Approaching a Laptop Purchase
14
The first laptop computers were offered in a somewhat similar manufactur-
ing and marketing environment. First of all, users were not meant to open
the boxes. And secondly, the machines were offered in just a few basic con-
figurations. Buyers looked for a model based around a particular processor,
with a specific amount of RAM, and a particular size of hard drive.
Today, though, laptops own nearly half of the personal computer market
share. And though many retail and online stores sell “take-it-or-leave-it”
prepackaged laptops, you can also custom configure many models by direct
order from a factory or reseller. And designs now offer a wide range of sock-
ets, ports, bays, and openings for upgrades for currently used machines.
How do you know which purchase route to take?
Buying a package
A preconfigured package may have a number of advantages to offer you:
✦ You want it now. Models are usually available in stores or from online
sellers for immediate purchase. What you see is what you get, and you
can get it now (or within a couple days if it is shipped to you).
✦ You want it cheaper. Some preconfigured models are less expensive
than comparable systems that are custom ordered from a manufacturer.
The reason? Like Henry Ford, computer makers can maximize their
profit by making a whole bunch of identical models; the cost of compo-
nents goes down, as does marketing, support, and maintenance.
✦ You want it without much thought. Would you be happiest picking a
model off the shelf at an electronics store or from an online listing? It
can free you from having to make decisions.
Configuring your own
You may want full control over as many components of your machine as
possible. Why customize?
✦ You’re choosy about what you want. You can get pretty close to the
exact components that you need, and exclude some that you don’t

consumer versions and a few more specialized editions of Windows
Vista. Some users may want to use an alternate operating system, and
many manufacturers will assist you in meeting that specification.
✦ Resolution (an LCD screen draws characters and images with millions of
tiny dots; the more dots that are packed per square inch generally trans-
lates to the sharpness of the screen and/or the amount of information
that can be shown) of the display, along with some special features such
as an antiglare surface or a high brightness level.
✦ Choice between an integrated (built-in) graphics controller that uses
some of the system RAM to construct images, or a separate graphics
card plugged into the internal electronics of the system and equipped
with its own RAM and specialized processor.
✦ Selection of a CD or DVD drive, with options including writing record-
able discs and using the latest technology, called BluRay, to play
high-resolution movies (which is, for most of us — at least right now —
a want and not a need).
✦ Options to add various speeds and designs for WiFi wireless communi-
cation for Internet and e-mail, and Bluetooth for managing cordless
mice and information interchange with music players and other devices.
✦ Selection between basic or upgraded audio circuitry, basic or high-
fidelity internal speakers, and basic or specialized sound synthesis
and playback software.
✦ Choosing between the standard battery or a more capacious (and
usually heavier) battery that offers extended life between recharges.
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Approaching a Laptop Purchase
16
Plugging into a custom machine
The third option for buying a laptop is to find a preconfigured package that
is as close as you can get to your needs . . . and then customize the rest

puter’s motherboard in the next chapter. For the moment, allow me to offer
the following: They are both extremely flexible and very fast. You need an
extra hard drive? Insert the cable in one of the ports. An external mouse?
Plug one in.
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Chapter 2: Touring a Modern
Laptop
In This Chapter
ߜ Going inside the box
ߜ Seeing ports of call
ߜ Knowing what goes where
L
ittle boxes on the store shelf. Little boxes made of ticky-tacky. And they
all look the same.
Okay, all of you who weren’t alive during the 1960s — or were but don’t
remember them: There was this song by Malvina Reynolds that lampooned
the dull, look-alike suburbs that were being constructed at the time. The
song goes on, “There’s a green one and a pink one, and a blue one and a
yellow one,” and don’t you know, they all look just the same.
So what does this have to do with laptop computers? To begin, they all are
basically little boxes of roughly the same dimensions. And interestingly,
nearly all are mostly black or silver.
Flipping Your Lid
Unlike a desktop PC, the interior of a laptop computer isn’t intended to be
examined by mere users. Opening a case is a difficult task often requiring
specialized tools. Reassembling the case is even more difficult because the
internal parts are so tiny and so tightly integrated. (And nearly every laptop
computer manufacturer promises to void your warranty if they determine
you’ve poked around in places where you’re not authorized to go.)
But on behalf of you, the reader, I have broken the secret bonds of laptops

