Laptop buying guide part one: Confused memories of a computer shopper – L2 Cache, RAM and Hard Drive
What does all this mean??? Read on to find out...
Computer shopping has always been about specs and stats. That’s unlikely to change anytime soon and it’s important to understand the key vital statistics. Memory choices are critical to the performance and longevity of your purchase, so here in the first of this two part laptop buying guide is the memory geek-speak translation.
Memory tech words which tend to pop up on sales listings are RAM, L2 Cache and Hard Drive (also called Hard Disk). In order to understand them we are going to imagine ourselves in a library.
What is L2 Cache?
In our library there are bookshelves, desks and chairs. We walk in, find twelve books from the bookshelves and put them on the floor next to a desk. We sit at the desk but it’s only big enough for a few books with enough space left for us to work. So we pick the three books we need right now from the floor pile and put them on the desk.
The desk is our most convenient and fastest retrieval location for referencing our books. It’s also the smallest. This our Level 2 Cache, or L2 Cache.
The L2 Cache is a temporary storage space used by computers for ultra-fast access to frequently used data. When we take a book from the desk and start reading it with our brain and eyes, this like a computer retrieving data from its L2 Cache and reading it with its main processor chip. The L2 Cache is actually located within the main processor itself, so it is a physically small storage area of around 0.5-12MB.
How much L2 Cache do you need? I would recommend 1MB upwards for Mac OSX, Windows 7 or Vista. Netbooks running Windows XP are fine with 0.5MB.
What is RAM?
What if we need to read a book which is not on the library desk? We look in our pile on the floor. This is a bit slower than using a book already on the desk, but we can put more books on the floor than we can fit on the desk. Looking in the floor pile is like a computer using its Random Access Memory (RAM).
Accessing data in RAM is fast, but slower than the L2 Cache as it sits outside the main chip and connects via fast data lines like our floor pile of books. Since RAM is not constrained by the physical real estate limitations of the main chip, it can store far more data. RAM sticks with capacity of around 0.5 to 1 gigabyte are common these days. Computers typically accommodate two such ’sticks’.
How much RAM do you need? For Windows 7, Vista and Mac OSX 2GB is typically fine, but it’s worth going to 3GB if you are planning to use a lot of multimedia applications like video or photo editing. This will give the computer some breathing room.
What is the Hard Disk?
If the library book you need is not in the floor pile then you have to get up, walk over to the bookshelves, find the right book and bring it back. This takes way longer than picking it up from the floor pile, but the bookshelves can store far more than your floor pile. The bookshelves are like a Hard Drive. They can store vast amounts of information and Hard Drive data remains intact when the computer shuts down, unlike your desk and floor piles which you will clean up when you leave.
Hard Disk data is stored on a set of spinning platters which are read by a needle. The occasional ticking noise you hear in a computer is the Hard Disk being physically read.
How much Hard Disk space do you need? External Hard Disks can be easily bought and plugged into a USB port, so it is not critical if you under-purchase. However with laptops it becomes inconvenient if you run out of space, as although you can add an external drive you are unlikely to want to carry it along with your laptop. So for laptops my advice is to buy a machine with as much Hard Disk space as you can afford; look for a laptop with upwards of 160GB capacity. Video, photo and music files are typically large so if you plan to store lots of these then max-out on your Hard Drive at purchase all the way to 320GB or more.
It’s worth knowing that you cannot control what gets stored in RAM or in the L2 Cache. The computer decides what to put in there, such as open files the in process of being modified. When you turn the power off anything in the L2 Cache or RAM gets wiped, whereas data in the Hard Disk remains intact when the power is off. Similarly you clear the desk when you leave the library and return any books to the bookshelves. This is why it is important to save any open files before shutting down a computer.
What are the expansion options?
For the L2 Cache, the only expansion route is to replace the main processor, which is typically only feasible for a desktop computer.
