The Conundrum Of Choosing A New Laptop In An Era Of Tablet-Generated Design Ferment

All ThingsD’s Walter S. Mossberg observes that while it would be premature to replace his twice-yearly laptop buyers guides with tablet buyers guides, some days he feels like he should, noting that a large proportion the energy computer makers formerly dedicated to designing, engineering, and refining laptop computers seems to be draining away in a stampede to emulate Apple’s phenomenal success with the iPad (thus far with unconvincing payoff for non-Apple players).

However, while Mossberg acknowledges that tablets have become an important market segment (a master of understatement), and that they still can’t completely replace conventional laptops, with the portable, self-contained computing package represented by clamshell laptops with physical keyboards, lots of ports, plenty of data storage capacity, and more horsepower most tablets offer remaining a vital piece of hardware for many users, especially those who do serious production work on their computers, although Mossberg does agree that desktop computers are a “fading species.”

Nevertheless, he suggests that if you’re in the hunt to replace your current computer, you may want to hold off a bit if you can, noting that the iPad and the wannabes following in its wake have thrown the computer industry into reset mode, the full implications of which remain to be revealed, and since if you also own a tablet, as many now do, your existing laptop will almost certainly be getting less use, which should lengthen its useful service life and facilitate biding your time to wait for interesting and innovative choices to appear as laptop-makers incorporate tablet attributes in laptops and reciprocally more laptop features find their way into tablets, plus for Mac users, OS X 10.7 Lion is on the way probably by summer’s end, and Windows 8 is expected to debut for the PC crowd in 2012.

Of course, the second-generation MacBook Air, reportedly soon to get its first revision with Core “i” Sandy Bridge processor silicon and ultra high speed Thunderbolt connectivity, is already a bellwether example of the convergence that’s to come.

Meanwhile, Walt Mossberg observes that the new iPad 2 already offers at least twice the horsepower of the original model iPad, and that a whopping 65,000 tablet-optimized apps now support it, with Apple’s tablet already morphing into a viable productivity platform for some tasks while beating even small, low-cost laptops in weight, start-up speed and battery life, albeit with the qualification that conventional laptops still have the edge for creating long documents and anything else where the precision and tactile benefits of a physical keyboard come into play, never mind real multitasking chops and more flexible and versatile connectivity.

He goes on to suggest what buyers should be looking for for in a laptop right now, addressing the Mac vs. Windows PC question and practical recommendations like ordering a minimum 4 gigabytes of RAM, on a new Windows computer or at least 2 GB on a Mac (you’ll still be happier with 4 GB even on a Mac, and I personally recommend not going with less — an especially salient point with the MacBook Air which is not RAM-upgradable after manufacture.).

Another point where I part company a bit with Mossberg is his contention that older Intel Core 2 Duo processor chips are plenty for most users as an alternative to the current-generation and costlier Intel i3, i5, and i7 Core models. Technically true. I’m still getting along fine with a 2.0 GHz Core 2 Duo, but if you really want to future-proof your next laptop purchase for a few years, go with a Core “i” machine.

Mossberg notes that 320 gigabyte hard disk should be the minimum on most PCs, although 250 gigabytes will be fine for many average users, which is true enough. Solid-state disks are faster and use less power than HDDs, but are costlier and typically have less capacity, although that’s not necessarily as much of a cause for concern these days as it used to be depending on how much you’ve adopted cloud computing.

You’ll also want to look for HDMI video support as well as an ultra high speed I/O interface like Apple’s Thunderbolt (reportedly coming on the MacBook Air in June) or USB 3 on PCs.

I’m in full accord with Mossberg’s parting advice that if a laptop purchase can’t be deferred for a bit, to not buy more laptop than you need, but would also suggest not going with less laptop than you are likely to need throughout your next system upgrade cycle either.