What makes a decent PC these days?

[cosmicpanda]

I'm thinking of getting a laptop. Nothing's definite, yet, but I'm doing some tentative research.

I'd want a laptop because I'd want it to be easily portable. I'd also not want to spend more than about 2000 NZD, which at the time of writing (for the sake of comparison) is about 1070 euros and 1515 USD.

But anyway, what do you think would be the general sort of things I should look for in a laptop of this price?

I was reading the Dell website and they were offering 2 - 4 GB of RAM in their laptops, and this seems massive to me since the last I remember, 1 GB was a lot of RAM. I'm completely out of my depth with the processors, since the last I remembered they were all numbered with their megahertz/gigahertz, which was nice and simple. They don't seem to be, now.

I don't have a clue about the graphics cards (laptops have graphic cards now?) and as for sound, I'm not sure. I do a lot of music composition with Sibelius, so I've got an idea that I'd want good quality sound. But since it's a laptop I'd be using headphones, so is it worth paying extra for a sound card?

To anybody that can help me out of this confusion, thanks a lot. :)

[tinchote]

These days you should go for at least 2MB. 1MB is still ok, but it's nicer when you have a lot less disk swapping :)

Of course all laptops have video cards. Here you might want to do some research. Some video cards will mention the word "shared" or something like that, and that means that they are using the regular RAM as video memory; this is usually not a very good idea. So a proper video card is the way to go. Still, many laptops have decent video cards.

For anything other than the most specific applications, the average sound card is ok, so i would't worry about that.

And I wouldn't worry too much about the processor, although you might want to compare a little to avoid being at the bottom end.

In the end, a big factor in the laptop purchase is the kind of use you want to give to it. You may enjoy a big screen, but that makes the laptop bigger and eventually heavier. If you will be using it on batteries a lot, battery life becomes an issue, while otherwise you wouldn't even think about it. And depending where and how you transport it, size and weight could be important too.

[Daniel]

Laptop should have at least 1gb of ram (preferably 2gb!) a Core 2 Duo processor (anything else is craptacular). Don't worry about the speed of the processor really. Any core 2 duo will be fast enough though of course a faster processor is better. A non-shared graphics card would be best but to be honest it's hard to explain how you see if it's a shared or non-shared one.

[cosmicpanda]

I assume, tinchote, that you mean 2 GB, not 2 MB? Anyhow, I think that 2 GB sounds a whole lot better than 1 GB in principle, so I will most probably go for that.

Thanks for pointing out the shared memory business with the graphics cards; that's something for me to heckle salesmen with. I can bug them about the core 2 duo processor, as well.

Thanks for your replies, I appreciate it.

[tinchote]

I assume, tinchote, that you mean 2 GB, not 2 MB? Anyhow, I think that 2 GB sounds a whole lot better than 1 GB in principle, so I will most probably go for that.

Thanks for pointing out the shared memory business with the graphics cards; that's something for me to heckle salesmen with. I can bug them about the core 2 duo processor, as well.

Thanks for your replies, I appreciate it.

Yes, of course I was trying to say 2GB :)