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Best 13 Inch Laptop

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What to look for in your lightweight 13 inch laptop

13 inch laptops are the perfect mix between quality, ability to type and portability. At least, that's what I thought when I bought mine.

Issues to look out for are:

Operating system:

Do you want a Windows machine, or a Mac? If the first, you'll be cheaper off, and you should go for a Windows 7 operating system.

Windows comes in 64bit and 32bit varieties right now. If you use lots of old software, go with the 32 bit one. If you're not worried about that: 64bit is the way of the future.

Internal memory:

The guy in the shop told me that anything over 4GB is beyond what the operating systems of today can handle.

Speed:

If you want to use this as your ordinary desktop PC as well (which I do), then I do recommend a dual core processor. They're just way faster. Trust me: once you've tried it, you won't want to go back.

DVD:

If you want to save on weight, you may have to choose between battery life and DVD player/writer. The one regret I have about mine is that it does NOT have an internal DVD player. An external one just isn't the same.

Battery Life:

Don't settle for anything less than 12 hours - even if in practice that means a mere 10. There are very good laptops out there for that price.

Mouse: multitouch

Once you've experienced multi-touch, there's no way to do without. A smart laptop builder will have the multitouch mousepad slightly sunk into the frame, so that you don't touch it accidentally.

Conclusion

Well, my conclusion was - at the end of 2009 - that Asus was the best buy. However, the market changes continually. I'm very happy with my laptop though. It's fast, lightweight and easy to use. Though to be honest, I mostly use it hooked up to a large screen, external mouse and external keyboard.

But when I want, I can take it with me with limited problems for my back. And I love being able to type on the road.

As for the 32bit / 64bit thing: It turned out I have a 64bit machine, with 64bit windows 7. This could have been a problem, as I have a printer that's not all that new, but it works fine. The same with every software I've tried to use.

So, although there are no guarantees that everything will work under Windows 7 64 bit, I can personally recommend it. And as a web publisher, I do use all kinds of software: much of it open source.

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Comments

heymcs 20 months ago

How did you know I am in the market for just such a laptop - great tips/advice. Thanks, nice hub!

jasoncox83 20 months ago

Eww Windows 7 *shudders* Good hub however I would avoid Windows 7 for at least a few more months until they have got some of the serious bugs worked out of it.

janices7 20 months ago

Great hub topic! Just wanted to throw in my 2 cents about 13" laptops since I've had three of them over the last 6 years. First was a Dell with an external CD-Rom player....laptop worked great, but really wanted an internal player and needed a bigger hard drive so traded up after 3 years. Moved on to the HP Pavilion 13" and HATED it! The touchpad was horrible and I literally got thumb cramps from the click buttons that were so poorly designed. Crappy monitor screen died after just two years. For the last 1.5 years, I've had the Dell Latitude E4300 which I love. Built in rewritable CD/DVD drive is fantastic as is the portability and screen quality. I'd recommend it to anyone looking for a functional, yet portable laptop.

spirituality 19 months ago

I have had a Windows 7 Laptop (Asus) for 9 months now, and it is great. If there are bugs, I haven't noticed them.

I have experience with both Linux and Apple, and neither does it for me. Linux is just too bumpy - as in bugs with things that just aren't supposed to be buggy. Also, not quite user friendly enough to recommend to non-geek friends.

Mac: well, it's simple really, it's just too expensive. I bought a Windows 7 machine for compatibility with clients (as I was a freelancer), but since I'm leaving that field, it's no longer a factor.

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