Feature: Notebook Buying Tips

Ah, the end of one year and the beginning of another. It's a great time to reflect on where you've been, where you're going, and....

Okay, enough of that introspective stuff. What's really on your mind is buying a notebook. Whether you're splurging on a portable PC as a gift or you want to ring in the New Year with a fresh new computer, this is a popular time to shop for a new notebook.

So if you're in the mood to buy, keep reading. I've got tips and strategies to help you get the most machine for your money.

Make a List, Check It Twice

Before you buy, make a list of the top ten things you'll do with your new notebook. E-mail, Web surfing, word processing, instant messaging, video editing, listening to music, spreadsheet crunching, page layout--these are just a few ideas to get you started. To get a sense of how much hardware power and features you need, prioritize those activities from one (the thing you do most often) to ten (least frequent). If video editing is number one, then you know you need a powerful system with a capacious amount of memory and hard drive space, an IEEE 1394 port to plug in a digital camcorder, a DVD burner, and so on.

Also, make a second list of all the places you'll be using your notebook and the expected frequency of use at each site. Will you be working on a notebook in your office almost all the time, with a small percent spent on a plane or in a hotel room? That suggests you should consider a desktop replacement notebook (as opposed to, say, an ultraportable). Desktop replacements offer the most powerful features. Yes, they're heavy. But if you're in the office most of the time, portability isn't often a concern. In fact, in that situation, you might even consider buying a powerful desktop system and picking up a low-end refurbished notebook for the small amount of time when you're out of the office.

In short: Think of all the possible requirements you have today, and what you're likely to need within the next two years. You don't want to upgrade a year from now just because you didn't buy enough computer power today.

Research, Research, Research

You're going to be spending lots of time with your new notebook. Moreover, a portable computer is a considerable expense. Therefore, it behooves you to research the heck out of it before buying.

Of course, you'll want to start at PC World's Web site. Check out our monthly "Top 15 Notebooks" for capsule reviews, performance specs, latest prices, and more. Also read "How to Buy a Notebook PC" for additional guidance on specs and features.

To look for more stories, reviews, user opinions and more, perform a search at our site as well as at Google or other search engines. Type in the model name you're considering; using quotation marks around the name will yield more exact results.

Pay Attention to Service and Reliability

It's easy to get dazzled by notebook specs. But how reliable is the vendor's products? How good is its tech support? These factors are each just as important to consider as the notebook's hardware features.

Check out our latest survey on PC vendor reliability and service. Among the notebook vendors listed, readers ranked EMachines tops in reliability and IBM tops in service. Compaq and Sony ranked lowest in both reliability and service. But don't stop at notebooks: The article also includes reader rankings for desktop PCs, printers, cameras, wireless gateways, and audio players.

Get Hands-On

Even if you've decided on a notebook from Dell or IBM, or another model that you configure online or over the phone, and that isn't typically found in a store, I strongly urge you to visit a computer retailer anyway.

Go to Best Buy, Circuit City, CompUSA, or another computer store and take your time checking out their notebooks. Type on the keyboards; use the trackpads; listen (if possible) to the speaker quality. If music is important to you, bring along a CD. Plan to watch a lot of DVDs? Bring a colorful, wide-screen DVD movie, too. Maybe the clerk will let you pop the discs in; maybe they won't. It doesn't hurt to ask. If you're lucky, though, you'll come away with a sense of what today's crop of notebook's speakers sound like, what their video graphics playback quality looks like, how springy keyboard keys are (or aren't), and so on.

All this hands-on experience is good for several reasons. First, you may discover something you love in a floor model that you hadn't thought about in the notebook you were about to configure online, sight unseen.

I'll give you an example. On a recent trip to Best Buy, I marveled at the gorgeous, bright, high-contrast notebook screens currently offered in some Hewlett-Packard, Sony, and Toshiba models. I was duly impressed by a number of the HP Pavilion Dv1000's ingenious, attractive touches, too. Along with its stunningly crisp 14-inch wide-screen display, for instance, the Pavilion Dv1000 offers QuickPlay, a combination of software and hardware buttons that lets you view DVDs without having to boot up Windows. The thin-and-light notebook also comes with a remote control for DVD playback that's cleverly designed to dock in a PC Card slot. In short: I was extremely close to buying a new notebook from Dell or IBM; now, I'm also considering the Pavilion Dv1000. For pricing, go to HP's Web site.

Also, seeing some new notebooks in the flesh may spark some new ideas and raise new questions. For example, after seeing the wide-screen notebooks, you may decide a traditional-sized notebook screen just won't cut it anymore.

Bottom line: Know exactly what you want in a notebook and where you'll use the machine most. Read the reviews, blogs, and anything else you can get your hands on. Check up on the vendor's reliability and service. And get yourself into a store to get a broader picture of what's state-of-the-art in notebooks as we head into 2005.