Laptop RAM can normally be upgraded as long as the computer’s motherboard is able to handle the extra capacity. For example my older MacBook is unable to accommodate more than 2GB of RAM. If your laptop can accept an upgrade from your current RAM level then it is normally a case of removing the existing RAM sticks and fitting correct spec higher capacity ones.
Laptop Hard Disks can generally be upgraded, but it is a delicate process which involves cloning the data from the current drive onto the higher capacity drive in a precise way. The alternative we discussed earlier is to purchase an external Hard Drive, which are readily available these days at reasonable prices.
Holding back the tears
Finally, when a laptop gets sick (read “dropped”) or feverish (read “struck by a virus”), its Hard Disk can be vulnerable to permanent amnesia. So, be nice to yourself and buy an external Hard Drive to back up your photos, music and all those other precious memories.
So that’s the translation of memory geek-speak. Here’s hoping for clear thinking for your next purchase and an end to confused memories!
I originally wrote this article in 2007 and have updated it to reflect the 2009 laptop market.
Neil Berman
Click here to read part two: How to choose a laptop processor (2007).
Expert question: Why is it called Level 2 Cache? There is actually a tiny cache even closer to the main brain in the processing chip called Level 1. However this is so small that it is really only used for very temporary storage and rarely quoted in store listings.
Are Windows 7 pre-Beta success stories responsible for Atom notebook rumors?
Today’s rumors that HP is discussing the possibility of using Atom CPUs for notebooks as well as existing netbooks is interesting for two reasons. Firstly we have not seen the Atom in any laptops with >12″ screens, but secondly and more importantly I think this could be an indicator of confidence in early Windows 7 tests.
We have already seen Windows 7 running on an Asus EEE PC, and early impressions of the next-gen OS have been extremely positive for a stage so early in the pre-release phase.
So what does it mean if HP really is talking to Intel about supplying the Atom for notebooks?
- Performance for netbook -style tasks should be fine on Windows 7, given initial performance tests against Vista and XP, which means browsing, non-HD video viewing, basic office/productivity tasks are all in scope.
- Battery life should skyrocket, if the netbook crowd can be used as a benchmark. My Wind gets over five hours in real-life usage and the only significant additional power drain on a notebook is a larger screen…but they also offer more real-estate for housing a larger battery. Could full working-day battery operation from a large-screen laptop become a mainstream reality?
- The concept is good news for organizations with a mobile/flexible-working workforce and a thin-client infrastructure.
- Many consumers may only need low processing power as we move towards a web-based services computing model (eg. web-mail/photo/music/productivity apps). They might trade notebook HD movie editing capabilities for longer battery life in real life usage…however this would require a sea change in marketing tecniques where high power specs aim to sell a life-changing experience. It is probably a ‘Greener’ sell though, which could lead to Atom-based notebooks being more fashionable that more energy-hungry models.
Time will tell if anything comes of this, but when I put together the early Windows 7 success stories with rumors of HP talking to Intel about the Atom then it does all start to come together…in my hopeful mind!
Neil Berman
iMac Sales Plunge, Apple Slashes Refurb Macbook Air to $1,149
It’s been a week that Apple fans will want to forget. NPD reported that Apple sales for November were flat year on year whilst Windows PCs gained 7%, iMac sales collapsed by 38% whilst Windows desktops fell only 15% and Apple announced that the company will stop attending Macworld after the 2009 show. Apple laptop sales rose 22% compared to 15% for Windows laptops.
What does this mean for Apple? Most likely something needs to be done…and pretty fast. Apple has responded by slashing prices of its refurbished models, a move likely aimed at removing the carrying costs of old inventory. Macbook Airs are available for $1,149 on Apple’s US website at the time of writing. Deep reductions are offered across other lines as well and online stores are offering serious discounts on new models. After a while this discounting could erode the premium perception of the brand and hurt Apple retail store sales, which are typically made at full price.
