I have been thinking of writing an epinion explaining what should be included in a laptop review, and then realized that this board is set up for items such as this.

I will start it out with what I look for. Feel free to add in as you desire, and also explain if it is critical to the review or just something that you would like to see in most cases.

Critical(to ivplay)

Size and weight: I think that the majority of folks looking for a laptop are interested in how much the thing weighs and how big it is, at least in reference to the ability to fit in a standard laptop bag. Also, the newer widescreens are difficult at best to use in coach class on an airplane...

Software: Most important is OS, and then somewhat important is the office suite and other additional bundled software. This adds a lot of cost that the prospective buyer may not think of initially if they have to buy it secondary.

Battery life: Most folks use laptops for travel or other work away from an outlet, so it is important to understand how long we can work with them before we need to connect to the wall or lose the data. Can you expand the life by buying a long-life battery and installing in the optical drive bay?

Heat generation: If the unit burns my lap in 15 minutes by setting it there, I want to know about it.

Ports: Does the laptop have USB ports, Firewire ports, PCMCIA slots? If so, how many? This is important for peripheral connection. Also, can you connect a secondary monitor, keyboard and mouse to it or a docking station for use as a desktop/laptop?

Drives: Floppy, CD, CD-R, or DVD/DVD-RW drives? Capacity of the hard drive is also important. Many people will need to know what is available. If the computer does not come with this and they need it, it is an additional cost they should know about upfront.

Memory: How much is there and can you upsize it? Realize that there are folks out there that will use the laptop for different applications than you, and they may need more memory installed. Just let them know what it came with in your case.

Warranty: I would want to know how long my investment was protected, and what was covered before buying. This is not a small priced item, so this is more important here than with a 64MB flash drive that you may just throw away if it fails.

MOST IMPORTANT: How do you use it and how well does it meet your needs? If you use the laptop for everyday functions such as email and web browsing, that is significantly different than the person who uses it for web page design or video editing/encoding. If the person knows what you use it for and are pleased with it, they can infer that if their usage will be the same they will be similarly pleased. The items above this one are somewhat generic in nature and are really background for the reader to understand what the laptop is. This section is the meat and potatoes, and is what sets Epinions.com apart from the other review sites. We need to know how you use it and why you like it (or don't like it) to understand the consumer side of the review!

There are other items out there that are very useful, such as tech support, but to me I see those as secondary, as many folks may not have had to experience the pain of calling in yet. I am sure there are items I may have missed, so please, feel free to add!

ivplay

Jason,

Thanks for adding your post and I hope this somehow helps new members to improve thier own review writing. I would like to see more of our TR and Advisors to post these type of reviews. So when Epinions opens the board up we can point newbies to the site to these posts. Excellent write up and I hope to see more in the othe rtopics.

Jon

Might add information about the graphics capability and the display quality (dead pixels, viewing angles, resolution, brightness, etc), networking capability, type of input device (touchpad,etc),

Software? Really?

See, now that's the last thing we look at. Are we the only ones who go home, wipe it, and load our own stuff immediately?

Interesting. I'll keep that in mind next time.


DorkDoc
(who just learned something new.. very useful topic, this)

Doc,

You are definitely not the only one who does that, trust me. However, I would guess you are in the minority. I personally know quite a few people (new to or not very knowledgable with computers) who get their shiny new laptop home only to find out it doesn't have Powerpoint, for instance, and then feel ripped off when they have to buy an upgrade to Office Pro from Works.

If the laptop comes with some nice software bundled on, it can reduce additional expenses after the purchase. Some people take the cheapest laptop for price, and then realize that they need to add on some software for significant cost. I tend to agree with you, however, that the best way to go is to wipe and load whatever you want...

I just wish it was much easier to build your own laptop (hardware) to your own specifications! I know there are people out there making cases, etc, but they are just not as nice as the prebuilt systems you can find... Yet...

Jason

Extreme detail of the product all the way down to the Front Side Bus speed.

You might consider discovering options for insuring the laptop. Does Homeowners cover it or is electronic portable equipment a rider to an insurance policy?