Are Extra Laptop Features Worth It?
Laptop manufacturers load their online configurators with add-on
options--but which extras are worthwhile?
Glenn Fleishman
PC World
Wednesday, April 9, 2008; 12:19 AM
In the automotive world, the real money is made in the options packages.
Fancy hubcaps, satellite radio, two-tone paint? Thank you very much,
dealers will say, as they pocket sometimes more money than they made
selling you the car.
Though buying a new laptop online doesn't involve engaging in
negotiations with a dealer, you still have a number of options to choose
from. And with business laptops costing as much as $2000, adding a few
extras can push the price quite a bit higher. Some features are
decidedly optional, while others are becoming de rigueur. Which are
worth the money? Let's take a gander.
With no moving parts, flash-memory solid-state drives (SSDs) operate
silently and eliminate any risk to the drive from vibration or a sudden
drop. SSDs are stunningly expensive at the moment. The largest capacity
is just 64GB, and choosing one for your laptop can add from $900 to
$1600 to the cost, depending on whether you select it as an option (such
as on the base model of Apple's MacBook Air) or if it's available only
with certain pricier models (such as with Lenovo and Sony laptops).
Our tests of SSDsshowed mixed results. SSDs have exceedingly high read
speeds, making system boots, application launches, and document loads
much faster than with a conventional laptop hard drive. Write speeds
aren't any better, however, and the overall performance is just a few
percentage points faster than that of regular drives. Battery savings
appear to be minimal, as well.
The value of an SSD may change dramatically in 2008, however, as 256GB
and larger drives hit the market. Thefirst 256GB drive will wholesale
for nearly $6000, but like all storage costs over time, SSD prices
should plummet as volume and capacity increase. In 2009, a 64GB
drive might run just $200 to $300 over a 5400-rpm standard hard drive,
and may boost performance and drop power use further.
Wait, unless you're in an industry in which vibration, read time, or the
slightest noise matter.
Dell's TrueLife screen, with its promise of a bright, vibrant display,
might seem a good option at the time of purchase, but at about $160 for
an upgrade to a 17-inch LCD on a business laptop, its benefit is unclear.
Dell claims that TrueLife produces a 10 percent boost in contrast, as
well as more vivid colors. Other manufacturers' options, such as
Gateway's UltraBright, HP's BrightView, and Toshiba's TruBrite, are
similar. (The names seem reminiscent of toothpaste advertising, but we
digress.) See "Vibrant Notebook Screens" for an overview of what
such displays have to offer.
Travelers who frequently work in awkward lighting conditions, where
glare, dimness, or reflections abound, would appreciate
this $100 to $200 upgrade. The enhanced screen is useful if you intend
to watch DVDs or other video on the laptop, too. The screen technology
used varies from company to company; consultPC World's laptop reviewsfor
more insight about a particular offering.
If you spend a lot of time squinting at your current laptop display,
it's worth it; otherwise, save your pennies.
The network is everywhere! Or so AT&T, Sprint Nextel, and Verizon
Wireless would like you to believe. Their third-generation (3G) networks
are in most major cities, and in more than 1000 airports.
But their cell modems for accessing the data networks are available only
in a relatively small number of laptops.
The advantage of a built-in mobile broadband adapter is that it's one
fewer thing you have to carry around. And ostensibly the manufacturer
has built a better antenna by using the laptop's case to carry a signal.
These cards can cost any amount from nothing to $300, depending
on a carrier's subsidy and your term of commitment.
Technology changes rapidly in the cellular world, though, and an
integrated, usually mini-PCI-format adapter is hard to upgrade
for faster speeds. Such adapters are rarely user serviceable, and even
laptop makers might not offer a swap-out program.
Currently, the Sprint and Verizon EvDO networks run at Rev. A, but some
laptops still offer modems meeting the previous Rev. 0 standard. Sprint
is rolling out WiMax starting this year, and that will mean a different
PC Card. And AT&T's HSPA technology has already seen one boost (in the
upstream direction); the downstream side could double in the next year
to match top European speeds. (The one exception to the
speed-enhancement trend is Qualcomm's forthcoming Gobi
technology, which can switch between EvDO and HSPA; Dell will
offer a Gobi option this fall.)
