How to configure a notebook

For many types of users, putting money toward more memory (RAM) is the best strategy for boosting speed without giving up battery life. The more RAM you have, the more data your notebook can process without using the (slower) hard drive as a virtual memory cache. On average, it costs between $50 and $100 (~£28 and £56) to bump your notebook's RAM from 512MB to 1GB; meanwhile, to go from a low-end CPU to a top-of-the-line one can run you from $300 to $500 (~£170 to £283) or more. Doubling our test unit's RAM from 512MB to 1GB boosted its performance by 13 percent and cut only 8 minutes of its battery life. Beware of diminishing returns, however. Packing your notebook with more than 1GB of RAM won't yield vastly better performance unless you're a hard-core gamer or you work with demanding mathematical programs or advanced graphics applications.

Getting the right hard drive is also important, and a 5,400rpm drive can deliver a significant performance boost over a sluggish 4,200rpm model. One of the few mechanical devices in a notebook, a hard drive stores data in tiny magnetic marks on a rotating disc. The faster the disc spins, the faster the data can be read or written. If the disc can't keep up with the processor and memory, you'll end up waiting. When we replaced our test unit's default 4,200rpm drive with a 5,400rpm model -- a $25 (~£14) upgrade -- we saw a performance gain of 18 percent and only 7 minutes less battery life.