Laptops

When buying a laptop, there are some features that get all the attention: the display, for example and the CPU. Something that doesn’t always get the focus it deserves is connectivity. Ignoring this can have serious ramifications when it comes to actually using a new laptop—connectivity is not something that should be taken for granted. So when it comes time to buy your next laptop, here are the connection options you should consider.

One of the most confusing aspects of buying a laptop is the processor, or CPU. It’s not difficult to figure out which CPU a laptop has—in fact, processor specs are one of a laptop’s primary bragging points. But what does it all mean? Is AMD better than Intel? What’s a core and what’s the difference between having two (dual-core) four (quad-core) or six (hexa-core)? How can one Intel Core i5 CPU be so much faster than another Intel Core i5 CPU? The answers to these vexing questions and more as I outline what laptop buyers should know about processors.

Eurocom is a well known manufacturer of high performance gaming laptops. I’ve had the opportunity to test several of the company’s models in the past and they always impress. This time, I have a Eurocom Armadillo, something different. It’s a thin ultra-portable with a touchscreen display and long battery life—something different for a gaming laptop. Read on to see what I thought of the Armadillo.

  Many schools are implementing a ‘bring your own device’ policy – meaning students learn from their own computers and not those provided by the school.

Laptops are a hot product right now as high school, college and university students start preparing for back to school. Best Buy has hundreds to choose from and I’ve already dished on five of my favourites. Now it’s time to leverage the power of Best Buy’s website, through the customer ratings and comments left by people who have bought specific laptops. We’ve combed through the ratings and put together another list of five laptop computers, this time based on your feedback. Without further ado, here are five of the best laptops on the market, as chosen by Best Buy customers.

I see a lot of laptops come through my door and many of them try to impress with fancy sculpted cases and LED lighting effects. Granted, looking hot does get some points upfront, but after trying out my third Eurocom laptop in the past few years —this time the Shark 2— I’ve really come to appreciate this manufacturer’s approach. While the Shark 2 doesn’t look cheap, it is understated compared to many laptops aimed at the gaming and graphics professional crowd. It’s also a solid performer with a good display, high quality sound, a powerful Intel Haswell CPU and an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 765M graphics card for gaming.

As you no doubt know, when it comes to trying to pack the performance needed to undertake serious video gaming in a laptop, it comes down to a very tricky balance between speed and portability. Try to shove too much power in a gaming laptop and for all intents and purposes, it ceases to be a portable PC —heavy, bulky and with little battery life. Go too far in the other direction, though, and you end up with something that’s svelte but unable to play games on anything but the lowest settings. I just spent some quality time with a gaming laptop that manages to strike the perfect balance: the Eurocom M3. It’s a compact, lightweight laptop with the power to chew through pixels and polygons while keeping frame rates high. Eurocom says the M3 is the most powerful 13-inch notebook ever made and everything I’ve seen supports that claim.

Chromebooks are one of the fastest growing computing categories. Small, lightweight and inexpensive these Google Chrome OS-powered notebooks have proven ideal for many users including students and small business. They’re great for home too. But what if you want the touchscreen experience that’s become a standard feature on Windows 8 Ultrabooks? You were pretty much out of luck on the Chrome side. Acer has filled that gap quite nicely with the new C720P Chromebook, an 11.6-inch device that combines the advantages of Google’s Chrome OS with a multi-touch display. It’s available now at Best Buy, but if you want a preview of what it’s capable of, I’ve spent some time putting a C720P Chromebook through the paces for a review.

What makes a business laptop? What a business (or a professional user) needs in a laptop is going to vary depending on who you ask and the nature of the industry they’re in, but there are some characteristics most business laptops have in common. Generally speaking, a business laptop is powerful enough to take the place of a desktop PC with a display that’s good enough to take the place of an external monitor for hours at a time. It’s able to run software such as Microsoft Office, has the storage capacity for plenty of documents, it’s durable and it has a high quality keyboard. Other factors such as a full complement of ports and connectivity options, battery life and pre-installed software like Microsoft Windows 8 Pro may also come into play. Here’s what else you need to know before deciding on a business laptop.

There’s a lot to like about portable computers, but Google and its hardware partners like Samsung, Acer and HP found a way to offer a light weight, lower cost alternative to the traditional Windows laptop. Chromebooks are a hot category of portable computers that run Google’s Chrome OS instead of Windows or OSX. With Chrome’s lower hardware requirements and the ability to leverage Google’s cloud services, a Chromebook can offer a full-featured PC experience in a device that’s lighter and less expensive than traditional PCs, without the limitations of netbooks. They may not be ideal for everyone, but Chromebooks are designed to cover many scenarios and are particularly useful for students, road warriors, small business and those looking for light duty home PC.