Netbooks captured the the public's imagination in 2008
This may be a short term band-aid to improve working capital, but Apple needs to look deeper at its product line and offer models at prices which relate to the current economy. The company has been too late in coming to the Netbook market, which exploded with colossal growth this year following the arrival of the Asus EEE in late 2007. Apple needs a Netbook quickly, and it will need to compete with the quality of the MSI Wind, Acer Aspire One and Asus EEE range, which all sell for around $300-400.
Steve Jobs said that “We don’t know how to build a sub-$500 computer that is not a piece of junk.” Well Apple might have to learn how. Five hundred dollars is now premium Netbook territory as prices have been falling throughout 2008.
I expect that if Apple enters the market they would choose the $600-800 range with a couple of configurations. They need this because Macbooks are no longer the coolest laptops to pull out of your bag…Netbooks are. A glance at the Amazon bestseller list shows Netbooks occupying slots which Macbooks used to live in.
The MSI Wind Netbook was one of the most hotly anticipated products of 2008. Can Apple introduce its own competitor to stop the rising Windows sales?
Whilst Macbooks used to be the laptop of choice for Manhattan coffee shop outings, Netbooks now get the curious admiring looks. In an America looking to downsize cars, energy usage and spending, Netbooks are the Prius of today’s laptop showroom.
Clearly the slowdown in the economy has affected Apple as a seller of premium products. It also seems that Apple’s negative advertising campaign throughout 2008 against PCs may have not had the positive sales effect Apple was hoping for. In fact the plunging iMac sales figures indicate that Apple might have done better through a positive campaign promoting the benefits of the iMac compared to Windows desktops. It may be that consumers simply were unable to identify a positive value of spending the extra bucks on an iMac, which is a classic outcome of a negative advertising campaign, unless the competing product is seen as truly worthless. Clearly not the case in this instance as iMac sales plunged 23% more than Windows desktop sales.
Whilst I think Apple will pull through, it needs to revitalize its line-up to be attractive in today’s economy. And hopefully that revitalization effort will give us reasons to buy Macs, instead of reasons not to buy PCs. I want to want Macs for good reasons, not because I’m told the competition is bad.
Neil Berman
XP extended to at least 2010 on Asus EEE style computers
Michael Dix’s announcement on Thursday that Microsoft would now offer Windows XP Home until at least June 30th 2010 tells us one thing: the Redmond giant is getting more sensitive to its little customers.
The message behind the April 3rd statement seems clear: Microsoft is nervous of losing a whole market to Linux and Google-apps-cloud-style computing. That market is what Dix called the ULCPC (Ultra Low Cost Personal Computer), which includes the amazingly popular Linux-powered Asus EEE, Everex Cloudbook and forthcoming models rumoured to be on the way from Acer and HP amongst others.
In the past I think Microsoft might have just said, ‘our current platform is Vista, make your hardware better‘. However on this occasion market forces led to the creation of a more viable option. Most EEE buyers are probably happy with the price/power/battery trade-off in the unit. I know I am. Would I pay another few hundred bucks for a same size, same screened EEE with enough power to run Vista? No way.
So Microsoft will now continue offering XP Home to OEMs of ULCPCs for the next few years. Good decision, and well done for responding to customer opinion. Dix said there is no intention to extend the sales period similarly for other XP versions. In any case, Vista sales have just reached one hundred million licenses so I would not expect the other versions to get a further extension.
Microsoft’s statement was swiftly followed by Asus announcing that they would start selling an XP-powered EEE on April 9th, priced at $400. The specs are believed to be identical to the existing 4G model, only this time some of the nice bits, such as the webcam, are more likely to work out of the box with applications like Skype. According to Laptop Magazine, XP boots in 40 secs on the EEE. That’s pretty quick for XP. Asus is going to sell bucketloads of these.
A few weeks ago Microsoft reinstated support for certain legacy file formats in Office 2007, following requests from the user community. I would expect that users of those legacy formats (mainly Office 97) are already strong candidates to move to OpenOffice or Google Docs. Perhaps this reversal from Redmond might keep them on side for a little longer.
