12.1.1 The Laptop

Learn about the different types of laptops, their similarities to desktops, along with their components and connectivity.

Mobility

Laptops are designed for mobility. They're built small and resilient in order to withstand placement in backpacks, briefcases, purses, and other specially designed bags. They're also designed to withstand the wear and tear that comes with dragging them everywhere.

They're equipped with batteries and external power supplies that charge when plugged in. Everything you need, from the screen, keyboard, and storage, come in a small package. Laptops have varying display screen sizes, ranging from 11 inches in width at the smallest to 17 inches at the widest.

Storage

For many years, laptops were fitted with smaller hard disks, made of a ceramic material coated in a magnetic medium. Modern laptop storage modules are faster and more resilient, and they're known as flash storage. Flash storage modules come in two different form factors, M.2 and SSD. Newer M.2 storage modules are faster than traditional SATA-based SSDs, since they use PCIe motherboard expansion slots instead of SATA cables.

Integrated Components

Laptops are obviously much smaller than desktop computers. This means that laptops have less space for expansion slots, and most of the basic components are soldered into the motherboard instead of being removable. Expandability is still achievable using the laptop's wireless adapters, external displays, and USB ports.

Power

Not only are laptops designed to use less power to run more efficiently since they run entirely on battery power, they simply use less power due to their smaller footprint (smaller the system, smaller power usage). Modern laptops are powered by lithium-ion batteries, while in the past they used to use nickel metal hydride (NMH) or nickel cadmium (NiCad) batteries. Lithium-ion batteries are used because it's provides more consistent power and has a longer lifetime (on average) than the legacy batteries.

Although there were concerns regarding lithium-ion batteries exploding, it's no longer a major concern.

Hardware Configurations

Laptops can come with some of the following features:

• touchscreen interactivity
  • pinch and zoom
  • gestures
  • object selection
• screen-stylus pairing
• 360° folding
• kickstand

Operating Systems

Here are some of the most prevalent operating systems used in laptops.

• Chrome-OS
• Microsoft-Windows - predominant
• Apple-macOS

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