The Definitive Guide to Buying a Laptop this Holiday Season

October, November and December are excellent months for laptop shoppers. The frenzy of shoppers means great deals for those in the market for a laptop, if you can shove through the crowd to claim your prize.

A great deal doesn’t change the fact that you need to know what you’re buying, however. In this guide I will educate you about the current laptop market, which means you’ll be able to purchase a laptop that best suits your needs without over-spending.

So, let’s dive right in!

 Though new computer hardware debuts constantly, the basic size and shape of laptops hasn’t changed much since the introduction of netbooks. Laptops are consistently becoming thinner, but consumers are still choosing 15.6” laptops above other sizes, and a laptop with such a large display can only be made so thin.

If you are looking for a laptop that will be the only system of the person receiving it, the 15.6” format remains a solid choice. The larger display is easy to use, and most laptops of this size offer excellent performance for the price. However, you must keep in mind this size of laptop will be a bit heavy and difficult to carry around.

Those looking for something more portable should consider 13” and 14” laptops. Both are much easier to stuff in a bag, and usually weigh four pounds or less. Battery life is also often better on these models, but some performance is sacrificed to obtain this.

If extreme portability is required, netbooks are still the answer for most users, though it’s sometimes possible to buy a big extended battery for a 13” or 14” system. Netbooks are still inexpensive, as well – many retail for under $300. The trade-off for this is performance, as your average netbook processor is 5 to 10 times slower than an Intel Core i5 powered system, depending on the benchmark.

On the other hand, if you know that a laptop will be never taken outside of the user’s home, you may want to consider a 16” or 17” laptop. These are extremely difficult to transport because they won’t fit in most backpacks or messenger bag, and they often weigh over six pounds. However, they include larger displays with higher resolutions and more comfortable keyboards.

 One wildcard this holiday season is the ultrabook. In essence, it’s a Windows rendition of the MacBook air. It’s super-thin and light. Intel low-voltage processors are used in order to obtain maximum battery life.

This is a wildcard because the laptops are just now entering production. It’s not clear how well these laptops perform, and early reviews likely won’t become available until mid-November, with more in-depth tests extending into December.

Personally, I would advise staying away from these systems until reviews become available and more ultrabook options hit the market. They could be excellent, but at this point they’re an unknown. Worse, they’re rather expensive, with most models entering at around $1000. That’s a lot to spend on an unproven design.

Every holiday season, some laptops are made available at outstanding clearance prices. It’s not unusual to see full-size 15.6” laptops sold for $300 during massive sales designed to bring in hoards of customers.

At first glance, this may seem like an excellent purchase. However, you need to be careful about falling in to the bargain trap. Cheap computers are sometimes exactly that – cheap computers. There are still models lurking on store shelves with old-school Intel Celeron or AMD Turion processors and 2GB of RAM.

Often, the performance for these laptops is simply unacceptable. They tend to be as slow as laptops designed for portability, but without the benefits in battery life, as the batteries in these systems are usually small to keep costs down.

Remember – whatever laptop you do buy is most likely going to be used for several years, at the least. In some cases, it may be expected to function for five years or more. Although future-proofing is generally not a worthwhile idea, in the laptop market it’s rarely a good idea to purchase the least expensive product possible, as it will most likely already be outdated by a significant margin.

Laptops are not as easily upgraded as desktops, so you are most likely stuck with whatever you purchase. This means you need to make the right choice the first time. There’s also been some evidence in laptop reliability reports that less expensive laptops are less reliable than more expensive ones, which is another factor to keep in mind.