How much can d technology change in d next 1 year?

this is a problem which every laptop buyer faces before buying a laptop .........."should i wait for another month or so for a better specd laptop ?" ..etc...so can some tech insider or knowledgable person give us an insight into what all changes we can expect to see in the laptops available in the market say a year or two from now??...even if not revolutionary changes....cuz we might wanna start saving for the future investment from now on

 

Generally, investing in electronics is a bad idea. Electronics and information technology appliances will grow and current technology will obsolete eventually.

I think the key is the need of each person when looking for a notebook. What the notebook is for? Actually with Pentium M notebook most office aplication will run just fine, even for some activities is more than enough.

When you are looking for investment in your electronics shopping list then you should consider its value against any advantages the notebook will give you in some usage period with your activities. Usually the advantages comes in intagibles form, or comes indirectly - for example - with your revenues.

If you are going to use it for study, then consider it as an investment for your education. You can learn easier, faster, recording classes, create many quality papers, etc. If you are using it for work then considering it as an investment for creating good presentation, making a new clients, calculating complex spreadsheet, making job easier, etc.

Because the value of the notebook will degrades in time, then you should compare its value with your activities that you plan to use with it.

Approximately Intel will release a new processor for every 6 months. I think that is the time when your notebook start obsolete, but NOT its usability. Again, it depends what kind of activity you are going to do with the notebook.

Similar with desktop world, the need of newest technology usually come from gaming industry. If you are using your notebook for game then you usage period tend to be shorter. Game is actually the breath of computer technology. In office application i do not see any huge improvement since windows 95.

Based on my experience as a general user, technology shifting actually happens every three years. I think it is a safe usage period to calculate the residual value of your notebook. Usually when new technology being introduced doesnt mean the notebook will become obsolete in no time. Technology, how fast can it be invented, still need time to be absorbed with general population.

 

So, if I buy a laptop now.
For e-mail, web surf, word process, working on HTML, studying, schoopl stuff....


and I buy that notebook now, will it last me about 3 years and still be good?
Or will it be garbage just barley doing what I want.

Its a AMD 2GHz
1gig ram

 

even a pentium 3 800Mhz+ can do all those. RAM depends on how many tabs you have on the browser or how many other applications you have on whilst browsing. 512mb would be the bare minimun for those app you mentioned.

Of course when I mentioned p3 = its running office 2003 (office 2007 would be pretty much a resource hog)

I only have 512mb on my desktop and I run dreamweaver, flash, firefox w/10+ tabs opened, word, excel, itunes and even photoshop and the lag when switching between apps is very tolerable. (of course I have a 2.4Ghz P4 with this setup)

HD speed is also a factor; 5400rpm is common but 7200rpm is recommended since every read/write speed boost helps when opening/closing programs.

That 2Ghz athlon and 1gb RAM will work for three+ more years. Heck a p3 IBM laptop bought 2002 is still usable till today thats like what? 4 years already.

Just make your choices open for upgrades. Go for one that has ddr2 (since its cheaper and more efficient than ddr), support for SATA HD (since this is the future).

 

Nice post, sapibobo.

 

If you read through my "Finding the Right Notebook" guide (link in signature), I cover the main technology releases coming in the next year.

For your intended uses, you notebook should last a long time. Of course, components may break down at one point or another. At that point you may decide that it's cheaper to simply buy a new system.

 

my suggestion is once you buy one stop looking. don't look at whats on the market and be happy with what you have... a few months after you get your laptop a nicer one will come out. its just like cars... you'll be happy for a while until you see other new cars.