About Cheap Laptops

By Victor Pradel

There are many things to consider when choosing one right cheap laptop piece for you. We should take an informed choice when buying our next laptop computer.

Notebooks come in all sizes and shapes with a variety of features to suit almost any task. Before we begin searching the internet for the lowest priced machine on the market, it is a good idea to think how it will be used because choosing the right one very much depends on its intended use.

Compile a list of features in order of preferences i.e.

1) must haves

2) would likes

3) bonus features

Now you are ready to search within your budget for ideal cheap notebook. For example, Tim is a web developer, he spend lots of time playing with code, w4e use graphics packages to design sites and text editors to code them. So, he would require a wide screen, good graphics and a dual core processor for multi tasking, at least 1 GB of RAM, 80 GB minimum disk drive and Wi-Fi, so he can site and work in park on a nice summers day.

The general order of things would be CPU, Memory, Graphics, Screen size and type, Hard drive capacity aiming to get the best of each then looking to see what other bonus features we can fit within our budget.

Users of cheap laptops will have lot many problems. Most of the users buy cheap laptops get lesser GB drive than the originally stated GB. Where has the missing space gone for which amount was paid?

The answer to this question is perhaps that the operating system reports the capacity of the hard drive using the assumption that l MB is equal to 1,048,576 bytes. This is technically correct. But the hardware manufacturers compute the size a bit differently. They consider 1 MB to be equal to 1,000,000 bytes.

Therefore, we can see how this can cause confusion. If the drive is advertised as 20.00 GB i.e. 20,000,000,000 bytes, the operating system will see it as approximately 19.07 GB (20,000,000,0000 / 1,048m576 / 1000 = 19.07). The full 20,000,000,000 bytes are really there. Courtesy to them.

Laptop prices now start at a very lesser price. While reviewers cite a number of catches to bottom of the line notebook computers, you can get a fully functional laptop for less amounts. If your notebook will supplement a desktop PC or you need no applications more demanding than word processing, web browsing, or mail, a cheap notebook works just as well as one that costs twice as much.

But of course if you want to get some combination of better build quality, a longer warranty, an easier-on the eyes display, longer battery life, gaming capability and lighter weight you have to spend more.

Victor Pradel is the administrator of The Laptop Support Community, where you can find many useful content about laptop help, troubleshooting and repairing.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Victor_Pradel

Dissecting A Smart Battery – Part 1

By Dan Hagopian

Smart Batteries – they are used in PDAs, MP3s, MP4s, Laptops, Cell Phones, Smartphones, DVD players, and other electronic devices. When we buy new batteries we want them to work. We really don’t care how they work just as long as the do. But since PDA Batteries are a unique interest for me and since pda batteries are smart batteries I’m going to dig a little deeper to discover what lies within PDA batteries. So follow along as I disect a pda battery to learn what it is made of!

Contained within a smart battery is specialized hardware. Hardware that has a specific purpose: to deliver calculated and on demand current as well as predicted information.

This specialized hardware includes:

1. the connector
2. the fuse
3. the charge and discharge FETs
4. the cell pack
5. the sense resistor (RSENSE)
6. the primary and secondary protection ICs
7. the fuel-gauge IC
8. the thermistor
9. the pc board
10. the EEPROM
11. the SMBus

But what are each of these components and what do they do? Let’s find out?

The connector is a device that joins electric circuits together. Most battery packs require more than one connector. The main battery connector is both the mechanical and electrical part that interfaces the battery to the PDA or other electronic device. If you have ever installed a battery in your PDA then you probably have plugged your battery in by plugging/snapping in the main battery connector to the device’s PC board. Features that have to be considered when selecting a connector of a particular battery is operating temperature (range/limits) since high capacity batteries discharge excessive heat – having a connector that can withstand such temperature extremes will prevent a short circuit.

Connectors also have to proper pin assignments so that current and performance capacity can be met and short-circuit thresholds are predetermined. Pin orientation within the connector has to be designed in order to fit the device. If it doesn’t well you won’t be able to connect the battery to the PDA or other electronic device. Finally the connectors has to be handle time-varying current therefore the ratio of the phasor voltage across the element to the phasor current through the element (otherwise known as impedance) has to be preset or else expect connector to not function in the way it was supposed to!

In the next article of this series I will cover the smart battery’s fuse, charge and discharge FETs , the cell pack, and the sense resistor (RSENSE). The article after the next will cover the primary and secondary protection ICs, the fuel-gauge IC, the thermistor, the pc board, the EEPROM, and the SMBus.

© Dan Hagopian
You have permission to publish this article electronically or in print, free of charge, as long as these bylines are included with link. Dan Hagopian of http://www.batteryship.com is a known electronics author that specializes in portable power gadgets. His work can be found on the BatteryShip blog at http://www.batteryeducation.com He frequently writes about pda batteries, ipod batteries, general battery technology for our mobile world, new fuel cell technology and interesting power related inventions. For further information please visit http://www.batteryship.com where you can also find PDA battery replacement kits, smartphone batteries, twoway radio batteries, barcode scanner batteries, camera batteries, and camcorder batteries.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Dan_Hagopian