Laptop Shopping

Cheap Laptop and Notebook Buying Guide
The price of laptops and notebooks has dropped significantly over the past few years. Some of the top companies are selling laptops at under $600, with specifications appropriate for most users.
In this guide we will cover what you need to know before purchasing a new, refurbished or used laptop or notebook.


What to look for in a cheap laptop or notebook.
Your choice of laptop/notebook will depend on how you mean to use it. Most modern laptops are sufficient for every day tasks like word processing, surfing the internet, spreadsheet applications, and more.
Buying a cheap laptop or notebook does not necessarily mean you have to cutback on performance, most machines under $600 will have sufficient memory and hard drive space. Processor speed is a factor, but again, most cheap laptops boast impressive processor speeds.


Buying Lower Specification Laptops/Notebooks
If you purchase a lower spec laptop/notebook, there are gainful ways you can increase the performance yourself in the upcoming.

Memory upgrades are cheaper these days, with a 2GB memory (RAM) module available for under $40. Installing the memory yourself is fairly straight forward, and can very much improve the performance of the laptop. See our guide if you need help installing the laptop memory upgrade.

Laptop hard drives are very reasonably priced, they are also reasonably simple to install. The size of the hard drive you will need will depend on your exacting requirements, if you don’t wish to improve the existing laptop hard drive; you can always buy an external hard drive which can be connected via USB.

One of the most crucial components when it comes to the performance of your cheap laptop is the processor. For more information on processors click here

Laptop processors can be very tricky to upgrade and involve opening your laptop’s casing, voiding any warranty. For this reason when choosing your laptop/notebook, pay attention to the speed of the processor rather than the size of the hard drive or the amount of memory (RAM) installed (although always check the maximum amount of memory (RAM) that can be installed).

Any additional components can also be added in the future. For example, wireless connectivity (using a PCMCIA card or USB device), more USB ports (using a USB hub), DVD writers (external via USB or Internal from manufacturer (if available)), floppy disk drives (external via USB), modems (PCMCIA or USB), webcams (USB), and more can be added with ease.