Start your tour with the upper section and work your way down and around.
At the very top of the upper box is a latch or other device that keeps the
two halves together. When you release the latch, the laptop opens like a
clamshell (which was one of the original industry names for this type of
design — a clamshell computer).
The top half of the clamshell holds the display and its associated electron-
ics. Typical screen sizes (measured on the diagonal) range from about 10
inches for the lightest and smallest models to 17 inches for multimedia
spectaculars.
Unless you’re planning to build your own LCD some day, here’s what you
need to know: An LCD works by sending tiny amounts of electrical current
to tiny spots of a compound called liquid crystal. In most designs, a dot
becomes dark when energized and goes clear when the power is taken away.
Tiny color filters sit in front of each dot, and combinations of dots produce
various hues. In most designs, a lamp — often a version of a fluorescent
tube — provides backlighting that shines through the dots to present an
image onscreen.
06 140925-bk01ch02.qxp 4/8/08 12:35 PM Page 18
Book I
Chapter 2
Touring a Modern
Laptop
Saving Your Box Top
19
A screen needs only a small amount of space around its edges to connect a
grid of tiny wires that provide power to individual picture elements (pixels)
on the screen. This allows for more viewable real estate than on an old-style
cathode-ray tube (CRT) monitor, which required a frame of at least an inch.
LCDs are thin, perhaps one-quarter of an inch thick or less, and the screen
itself is fragile and could easily be scratched or cut. Manufacturers place a

can cost a few hundred dollars to have a technician open the case and plug
the cable back in.
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Getting to the Bottom of the Box
20
Getting to the Bottom of the Box
Let me define the surfaces for the bottom box: top, bottom, back, and
four sides.
The top of the bottom box — the upper flat surface — is home to most of a
laptop’s built-in user-input devices. What is a user-input device? It’s anything
that allows you — the user — to directly instruct the computer; I’m talking
about the keyboard, the touchpad or other mouse equivalent, and special-
purpose buttons and switches. (WiFi and other wireless communication
ports and connectors to external components aren’t user-input devices.)
The bottom of the bottom box holds several access covers. These compart-
ments most commonly hold slots for RAM, allowing the user to add more
memory without the need to have a technician open the case. On some
models, other compartments are available for enhancement or replacement
of WiFi transceivers.
Many laptop owners dream of the day when they can upgrade their graphics
adapter through an externally accessible compartment; such a design may
be offered some day. Until then, only a handful of laptops let you change
the graphics adapter, and the process requires opening the case, not just a
compartment. If you need high-speed graphics, shop for a laptop with that
capability right from the start.
The sides of the bottom box are typically for quickly, temporarily attaching
plug-in devices. You may also find a volume control for audio systems on the
side; other designs place the volume control on the front or on top, near the
keyboard.
One some models, the bottom back is primarily for attaching devices when

Not for the germophobic: In most homes or offices, what are the two dirtiest,
most germ-laden places? One is the door handle out of your bathroom, and
the other is . . . your computer keyboard. Think about it: Everything that’s
on your fingers gets transferred to the keys, and things only get worse if you
eat at your desk. Don’t put your keyboard into the dishwasher, but do use a
clean rag or gauze dampened with an antiseptic cleaner once a week or so.
You can also use prepackaged keyboard wipes or similar products intended
to clean up after baby.
On smaller notebook computers, the keyboard doesn’t include separate
numeric keys. And you also generally find smaller keytops and — this
matters more to some users than to others — a significantly shorter travel
distance, which is one of a number of technical terms used by manufacturers
to measure how far the key has to be pushed before it makes electrical con-
tact with the tiny switch that lies beneath. What you have here is a matter
of physics. (Remember the idea of cramming ten pounds of stuff into a
five-pound box?) Keys on a desktop keyboard can be elevated a quarter-inch
or more and use a fairly robust spring (or a rubber-like dome that serves the
same purpose) to provide feedback to your fingers as you type. But on a
Figure 2-1:
Toshiba
Satellite
P205.
06 140925-bk01ch02.qxp 4/8/08 12:35 PM Page 21
Getting to the Bottom of the Box
22
laptop, everything is shrunken, and a bit of protective space must cushion
the top of the keys and the front of the LCD when the clamshell is closed.
And so on a laptop, the keys barely rise above the surface and the travel
distance is greatly reduced.
However, a new class of widescreen laptops have arrived, and they’re

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Figure 2-2:
The wide
keyboard on
the Toshiba
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P205 model
includes a
nearly full-
sized

keyboards weren’t much different than a type-
writer’s. As I type these words, I realize that
some of you may have never used a typewriter;
they were amazing devices, combining efficient
user input with a built-in printer. What they
lacked, of course, was what makes computers
so attractive: intelligence, storage, and the abil-
ity to delete, insert, move, and otherwise manip-
ulate text.
The first computer keyboards merged the basic
functions of a typewriter with the specialized
characters that had been inserted into teletype
and similar machines. One of the first new keys
was Escape, which was basically a way to
wave your hand in the machine’s face and say
“Stop” when things started to go awry, as they
often did. Then came the idea of adding extra
levels of shift. Pressing a Shift key typed a cap-
ital letter instead of a lowercase character.
The first new level of shift was Control (or Ctrl),
which added a whole new set of symbols
intended to give direct instructions to the com-
puter. For example, a Ctrl + M key combination
was a carriage return. (What, you may ask, is a
carriage return?
Most typewriters were
designed to have the paper move from right to
left as characters were pounded onto them; at
the end of a line or a paragraph, the carriage —
which included a roller to advance the paper up