Revolt of the Writer’s Laptop (Laptop Guide 2014)

*This post got a little longer than intended, but I wanted it to be comprehensive! Skip the first part if you want to get right to the laptop guide.

Maybe my laptop is periodically shutting itself down lately because it knows I am using it to search for its replacement.  It’s cruel, in a way.  I feel like I’m sending an IT guy to India to train a batch of people who will be taking over his and his co-worker’s outsourced jobs. Just plain mean and my computer is not happy.

But then again, it hasn’t been happy for months.

Just a few weeks ago, I was typing like a mad woman, furiously wrangling my recent flash of inspiration into a Word document, when my laptop decided it had enough.  It shut off with a lights-out snap and I lost three pages of valuable notes.  I was seething like a freshly branded bull.  I wanted to hurl my laptop across the room.  Instead, I calmly turned it back on, pulled up the Word document, and began typing again.  Unfortunately, not all my inspiration was captured with round two of furious typing and my relationship with my faulty laptop grew increasingly hostile.

It was having issues (shutting down when it was overwhelmed by the combination of a graphic design program and radio streaming, for instance) before the catastrophic three-page loss, but I dealt with it grudgingly until this point.  Then, I got serious.

When I began searching for a new laptop, I realized there are not many layman guides to help writers find a machine designed to meet their specific needs, so here is mine.  I’m fairly tech savvy, but no guru, so you’re not going to find a lot of technical language and jargon here.  And please, if you have additional thoughts or insights into the current laptop market, add your comments below.

The Screen
Do you ever arise from your office chair after staring at a screen for several hours, agonizing over word choice and sentence structure, and feel all “buggy-eyed.”  Sometimes your eyes might feel strained or tired; sometimes you might even have a headache.  Your screen may be part of the issue (although there are many factors that can contribute to eye strain. Read this article by All About Vision to gain a little more depth on this issue).

What does an eye-friendly screen look like?  For one, it has a high resolution (standard resolution for an LCD screen right now is 1366 x 768).  It might pay, especially if you experience chronic eye strain issues, to invest in an HD quality or higher screen (something along the lines of 1920 x 1080).  However, one caveat: higher resolution screens may make text or program icons (most notably in Photoshop) seem extremely small if viewed on a small screen.

So, that’s another thing to keep in mind: screen size.  I work on a 15.6″ screen and would not recommend dipping below 14″.  All About Vision, however, recommends a much larger screen (along the lines of 19″), but for me that size becomes impractical if I want to haul my laptop around.  Additionally, consider screen glare and whether or not you want a matte or glossy screen finish.  The verdict is out as to which is better to prevent eye strain (although instinct says matte would be better, apparently glossy finishes distribute light more evenly and have the ability to create sharper images).  I’m not going to weigh in on this factor, since it is out of my realm of expertise.

The Keyboard

How do you type? Do you have a wide finger spread or a short one?  Do you rely on looking at the keyboard or do your fingers fly without having to sneak a peak at the keys?

First of all, consider the size and layout of a keyboard. Are the keys spread apart the way you like them (really, the only way to figure this out is to physically test the keyboard at a store like Best Buy)?  Are all your shortcuts readily available?  I personally like having both a Backspace and Delete key, as well as a Home and End key, and a PgDn, PgUp key.  These shortcuts make navigating your page much swifter.

Secondly, how does the keyboard react to your touch?  Some laptops have nice, springy keys and others are more sticky or need greater force to press them down.  I prefer keys that respond to a nice, light touch.  Again, go to a tech store and start typing away.  I recently paid Best Buy a visit and typed about quick, red foxes jumping over lazy, brown dogs over and over and over.  My personal verdict?  The Toshiba keys required the heaviest touch, whereas the ASUS and Lenovo keys were the most responsive.

Another factor to consider: Is there space to rest the balls of your hands while you type?  Some laptops, like the Acer Aspire S7 line, have an extra wide platform for resting your hands, whereas other laptop brands (and smaller laptops) do not.

