Have you ever wandered into PC World or Currys with the intention of buying a new laptop or a computer but ended up completely confused with all the technical jargon and acronyms used to define technology? Do you sit back and wonder if a laptop is actually worth £500? Have you ever tried determining which laptop or PC is a good value for money and what makes a laptop really worth its price tag?
If you have answered “yes” to any of these questions above then this post is for you. Here we explain few of the most commonly used terms employed to define “what is inside” a particular laptop or PC and what all these terms mean. We also aim to highlight what are the most critical parts of a laptop or a PC and what you should really look out for. If you need more information on any of the points mentioned here or need advice regarding buying a laptop please do not hesitate to write to us at fixit@BritishPcRepairs.co.uk or by calling us on 01372 890 123. You can also contact us by sending us a message from this side. To do that please click here
Memory
A typical memory chip
A typical memory chip
This is perhaps the most commonly used term and also often the most commonly “misused” term in this industry. Salesmen simply love to confuse customers by using this word repeatedly to define multiple things within a laptop. What actually is “memory” and how is it different from the “storage capacity” or the “hard drive” of the laptop?
What is it
Simply put “memory” or RAM is a temporary area your laptop uses while you work on it. Nothing is written permanently onto this “memory or RAM”. As soon as you switch off your laptop, it is wiped clean. It is not equivalent to the storage space that is available in your laptop (explained later). To confuse matter further both of them are measure in the same units (gigabyte or megabyte) as they are both effectively storage areas. The difference been – one is permanent and the other (RAM or memory) is temporary!
Importance
Memory is important upto a certain factor within laptops or PCs. There is a certain minimum amount of memory a laptop needs to work optimally. Any lower than that and the laptop or PC will constantly be slow running. Similarly a laptop can only work with a certain maximum amount of memory or RAM. Any more than that and it simply goes unused!
General Myth
Contrary to popular believes throwing a very large amount of memory in a laptop WILL NOT make it any faster beyond a certain limit. In fact in the past few years a number of laptops were sold with a lot more memory in them than the laptop was capable of handling! Why? Simply because it is often easier to confuse the user between memory and hard drive and sell more laptops!
As a general rule of thumb a modern laptop should have a minimum 2GB (gigabyte) to 4GB(gigabyte) RAM.
Processor (or “Chip” or “CPU”)
Intel's i3 Processor
This is perhaps the single most important factor that determines how fast or slow your laptop will be. This also defines the raw power or speed your laptop possesses. You may think of it as the “Brain” of the CPU. Along with the “memory” explained in point 1 above, these two are the most important factors in determining the speed of your laptop.
What is it
A processor (also called CPU or “chip”) is effectively the brain of the laptop. It is the single most important factor that dictates the power of your laptop. Not surprisingly this is also the most important part that determines the price of your laptop.
Importance
As explained this is the single most important part of your laptop and can be thought of as the “brain” of the laptop. There are two main chip makers “Intel” and “AMD”. Intel chips currently have slight edge over AMD chips in terms of laptop’s computational powers and electricity consumption. Out of the (baffling!) range of Intel chips available for a normal home user, the chip called “i3″ should be the best one to go for.
Hard Disk or Storage
2.5" SATA Hard Drive
This is a small brick like thing installed in your laptop which is nothing but storage space for your laptop. All your music, movies, documents, videos, iTunes library, Windows (explained later) are actually stored on this thing. This is the “permanent storage” space in your laptop. Things that are stored here stay here when the power is turned off. It is also measure in Gigabytes just like the RAM.
What is it
Hard disk is the storage space in the laptop. This is the part where all your files etc. live.
Importance
While theoretically you can run a laptop without a hard disk inside it, such a laptop will be of limited use as you will not be able to store anything on it ever!
Caution: This is one of the most common parts inside the laptop that go bad. As this is the part that stores your data on it, if this hard disk goes bad you can actually end up losing all your data!! In fact very recently we have had a lot of laptops come in for repairs where the hard disk had gone bad. Fortunately we were able to recover our user’s data from the dead disks but not all the users were this lucky! This was quite common in Toshiba laptops as we have mentioned here. The most common killer of hard drives is heat. If you use your laptop a lot on couches, rugs, carpets or padded surfaces then you are actually trapping heat inside the laptop which would only accelerate the rate at which the hard drive will die!
Motherboard (or main board)
A typical laptop motherboard
You may think of it as the main board on which every part (processor, memory, hard disk etc.) are kept or installed. This board contains all the circuits that are necessary for various parts to talk to each other. This board is like the nervous system of the entire laptop. This is also the costliest part in a laptop. In most cases if a motherboard goes bad within a laptop we usually advise our clients to not spend any money on the repair of the laptop.
What is it
A motherboard is the nervous system of the laptop. It is responsible for making all the other bits and bobs in the laptop talk to each other. If this board goes bad it is often not worth spending money on the laptop anymore.
Importance
Almost always the most expensive part in a laptop, this is the thing that keeps your laptop running. This controls all the other parts on your laptop. If your laptop goes too hot, it is this board that decides to shut it down. To get to this part we need to completely strip the laptop down.
Summary
In order of importance this is how the following would appear
1. Motherboard
2. Processor
3. Memory
4. Hard Drive
So the next time the sales man at PC World tries to sell you a laptop with “oh so much more memory on it!” you can very well tell him that you would rather buy a laptop with a better processor in it!
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