It is not the first time that I go to a shop to buy a laptop and I am offered something different to what I really need.

For instance, there was a time when I was looking for a laptop to buy. So, I went to a big store. There, a salesman suggested brand X as a good brand. When I bought a X laptop, it let me down because it got overheated quite easily. Then I thought, that may be the reason was that the operative system installed on the laptop, Windows Vista, was pretty heavy for this computer. But, to my surprise, when I changed the laptop for the most expensive one of the same brand, I kept suffering the same problem.

Eventually, I got back for the third time to the same store and I told them my problem with these X brand laptops. Then this time the same saleman I had talked to the previous times, told me that I was right, that is to say, he agreed that X brand laptops are not well cooled. If we bear in mind that a laptop’s life can be decreased drastically becaouse of overheating, what this saleman had been suggesting was clearly unacceptable.

Of course, this third time that I came back to the same store the saleman ended up suggesting another laptop’s brand as the best choice. Then I took that laptop home and this last one has not let me down so far which is good because it has already exceeded the warranty period.

But I felt the true deception for the dreadful service provided by this store when right after agreeing with me in chosing the second laptop’s brand, I saw the same saleman who was suggesting another new and innocent client to buy a X brand laptop, that is to say the kind of laptop which got overheating easily.

My question is, why had not the salesman suggested me the good brand from the beggining and keep not doing it with the new and innocent clients who came to the shop? The answer is this: this big store had bought a huge X brand laptop’s stock that they had to sell anyways even if they were not the best for their clientes and that was what the salesman’s boses had said.

I just want to let you be aware that when you go to buy a computer you might not be receiving such a good advice as you might expect, so try to get an independent advice first.

One of the services that I provide is advising at the same shop in which you want to buy your computer or any other technological device you need.

Sorry, this entry is only available in Español.

Things to bear in mind when you want to buy a laptop.

- the most important thing: it should have a good cooling system because the laptop’s life time depends mostly on not getting its mother board overheated. Overheating is not unusual in laptops but more common than we would like. It must be considered that the mother board is the most expensive componente in a laptop and that is why it is interesting to take care of it by not exposing it to too much heat. That way, we will not have to spend money once the warranty is no longer valid.

Not all laptop have this good enough cooling system because still there is mucho to do in this research field. Nonetheless, there are already some brands which already have included water cooling systems and Asus is one of them. This water cooling system is much better than just air cooling.

- ram memory: it will avoid our computer runs too slow when we run too many software programs simultaneusly.

- mother board + CPU: It will say what operative system is the most suitable. For example, if the mother board plus CPU is not good enough, we might be forced to install a light operative system like Windows XP. However, if performance is enough, we might even think in using Windows Vista. Windows Vista is one of the worst operative systems nowadays and so far in history because of the high amount of computation resources required to be run and the low performance.

- video or graphic card: we should  only care about it if we think in using 3D software, videogames… which require an intensive use of it.

- hard disk: nowadays, storage capacities in current hard disks usually are more than enough for most people so this should not be a concern.

Cheers!