And one more thing: Take the touchpad for a spin. Make sure it is responsive, but not jumpy or erratic. One complaint about my current Samsung computer (a laptop which I’ve never really loved) is that the scrollbar is too sensitive to the touch.  It sends you sailing to the top or bottom of the page at the slightest touch, whether you want to go there or not.

Ports
This may seem obvious, but does your laptop have USB ports (most do) and an HDMI port (many don’t)? An HDMI port is important to me because I often connect my laptop to a large, external monitor.  This can be especially useful when you’re formatting pages and want to look at the big picture from a wider angle.  But ultimately, this is a personal preference.

Weight
Will you be lugging this thing to internet cafes across the city?  Will you take it to work?  Or will your laptop mostly remain on your desk in your home office?  Laptops can range from 2.5 lbs (the remarkable ASUS T100 or Mac Air) to a hefty 9 lbs+ (some of the ASUS ROG models used primarily for gaming).

Battery Life
Again, will you be schlepping your computer around the city, or perhaps traveling with it on business trips?  Long battery life is something I always appreciate.  Today, anything under 5 hours is not terribly great.  The ASUS T100 (recently lauded as one of the best travel laptops available) lasts about 11 hours with one charge.

Price
This is something that’s not often discussed in tech articles, but it is an important (and often deciding) factor.  Most writers are not doing quite as well as John Grisham or J.K. Rowling, so a pocketbook-friendly machine is the way to go.  That rules out most Macs and most high-powered gaming laptops. There is a reason audio specialists and videographers use Macs–they are designed with great graphics cards and sound systems, but so are many other machines (that you can purchase for a fraction of the cost). Furthermore, Macs love Appleware, meaning that they don’t easily adopt outside software (even using Microsoft Word and Excel is a bit of a headache with Mac compared to any PC due to the illogical menu layout and lack of shortcuts). But, let’s not hate on Macs. They are perfectly fine machines in many respects (although I’ve had one too many encounters with the spinning rainbow wheel of death!), but the bottom line is this: if you are using a computer for writing, surfing the web, streaming videos, editing photos, making power point presentations, doing basic graphic design, or keeping up with social media, ANY brand will do.  It is up to you to sift through the features, get a feel for the keyboard and touchpad at some computer shop, and decide your own personal price point.

Right now, you can get a perfectly good laptop for $500-$700, less if you go for a Chromebook (which I personally steer away from because of the low HDD space and its inability to support graphic design programs).  Many laptops in this range are also touchscreen capable (if you’re into that) and the monitor may or may not detach as a tablet or bend 180 degrees into a pseudo-tablet (like the Lenovo Yoga 2).

Other considerations:
Everything listed above is geared specifically toward writers, but don’t forget to consider other factors as well:
Processor (Will you be multi-tasking and running a variety of programs at the same time? Go with at least an i-5 processor; an i-7 will be more expensive)
HDD (Store many photos or videos?  500 GB should be your minimum, but you can easily find 1T these days. If you’re not worried about storage space (or prefer cloud-based systems), you might want to consider a laptop with a solid state drive.)
RAM (Standard now is 4 GB, but I like a little more (because I tend to run larger graphic design programs), so 6GB or 8GB is better for me and not difficult to find these days.)
Aesthetics and Feel (Does it feel cheap and breakable? Chances are, it is.)
Connectivity (I haven’t looked into this much, but apparently some chipsets are better at connecting to WiFi than others. I’ve read that the Qualcomm Atheros chipset has issues, but don’t want to smear its name too harshly since I don’t have first-hand experience with it).
Webcam, CD/DVD disc drive, sound system (other considerations that may or may not be important to you)

Well, there you have it.  Please remember that I am tech capable, but not an expert.  I hope you learned a thing or two from this guide and please, if you have any feedback at all, leave it in the comments section.  The goal is to make laptop hunting as smooth and simple as possible, so we’d all love to hear your two cents!

Happy hunting for your perfect electronic companion.