Firstly, the only right time to buy a notebook is now. The prices of notebook will keep going downhill and the technology involved will keep getting better & better.
Still, if you have waited so long for buying a notebook, wait for about one more month. With duties slashed in the new budget, the prices of notebook will fall by about 5-10 percent.
The first and the foremost thing to be kept in mind while buying a notebook is your budget. Notebooks can be broadly divided into 3 categories:- below 50K, between 50K to 100K and above 100K. Select one of the categories and stick to it.
Moving over to technology from the economics
Processor:- This can be very misleading. Intel offers the following types of processors:-
Intel Processors for the PC used in a notebook
Intel mobile processors
Intel centrino processors
Notebooks with the first one are cheapest to buy and offer performance equivalent to the Intel mobile processors. The only noticeable difference will be in standby time.
The best amongst these is Intel Centrino notebooks. They offer the best speed(L2 cache of 1 MB!) and also the most standby time.
RAM:- Go for atleast a 256 MB RAM.
Hard-Disk Drive:- Have a notebook with a hard disk drive of atleast 20 GB
CD Drive:- The notebook should have atleast a Combo drive i.e. read, write and rewrite to allow backup of important data. A DVD-ROM combo would be even better.
Battery:- Higher the standby time the better.
Floppy Drive:- Most notebooks nowdays don’t have floppy drives. The reason being that floppy frives are now obsolete and have been replaced by thumb/pen drives which are more reliable and sturdy. So find out from your vendor whether your notebook has a FDD or not.
Screen:- Prefer a LCD display
TouchPad:- Confirm whether the notebook has a touchpad or a trackerball. The touchpad is better once you have mastered it
Additional:- Infrared Port, Inbuilt Modem, LAN card, Wi-Fi support, Graphics Card to boost game performance are some of the add-ons one can get
Most companies offer a One Year full warranty. Do not go for assembled notebooks as they won’t give the warranty required.
Overall, a notebook is a good buy as compared to a PC. The ease of use and carry offered by a laptop can never be matched by a PC. Similarly the power offered by PC for a given price cannot be equalled by the notebook.