Is there a trend emerging here? Perhaps the giant is feeling like some dwarf’s are getting taller.
Neil Berman
www.neilberman.com
Market Share: Who’s winning and losing in Windows vs Mac vs Linux; IE vs Firefox
Ten thousand choices. Ten thousand opinions. What do my last ten thousand page hits tell us about our Macs on Safari and Vistas of people Fire-ing Internet Explorer?
Internet Explorer vs Firefox:
Is Firefox really challenging IE’s market share?
In a word, yes. 31% of the page hits came from Mozilla’s Firefox, with 61% coming from Microsoft’s Internet Explorer. That is a staggering statistic, given that IE is shipped in the vast majority of all computers sold. The other players – mainly Safari and Opera – fought it out for the remainder. I have started using Firefox myself on my MacBook after getting frustrated with Safari’s compatibility issues with some sites.
The figures for Mac and Windows Firefox take-on are similar on each platform, with around 30% of each user group Fire-ing the Apple and Microsoft offerings according to my stats. Firefox seems to have the Linux visitors well under its wing with almost 90% coverage.
Windows vs Mac:
Is it war?
Yes and no. In 2004 the W3C internet activity stat for Mac usage was just under 3%. My last ten thousand page hits registered 5.5% Macs and over 90% Windows. So from a global perspective it’s no…or at least it’s a very very slow war.
From a regional perspective, the story is different. For North America the page hits registered as 10% Mac and 83% Windows, for Europe this dropped to 6.5% Mac vs. 86.5% Windows, whilst in Asia over 94% of the hits came from Windows PCs.
We know that Apple lost the corporate sales war a long time ago. So the North America stat suggests that Mac penetration as a home computer in the region is pretty strong. This is probably the one market where an Apple vs. Windows war is now on, albeit contained within the upper end of the price range. Europe seems to have a decent amount of Mac users, although they are almost equalled by Linux hits at over 5%. In Asia, Windows appears to be almost unchallenged.
Linux:
Is it a viable alternative?
Yes for sure, and with hit products like the Asus EEE taking the market by storm the amount of Linux users should be rising. From my last ten thousand page hits though, only 3% were Linux users. It will be interesting to see if this percentage grows as more products are launched with Linux distros. The Everex Cloudbook is due to go on sale tomorrow.
Neil Berman
The data in this article is based upon page views registered on this site as tracked by Google.
Asus EEE PC Review
Latest: Click here to read the CES 2008 laptop and UMPC news, including details of the Asus R50 UMPC
After weeks of low supply, the Asus EEE PC has finally appeared. I spent some eagerly awaited quality time with the small, cute and cheap 4G model.
UMPCs: When size does matter
Next to a regular ultraportable the Asus EEE PC is noticeably smaller. It´s also thinner, most likely due its lack of optical or mechanical hard drives. It does however still manage to pack in a VGA output, Ethernet port and 3 USB 2.0 connectors without needing a port replicator.
The screen is also smaller than most ultraportables at seven imches, the same size as Samsung’s Q1 series. However in the case of the EEE this seems to be to keep the cost down than anything else.
The keyboard is also a shrunken affair but is surprisingly easy to use. I was able to type lines of text accurately without any need to acclimatize. This will depend on finger size but I was pleasantly surprised. For such a thin laptop the keys also have a positive feel with a decent amount of travel.
The EEE PC has a traditional trackpad which 
has a separated section on the right hand side. Using the media player this section controlled playback volume. The trackpad was fairly responsive to movement but less so to taps, although it is usable. There´s only one button, like a Mac, but improving on Apple’s design the left side of the button gives a left click and the right side gives a right click (thanks for the pointer Neil). Great idea and works well in practise.
In comparison to competitors, the EEE dwarfs the Fujitsu U810 (above) and Sony UX380N (below).
