How to Use a Laptop

A laptop is a essentially a personal computer with a slim form factor and a battery, which makes it possible to carry it around and use it on the go, even when you don’t have a power outlet near you.

Traditionally, its slim form factor meant certain hardware limitations because of space constraints and heat issues. In simple terms, less can be fit into them, and they tend to produce more heat. Advances in technology have largely reduced these limitations with the advent of ever more powerful chips with ever greater power efficiency and heat resistance. Modern laptops are often just as powerful as their desktop counterparts, depending on the type of laptop you choose.

Here are a few things to keep in mind when it comes to choosing and using a laptop computer.

Handling

Since a laptop is likely to be carried around often and used in various places there is a greater likelihood of damage that may occur due to mishandling. As should be obvious, care needs to be taken not to drop the laptop onto a hard surface which may result in damage to its casing, screen and internal components due to a shock.

It is not advisable to move a laptop, especially rapidly, while it is still running. Mechanical hard drives, as well as optical drives, which are still often used in laptops, tend to be sensitive to rapid movements, even if shock protection present in some laptops somewhat reduces potentially harmful impact. It may be safe to move a laptop at will if it has no moving parts in it, like laptops with an SSD or a flash drive, and no optical drive running.

The environment in which the laptop is used can also impact its operation and longevity. Using it in dusty places may result in dust being blown into the components by the cooling fans, resulting in greater heat accumulation and ultimately reduced performance. Using a laptop near water or in moist areas carries the danger of getting the components wet which could potentially result in short circuiting and malfunctions.

It is also not a good idea to use a laptop in extremely hot areas or near heat sources as that will make cooling its components that much harder. For the same reason, a laptop shouldn’t be placed on soft surfaces like beds and pillows as this carries a risk of obstructing the heat exhausts and contributing to the potential for overheating. It is also not recommended to use them on your lap, despite what the term “laptop” may suggest, because of potential heat exhaust obstruction, but also because the heat produced by its bottom could be harmful for your health.

This is why laptop manufacturers started calling their laptops “notebooks”, to de-emphasize the idea that they are meant to be used on laps.

Battery Care

Its battery provides a laptop much of its appeal, as it makes it possible to use it anywhere without being shackled to a power cable. Laptop batteries vary in capacity and battery life, the amount of time they are able to keep a laptop running before needing a recharge. Laptop batteries can generally last anywhere from 2 to 10 hours on a single charge.

Each time a battery is completely charged and completely discharged it completes a cycle. As it completes more and more cycles it begins to degrade, which generally means you can use your laptop on battery for a shorter period before needing a recharge.

To keep a battery at its optimal capacity the longest, it is necessary to do some “battery health” maintenance, which usually involves completely discharging and recharging it about once a month. This can be done through normal use, except you would let it shut down when it runs out of power, and then start charging it.

If you use your laptop on a power source for a long time, you should consider disconnecting and storing your battery somewhere safe and dry. Since batteries that are left unused slowly discharge over time on their own, they should be completely charged before storage.

It is a good idea to consult your laptop’s manuals for exact instructions on how to maintain your battery health, as various laptop manufacturers may have somewhat differing guidelines.

To make sure your laptop runs on battery the longest before needing a recharge you should make sure to use it in a way that expends the least power. Operating systems installed on laptops, such as Windows, Mac OS X or Linux, come with power management options you can use to save power. These typically involve dimming the screen when not in use for a few minutes and putting the laptop to sleep if left unused for an extended period of time (like 30 minutes).

You can also adjust your laptop settings, such as screen brightness and backlit keyboard brightness (if any), to reduce power consumption. Which programs you use, and which activities you undertake with your laptop will also impact your power consumption. For example, watching movies or videos online, running a DVD drive, or running a resource intensive application tends to consume more power. On the other hand light activities such as text editing will consume much less power.

