surfs the Internet, checks his email, and plays games online or offline.
The wife. The wife keeps track of her monthly household budget, scans family photos and archives them, downloads music, watches movies, listens to songs, surfs the Internet, checks her email, and plays games online or offline.
The children create school project reports, take printouts, watch movies and play games both online and offline.

Determination of the type of computer required in the home

Studying the usage trend of the home laptop users, it can be determined that a cheap laptop with minimal features would not serve the purpose and likewise a full-featured high-end laptop notebook would over serve the purpose. The ideal laptop computer for the home user would be a midrange laptop notebook which has all the basic features but is not very efficient to be categorized as a high-end machine. The midrange laptop computer would cost anywhere from $900 to $1800 and would weigh approximately 2 to 4 kg.

Features of the home laptop computer

Processor. Generally, you should choose the processor with the fastest speed that you can afford. Intel's Pentium M CPU line offers speed with great battery life. AMD's Athlon are more affordable than Pentium but they lag in overall speed. AMD's Turion 64 promises to be optimized for high performance, wireless capability, and long battery life.
Operating System. Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition. This is the accepted standard.
Memory. More than 512 MB is not necessary. Less is a compromise. Ideal is 512 MB.
Hard Drive. With all the family photos and videos to store, 60 GB should suffice.
Graphics Card. ATI Mobility Radeon X300 or nVidia GeForce Go 6200, or Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 900 GM is a good choice. Graphics memory should be at least 64 MB; however, 128 MB is preferable.
Optical Drive. Dual format or dual layer DVD/RW drive is fine.
Display. Screens from 14" to 15" are standard. A spacious 17" wide-screen laptop is not required, but if affordable can allow two web pages to open side-by-side, and give great DVD pictures.
Ports/Slots. USB 2.0 ports (at least three), a PCMCIA slot, a FireWire (IEEE 1394) port, and an ethernet slot are the bare minimum requirements. A VGA port can help you connect to a monitor or to a projector for giving presentations. A S-Video out port can enable you to output video to a television.
Batteries. Go for lithium-ion batteries instead of nickel-cadmiums. Almost all modern laptops feature lithium-ion batteries due to their light weight, high energy density, and they do not suffer from recharge-inhibiting memory effect. Laptop batteries store power in compartments known as cells, which range from 4 to 12 in number. The greater the number, the more power is stored. Laptop batteries are rated by the capacity (measured in milliamp hours, or mAh), which range from 2000 mAh to 6000 mAh. The greater the milliamp hours, the better is the battery.
Extras. Free softwares, fully featured not trial versions, will add value to the purchase of a home laptop computer.

Research before you buy

Read notebook computer review, check out notebook accessory like power convertors, notebook case, notebook mouse, notebook cooler and then get a notebook quote at a notebook shop. If there is any notebook computer sale going on, and you are on a tight budget, then you can try for a cheap notebook, a refurbished notebook, or a used notebook. Sometimes, very good notebook PCs can be got with a laptop deal in a notebook computer sale. However, if you can afford a new one, you should not go for a used notebook computer, a refurbished notebook computer, or a cheap notebook. After adequate research and visiting many notebook shops, decide on a model and get the best computer notebook for your home.