It’s cheap, but can I actually use this thing in real life?
Switch on the EEE and it boots quickly (I counted 24 seconds) into a home screen with big icons and tabs. It looks ultra easy to use and find what you want.
In this regard it’s similar to the iPhone home screen. But then I always thought the iPhone home screen looks simple because it only has a few preloaded applications. The EEE is similar, with limited applications it’s easy to give everything a big icon. I expect most owners will never add any applications anyway, as much of what you need to get going is included right out of the box.
The EEE ships with internet, office and media playback software sitting on top of its Linux operating system. The look and feel is overtly Windows XP and when I was using the file explorer I actually had to do a double-take to check I was not using an early shipment of XP preloaded EEEs.
Following years of anti-Microsof sentiment from some corners of the IT community, it is somehow ironic that Windows has become so popular that competitors either mimic it or allow users to run it on their own environment to attract switchers.
Using the internet browser will be straightforward for most owners, with the exception that some sites optimized for Internet Explorer may not work properly. I occasionally find this on my Macbook and Nokia tablet with their respective Safari and Mozilla browsers. Similarly the office software is not Microsoft Office so again there may be compatibility issues if you are trying to share files with MS Office users, although some common file formats are supported. The media player is also less friendly than iTunes or Windows Media Player but is usable nonetheless.
All of this of course results from the low cost of the EEE. Building a Linux system is much cheaper than building a Mac or Windows system. Unfortunately file, application and peripheral compatibility is where you ultimately pay for this. So make sure that whatever you want to do is Linux compatible before you purchase your EEE. The alternative is to either install Windows (which can be done by running the installation from an external drive), or wait for the Windows preloaded version to be released. Of course this will have a cost implication and if you then want to run Microsoft Office then this is another $150 as a home user.
The EEE PC 4G’s lid houses a webcam. This is missing from the cheaper models in the range, but a fantastic feature to have if you can afford a higher end EEE. The quality of the camera is on a par with similar devices in other laptops. Every laptop should have one of these!
EEE owners are likely to take their units around with them due to the small sixe, so how is it likely to stand up to road use? 
First impressions are that the EEE seems well built with an assuringly solid looking hinge mechanism. Apart from this and the keys, the EEE is pretty low on moving parts. There are no mechanical hard or optical drives to break in transit so some risk associated with traditional laptops is not present in the EEE. Of course it is still vulnerable to failure like all electronics, but hopefully Asus’ choice to go for a solid state drive will save many a users’ data on a bad day.
So is it the bEEE’s knEEE’s?
If you’re a light, or adventurous, user then don’t let my compatibility comments put you off. For mobile corporate users running thin client software this is also a winning solution. It’s the middle tier of users I think are likely to struggle. These are the people who want to do funky things now and again and might not have the knowledge to do it quickly in Linux. If you’re one of these people then you may prefer to wait for the Windows version.
If on the other hand you’re happy with EEE’s preloaded goodies or are a Linux lover then this is the IT bargain of 2007. Expect other companies to follow…
May 2008 update: Read the Asus EEE 900 vs HP Mini-Note 2133 comparo here.
Jan 2008 update: As predicted above, others have followed. Read about Everex’s $399 here.
See photos and read CES news about: Laptops & UMPCs, Home Entertainment, Media Players, Cellphones, Gaming and Trick Technologies.
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To read all the CES 2008 articles, click here.
For details of the new Asus R50 UMPC, click here.
The colored EEEs are now available, click here for photos
Neil Berman
Asus EEE, Where Art Thou?
The Asus EEE PC is here. At under four hundred dollars, this is THE hottest property in IT right now.
With a proper stength Intel processor, the two pound ultraportable ships with Linux (Windows XP version apparently on the way), an integrated webcam and a solid state 4Gb hard drive for ultra-fast access times. Wifi, USB and an SD expansion slot are included.
Neil Berman
theONbutton
Turning the world on, one gadget at a time.
