Laptop Buying Guide - Portability

This is the 2nd part of the  laptop buying guide which will be focusing on portability of a laptop.

Portability of a laptop depends on its size and weight. Majority of the laptop lovers are girls who love stylish /girly stuff. So when it comes to weight and size, most of them will prefer to get the thin and light / ultraportable type of laptop, as it looks the coolest and is easiest to carry. While smaller and thinner laptops do give the advantage of portability and cool outlook, they are comparatively more expensive than the midsize laptop, and might also having less features due to the size limitation. Generally, there are 5 categories of laptop in terms of portability: Ultraportable, Thin and Light, Midsize, and Desktop Replacement.


Ultraportable
This is the lightest and smallest among all categories. It's most suitable for people who need to travel with their laptop frequently. An ultraportable laptop will have the following characteristics:
- Thickness of less than 1 inch
- Weight equal or less than 4 pound
- Diagonal screen size of 14 inches or less
- Normally with slower and and lower voltage mobile processor
- Comparatively fewer numbers of connection ports
- Small touchpad and keyboard
- Starting price of $1,100
Available pink laptops in this category include: Sony VAIO Tz Series, LG E200/300, Clevo 12" series, Fujitsu LifeBook and Samsung Q40, Asus Eee PC.


Thin and Light
This is the intermediate between ultraportable and midsize laptop. It has more features, better performance but larger size compare with the ultraportable. Some people may prefer this category of laptop as they have better performance, and although the size is larger than the ultraportable, still easy to carry. The thin and light laptop has the following characteristics:
- Thickness of approximately 1 inch
- Weight between 4 to 6 pounds
- Diagonal screen size of 14 inches (approximately)
- Normally with midrange to fast dual core processors
- More connection ports than the ultraportable + optical drive
- Small touchpad and keyboard
- Starting price: $800
Available pink laptop in this category include: Sony VAIO CR series and Dell Inspiron 1420.

Midsize
This is the most common type of laptop. While the design of ultraportable and thin-and-light laptop are emphasizing on portability, and desktop replacement is design for high performance, the midsize laptop is not specialized in any of them. It's slightly larger and heavier than the thin-and-light laptop, and is not particularly suitable for travel. Most home users who do not need to travel a lot with their laptop will find this laptop suitable for them. The midsize laptop has the following characteristics:
- Thickness: > 1 inch
- Weight between 6 to 8 pounds
- Diagonal screen size of 14 to 15.4 inches
- Can have a wide range of processor, from the fast Core 2 Duo processors or Turion 64X2 to Slow/budget AMD Sempron or Intel Celeron
- Most connection ports + memory card reader, DVD burner
- Appearance is not as attractive as ultraportable / thin-and-light
- Starting price: $500
Available pink laptops in this category include: Sony VAIO FZ series, Dell Inspiron 1520 & 1525


Desktop replacement
This is the bulkiest but also with the best performance laptop. It can be carry for short distance, but is definitely not for long travel. As the name suggest, the desktop replacement is designed to have the performance and features that you can get from a desktop PC. With its high performance and complete set of features, the desktop replacement is most suitable for gamers and home / business users who use their laptops for high level digital video or mutimedia work. The desktop replacement laptop has the following characteristics:
- Thickness: > 1 inch
- Weight 7.5 pounds or more
- Diagonal screen size of 17 to 20 inches
- Fast dual core processor
- Most connection ports + memory card reader, two layer DVD burner
- Limited battery life it's not designed for mobility
- Starting price: $1000
Available pink laptops in this category include: Dell Inspiron 1720

Each categories have their good and bad. A few thing that you should be considering while buying a laptop: the frequency that you will be traveling with your laptop, the performance and features of the laptop that meets your requirement, and maybe the appearance of the laptop. This will help you to get yourself an ideal pink laptop.