Are Extra Laptop Features Worth It?

Draft-N Wireless

Wi-Fi continues to evolve, but its latest incarnation, draft-n, is likely the fastest flavor we'll have until 2012. Laptop makers were early adopters of this version of the IEEE 802.11n standard, which may change slightly and require firmware and driver upgrades as it moves toward full approval in 2009.

Most business laptops still include 802.11g--the 2003-era standard that was itself a big speed boost--as standard equipment or as a downgrade option to reduce cost during configuration of a purchase. Upgrading to draft-n adds from $15 to $40 to the cost of most companies' laptops. (The one notable exception is Apple, which standardized on draft-n for its laptops in October 2006.) The biggest advantage of a draft-n adapter is that transferring large files between similarly equipped computers or to and from a high-speed corporate (or even gigabit SOHO) network takes one-third to one-fifth the time as the task does over 802.11g.

Our verdict: Rather than buy a laptop with a five-year-old standard built in, ride on the cutting edge and select draft-n. The modest cost gets you a substantial speed boost, and futureproofs your laptop for a few years.

Fingerprint Scanner

Once a feature for people working in high-security jobs, fingerprint scanners are now commonplace, included in most premium business laptops and available otherwise as an inexpensive add-on. Lenovo, for instance, charges a bit over $20 to swap its touchpad with a fingerprint reader; Dell asks for $30 to add the device to laptops in its Latitude line.

Depending on the laptop, a fingerprint reader might be tied in with boot-time firmware to prevent a computer from starting up without a valid fingerprint. It may also safeguard Windows log-ins or replace passwords for online services and encrypted virtual disk mounting.

Our verdict: Just about any business or individual would benefit from having one of these readers, especially considering the negligible expense. But make sure that the reader and the laptop configuration combine for the particular protection features you need.

Hardware Drive Encryption

The biggest mainstream security story of the last few years concerns the theft of laptops containing credit card numbers, credit history, Social Security numbers, and other data belonging to consumers, veterans, and company employees. If only the victims had employed encryption, right?

Some hard drives now have hardware-backed encryption built in, which helps make locking down data easier. Seagate's Momentus 5400 FDE.2 is currently the best-known entry in this category, and Dell and Lenovo are the only laptop makers to offer it as a standard upgrade option. An 80GB or 120GB drive with hardware encryption costs about $100 extra at Dell's online store; Lenovo adds $30 to $100 to the price, depending on the drive size.

The data stored on such drives is entirely encrypted in real time, with no delays and with no interaction between the drive and the operating system. This design improves performance and provides fewer points of entry for unauthorized access.

Some analysts expect drive makers other than Seagate and Hitachi to get into the business, and hardware drive encryption will likely become a dominant business-laptop feature--not even much of an option--by 2009.

Our verdict: For any industry in which security is paramount or even legally obligated (the medical, legal, and governmental fields, for starters), the additional cost of hardware encryption is minuscule when weighed against the technology's ease of use and its role in avoidance of liability.

Free-Fall Sensor

You'll never drop your laptop. Of course you won't. Someone will, however, jostle you, or the laptop will be balanced precariously on the arm of your seat in an airport waiting area, and--crash! When you inspect it, the laptop is fine; the drive, however, is trashed.

A free-fall sensor can detect when a drive experiences sudden motion that indicates a near-term poor outcome. Turtlelike, the drive instantly retracts its read/write heads to keep them from damaging the internal platters. The drive then pops the heads out when the coast is clear.

Apple has included motion sensors in all of its laptops for the last three years, and Lenovo has done the same in all of its ThinkPad laptops since 2004. Other manufacturers may charge a small premium, about $40 to $50, to upgrade a drive to have the feature.

Our verdict: Let's not be coy. Get it.

Glenn Fleishman writes the blog Glenn Fleishman on Hardware on PCWorld.com, and edits his own site, Wi-Fi Networking News.