Laptop’s hardware specifications can somewhat impact its power consumption as well. For example, more memory means less access to the hard drive which results in greater power efficiency because memory expends less power in operation than a hard drive.

Finally, connecting peripherals can increase power consumption as it has to provide power to those peripherals as well. The less of them you have connected, longer your battery life will be.

Peripherals and Connectivity

Most laptops come with at least two USB ports which allow you to connect a wide variety of USB devices, just like a desktop PC does. You can connect a printer, scanner, an USB thumb drive, a video camera, an external mouse or a keyboard and so on. A lot of laptops also come with a VGA or an HDMI port so you can connect it to your external video monitor or a TV, and use the external screen in a “dual-monitor” set up with your laptop screen. There is often also an audio port which can support both a microphone (albeit one is usually built in) and the headphones, unless there are two ports for each of these functions.

Of course, every laptop also comes with an ethernet port so you can connect to the internet, but the most important connectivity feature is the built-in wireless internet support. Some laptops have a switch that enables or disables a wireless connection, just as they do for switching bluetooth on and off. To be able to connect to a wireless network make sure that this switch is on, and then check your taskbar for a wireless icon with which you can activate scanning for available networks.

If you’re on a home network you will need to select its appropriate identifying name (or SSID) and enter your wireless network key to connect.

Bluetooth connectivity is also an interesting and popular feature that allows you to use various bluetooth peripherals, such as bluetooth mouse or keyboard, without having to plug it in. It also allows sending files to and from a bluetooth enabled mobile phone. To do this you may need to have these devices “paired”, which typically just means that they remember and authenticate to each other. To pair a laptop with a bluetooth enabled mobile phone, for example, you would simply have to enter the same string of numbers or letters, like a PIN, on both devices and confirm it. This ensures that you are the same person using both devices, preventing unauthorized access to either your laptop or your mobile phone.

Upgradeability

Since they are smaller and slimmer than typical desktop computers laptops are not as upgradeable or customizable. However, it is still possible to upgrade or replace certain components, depending on the laptop brand. This typically includes the hard drive and memory, but sometimes may also include the DVD drive.

Memory can be upgraded if you have any free memory slots left, but you would need to make sure to get the correct type of memory for which you should consult your laptop’s manuals or web site. Same goes for a hard drive replacement; it has to be supported by the laptop. This is usually a standard 2.5-inch laptop hard drive.

Upgrading usually involves removing the laptop’s bottom panel, or a part of it, to reveal the components inside. Memory can then be inserted into their appropriate slots. A hard drive can be disconnected from its own slot, and a new one connected in the same place.

It is also possible to replace the laptop screen if it breaks with the one of the same type, but this is a somewhat more advanced procedure.

Laptop Types

There are a few standard laptop types that you can choose from, each with their own trade offs.

Standard laptops vary in screen size, typically from 13-inch to 17-inch, with the smaller screen size offering somewhat greater portability due to lower weight and size, and larger screen sizes offering more screen “real estate”, but being bigger and heavier.

A subtype of standard laptops have around 13-inch or 15-inch screens, and are very slim and light, but don’t include an optical drive, and have a reduced amount of peripheral connections (such as only two instead of four USB ports). These are often called ultra-portable laptops, and are a good choice for increased portability and battery life.

Netbooks are a special category of laptops that typically have even smaller screens, 7-inch up to 12-inch, have no optical drives, and often use flash or SSD drives for storage. This means reduced processing power and reduced storage capacity, but is the best choice for ultimate portability, and even greater battery life. These laptops are great for basic activities such as surfing the internet, email, instant messaging, occasional writing, social networking, and similar tasks that aren’t too resource intensive.

Finally, an increasingly more attractive alternative to laptops, that threaten to replace a laptop in function, are tablet computers. Tablets don’t have a built in keyboard and use a touch-screen for input, but are otherwise much like netbooks. Some tablets, however, come with keyboards that can be used via bluetooth to type like on a real laptop.