Notebook Computer
The notebook computer comprises of the several parts, monitors, processors, batteries, docking stations, pointing devices, voltage converters.
Most of the modern notebook computer are supplied with 12 inch or larger active matrix displays 1024 X 768 pixels as their resolutions. They also have A PC-card Expansion slot for holding the expansion cards. The internal hard disk drives are smaller has compared to the desktop hard disk drives with lower performance level and power consumption. It also has integrated sound and the video chips so these cannot be used for games and entertainment purposes. But higher end laptops such as the Dell Inspiron E1505 and E1705 which come with dedicated graphics processor and mobility Radeon X1300 can be bought. The graphic processors which are mobile are low in their performance as they are optimized for using less power.
There is a very wide range of the processors which are available specifically for laptops. These are available from Intel and from AMD. Intel provides with a range of processors such as Pentium M with Centrino technology, Intel core duo, Celeron, Centrino duo. Likewise AMD provides with Turion64, Athlon and Sempron. Usually the notebooks in order to save energy and reduce the heat dissipation tend to become less powerful as compared to their but desktop counterparts. But the PowerPC G3 and G4 Processors are able to offer same performance as that of their desktops still limited by factors like bandwidth of a bus. But even this factor gets covered up with the G5 processors.
There are certain parts in the modern notebook computer which do not correspond to any part of the desktop computer.
The present models of notebook computer use lithium ion batteries but bottom of a latest are lithium polymer batteries and they have replaced the nickel metal hydride battery technologies. The battery life of most of the notebook computers range between two to five hours with light-duty usage. This may drop further to one hour with intensive usage. There is the deterioration of batteries with time and they need to be replaced maybe once in five years depending on the charging and discharging pattern of the battery.
The docking stations were among the common mode notebook accessories in 1990s. These offered storage bays of 3.5 inches and 5.25 inches having expansion slots one to three and also a number of connectors. The laptop and the docking station were connected to each other through all large, high speed, proprietary connector and this was most commonly used in a corporate computing environment where a common network card was standardized according to the company and this card was then placed into the docking station. These docking stations were more expensive and large. Due to high integration inside the notebook computers and due to reduced needs for additional storage and expansion slots there was a need for the port replicator as a major accessory. The port replicator was connected on the back of the notebook and worked as a passive device by allowing the user so that connection to the laptop the devices such as PS/2, VGA could to easily attached. When the higher speed ports like a firewire and USBs came to be used then these were connected through a small cable on the ports available on the notebook.
All the notebook computer can be supplied power from an external AC converter which might add half a kilogram of with to the equipment.
A touchpad or a pointing stick can be used to control the cursor position on the screen. The pointing stick refers to a rubble dot placed between the G, H and B Keys on the keyboard of the notebook. For navigation in pressure is applied in the direction of movement. The touchpad is navigating by moving the finger on the pad as it is touch sensitive.
Then the upgradability factor is very important. As all the notebooks have the proprietary design and construction of the vendor so they are very difficult and expensive to upgrade. Standard peripherals are generally placed on the PCB and so cannot be upgraded by the user but RAM, hard drives and batteries can be upgraded.
Only a few notebooks have removable CPUs but most of them have CPUs soldered thus making it non-replaceable.
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With the midrange of the notebook computers replacement of the desktop computers can be done easily. The notebooks hold the priority when it comes to energy efficiency and compactness over the performance. For the personal use applications when the computer is used for short time periods, the notebooks of the thin client type or larger can be used. That there are areas like multimedia, analysis packages, etc where the desktops have an upper hand.
But with the upcoming of dual-core Processors and perpendicular recording hard disks laptops and soon pose a problem for the desktops in speed and performance.
Security is an important issue with regard notebooks. The computer notebooks are the main targets of theft which can lead to serious problems like identity theft. The FBI reports say that about 97 percent of the notebooks that the stolen are never recovered. For this reason the notebooks which have sensitive data should have information encryption. The computer notebooks are usually stolen at airports, from automobiles, coffee shops, trains, but hotel rooms and others such public places.
The list of the manufacturers is quite long. The company names of the manufacturers along with their computer names are detailed.
Acer - TravelMate and Aspire
Alienware - Area 51m, Alienware Sentia and Aurora m series
Apple Computer - MacBook and MacBook Pro
ASUS
Averatec
Axioo
bacoc
BenQ
Clevo
Compaq - EVO, Armada, LTE, and Presario
CyberPower PCs
Dell - Inspiron, Latitude and Precision
ECS
Fujitsu Siemens - Lifebook, FMV - BiBlo
Gateway
Gericom
Hewlett-Packard - HP Pavilion and HP Omnibook
Hypersonic
iQon - Qompanion
iBuyPower
Lenovo - IBM ThinkPad
LG - XNOTE
LinuxCertified - Linux laptop
Medion
NEC - VERSA, LaVie
Overam - Mirage series
Packard Bell - EasyNote
Panasonic - Toughbook, Let's Note (available in Japan only)
ProStar - uses Clevo-designed models
Relion
Rock Direct
Sager - uses Clevo-designed models
Samsung - Sens
Sharp - Mebius
Sony - VAIO
Tadpole - SPARCbook
Toshiba - Dynabook, Equium, Portege, Tecra, Satellite, Qosmio, Libretto
Voodoo PC - Envy
Winbook
Zyrex