Choosing the Perfect Ultraportable

Ultraportable computers have become more of a need as opposed to a want nowadays. With people growing more mobile by the second because of more demanding schedules, it is a must to have a good computer around, especially when you know your career demands that you be connected wherever you are.

While your job is already stressful, let me make things a little lighter for you by helping you choose the perfect ultraportable/ultraportable computer for you.


Before we go on to talking more about choosing the right ultraportable computer for you, we better talk about who this girl who just exploded onto the Mobile Expressions blog, first. :)

I’m Lorie, the blog owner’s friend since high school. :) I love technology and gadgets, that’s why I’m co-blogging this blog with him, to keep y’all happy. I’m not into the RPG or MMORPG games, but I am into computers and gadgets. :)

Now that that’s out of the way, here are the steps I suggest you take, in choosing the right [ultraportable] computer for you.

1. Determine your needs. What do you do with your computer? Do you do photo editing on the fly? Movie editing? Would you expect to play massive games on it while you’re away from home? Or do you want to use it only for text editing and meager writing while you’re away from your personal workspace at home?
2. Determine your prospective machine’s specs based on the needs you pinpointed. Photo editing and movie editing require a significant amount of resources. Higher specs are needed if you need to do the resource-hog activities. If you’re only into writing and would need your machine for emergency writing when you’re away from home, you could probably make do with just minimal system requirements specs for your computer.
• The general rule is that the higher the RAM and the higher the processor speed is, the faster the computer runs. In terms of hard drive space, if you have a computer you use at home anyway, there is no need to worry much about this. Hard drive space is not everything, especially since you can purchase external storage nowadays anyway.
• Having 512 MB of RAM on your machine is enough for those who aim only to write on the fly, and if you’re not going to be on Windows Vista.
3. Determine the machine, matching it with the specs you set and and the needs you pinpointed.

The Macbook Air is one high-powered machine with all the daintiness of the ultimate, sleek ultraportable. It boasts of 2GB RAM and 60/80GB, on a 1.6/1.8GHz Intel Core 2 Duo Merom processor. On OS X Leopard, it’s rather slow, according to users. But if you are the type who can live with a slower machine, you could probably live with this one.

If you are on a tight budget, you may want to consider the Asus eeePC. Though the eeePC 701 is definitely more affordable, I would recommend the eeePC 900 instead, if you could spring for around a hundred and fifty dollars more, because the screen on the eeePC 701 is a pain. Aside from that, the eeePC 900 has a 1.3 Megapixel cam and 20GB of hard drive space on Xandros Linux, or 14GB on Windows, as opposed to 8GB max on the eeePC 701. The eeePC 701 at 8GB is around the same price as the eeePC 900, so you might want to consider your options really well before you go buy.

The eeePC 701 starts at $399, while the eeePC 900 starts at $549.

The two other companies that make the best ultraportables on the market are Fujitsu and Toshiba. Their ultraportables are rather pricey, however, so you may well want to watch the prices when you scan through their products.

At the end of the day, there is only one line that will spell everything you need in your machine:

Value for money.

Till next week!


Helpful links:

IT Reviews

Top 5 Ultraportable Laptops (ComputerShopper.com)

Best Ultraportable Laptops and Notebooks (CNET.com)

Ultraportable Laptop Computers (Tech Talk by Mike Oetting)