The task: "Write an essay about what difference between good laptop and bad laptop is. Make your writing informational, comparative and not too long."
My solution:
Good Laptops and Bad Laptops
By present day, the first decade of the 21st century has passed and laptops have become synonymous with the cyberspace platform of modern humans. We use our laptops (may they be netbooks, tablets, macbooks, notebooks, etc.) for managing our business, handling our mail, over viewing our finances, connecting our social life and governing our culture and hobbies. Thus we could safely state that laptops have become essentials, „limbs” of modern day man.
What exactly is a laptop? The first real, notebook-shaped portable computer was introduced in 1979, and hasn’t changed too much in its core concept: a computer, a screen, an input interface and some memory and an operation system that one can carry around, and work with outside the office environment. This is achieved by the use of a built-in battery, thus the user of the computer is (temporarily) independent of the power network.
Today, a good quality laptop typically features a color screen, displaying a number of millions of colors. Also, for the sake of discrete operation, sound systems have been installed that can be used either aloud or with headphones. A modern laptop can connect to wireless internet networks [i.e. WLAN] and provides its user with a minimum of 2 hours of continuous work. A good quality laptop can run several tasks parallel and doesn’t slow down significantly while doing so.
This is the point where good quality and cheap design starts to differ. A company I prefer to categorize as a ‘low-end’ manufacturer, Fujitsu Siemens typically builds its products on a tight budget. They offer okay-level computers that are housed in poorly designed and built casings. The materials that are used are mainly cheap plastics which tend to squeak, bend, wear and even color after some use. In this respect, a high-quality brand, Apple, follows a different philosophy. Using mainly metals and some glass surfaces, their computers offer a sturdy, massive and elegant visual quality. Macbooks are known to be more durable and resistant to mechanical effects, such as movement, scratching and even occasional free-fall.
Another characteristic of bad or poorly-built laptops is their general speed. A cheap, low-end computer can gradually slow down as the user commands new tasks and opens further programs. It is not untypical to such a laptop slowing down to a grade that makes using practically impossible. On the other side; an expensive and/or well-built configuration will maintain its speed and distribute its resources to make work seam fluent, even if not real-time.
Laptops are about compromise. Designers have to find the golden way between stylish and practical – who would want to use a gold laptop every day? -, engineers must squeeze every part into ever-tinier spaces, and finally, economic experts and marketing divisions must offer the computer at a realistic price, and thus battle the competition. Obviously, cheaper models will present more compromise, while expensive ones provide near-perfect services. Of course, the ultimate compromise is the end price, which the buyer is still willing to pay.
I for one see the present of laptops to be unsustainable in the long-run. I think computers should be reliable, durable, well-made products that assist their owners in their everyday life to the fullest for a good number of years. Knowing that the plastic casing of a computer may crack, or that the screen can go dark or what’s even worse: the battery pack may explode and physically endanger the user is discomforting.
I believe the future will force manufacturers to rethink their concepts and not create products under a specific level of quality, but rather: produce computers that offer acceptable solutions to us, the end users. [W608]
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