With the potential for enjoying faster service and avoiding outdated
hardware, buying a stand-alone card--perhaps the USB type, for shuttling
among computers--doesn't cost any more than choosing an integrated
modem, and provides more flexibility.
Draft-N Wireless
Wi-Fi continues to evolve, but its latest incarnation, draft-n, is
likely the fastest flavor we'll have until 2012. Laptop makers were
early adopters of this version of the IEEE 802.11n standard,
which may change slightly and require firmware and driver upgrades as it
moves toward full approval in 2009.
Most business laptops still include 802.11g--the 2003-era standard that
was itself a big speed boost--as standard equipment or as a downgrade
option to reduce cost during configuration of a purchase.
Upgrading to draft-n adds from $15 to $40 to the cost of most companies'
laptops. (The one notable exception is Apple, which standardized on
draft-n for its laptops in October 2006.) The biggest advantage of a
draft-n adapter is that transferring large files between similarly
equipped computers or to and from a high-speed corporate (or even
gigabit SOHO) network takes one-third to one-fifth the time as the task
does over 802.11g.
Rather than buy a laptop with a five-year-old standard built in, ride on
the cutting edge and select draft-n. The modest cost gets you a
substantial speed boost, and futureproofs your laptop for a few years.
Once a feature for people working in high-security jobs, fingerprint
scanners are now commonplace, included in most premium business laptops
and available otherwise as an inexpensive add-on. Lenovo, for
instance, charges a bit over $20 to swap its touchpad with a fingerprint
reader; Dell asks for $30 to add the device to laptops in its Latitude line.
Depending on the laptop, a fingerprint reader might be tied in with
boot-time firmware to prevent a computer from starting up without a
valid fingerprint. It may also safeguard Windows log-ins or replace
passwords for online services and encrypted virtual disk mounting.
Just about any business or individual would benefit from having one of
these readers, especially considering the negligible expense. But make
sure that the reader and the laptop configuration combine for the
particular protection features you need.
The biggest mainstream security story of the last few years concerns the
theft of laptops containing credit card numbers, credit history, Social
Security numbers, and other data belonging to consumers, veterans, and
company employees. If only the victims had employed encryption, right?
Some hard drives now have hardware-backed encryption built in, which
helps make locking down data easier. Seagate's Momentus 5400 FDE.2 is
currently the best-known entry in this category, and Dell and
Lenovo are the only laptop makers to offer it as a standard
upgrade option. An 80GB or 120GB drive with hardware encryption costs
about $100 extra at Dell's online store; Lenovo adds $30 to $100 to the
price, depending on the drive size.
The data stored on such drives is entirely encrypted in real time, with
no delays and with no interaction between the drive and the operating
system. This design improves performance and provides fewer points of
entry for unauthorized access.
Some analysts expect drive makers other than Seagate and Hitachi to get
into the business, and hardware drive encryption will likely become a
dominant business-laptop feature--not even much of an option--by 2009.
For any industry in which security is paramount or even legally
obligated (the medical, legal, and governmental fields, for starters),
the additional cost of hardware encryption is minuscule when weighed
against the technology's ease of use and its role in avoidance of liability.
You'll never drop your laptop. Of course you won't. Someone will,
however, jostle you, or the laptop will be balanced precariously on the
arm of your seat in an airport waiting area, and--crash! When you
inspect it, the laptop is fine; the drive, however, is
trashed.
A free-fall sensor can detect when a drive experiences sudden motion
that indicates a near-term poor outcome. Turtlelike, the drive instantly
retracts its read/write heads to keep them from damaging the internal
platters. The drive then pops the heads out when the coast is clear.
Apple has included motion sensors in all of its laptops for the last
three years, and Lenovo has done the same in all of its ThinkPad laptops
since 2004. Other manufacturers may charge a small premium, about $40 to
$50, to upgrade a drive to have the feature.
Let's not be coy. Get it.
Glenn Fleishman writes the blogGlenn Fleishman on Hardwareon
PCWorld.com, and edits his own site,Wi-Fi Networking News.
© 2008 PC World Communications, Inc. All rights reserved
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