Discussions

There are many factors that ultimately affect a notebook's performance. The CPU frequency, type of GPU, and hard drive speed all have some measurable impact on performance, not to mention a myriad of other components, like the chipset or RAM, or even the screen and battery if you consider image quality and battery life performance metrics.  There is another very important aspect that also has an enormous impact on overall system performance, however, and unfortunately it is sometimes neglected by notebook manufacturers. I'm referring to software.

It is an unfortunate market reality that many notebooks come pre-loaded with an assortment of trial-ware applications or otherwise pared down utilities that mar the user experience, at least in my opinion. On occasion, a new notebook owner may find one or two of these applications useful and buy the full version, but more often than not this "bloatware" as it is un-affectionately known does nothing but consume resources and bog down a system. I can't even begin to count the number of new notebooks I've setup for friends, family, or colleagues that have prompted me with numerous anti-virus, anti-spam, or game offers upon initial boot-up. Yuck.

Although there has been some progress lately, and some sellers offer clean OS installations as an option now, I'd like to see more notebook manufacturers take steps to eliminate or minimize bloatware on new notebooks to maximize available system resources. At the very least, don't let the applications launch with Windows; keep memory usage down and that system tray clean on new systems--let the users install what they'd like.

On another software-related note, I would also like to see notebook manufacturers go the extra mile and adequately tweak the operating system and driver installations on new notebooks for optimal performance and security. What I mean by this is that the OS should be fully patched right out of the box (within reason), so users can enjoy their new machines immediately, instead of having to run Windows Update for who knows how long to get the latest patches and updates installed. Tweaking the OS by configuring the power management, virtual memory, disk cache, and indexing services options would also be a nice touch--there's no need to leave disk indexing enabled if the notebook comes equipped with an SSD (solid state disk), for example.  And finally, ship the notebooks with the latest drivers and version of the DirectX installed--especially if it's a gaming notebook--so new owners have fewer compatibility and performance issues to worry about.

All of the things I mention here are easy for experienced notebook users to rectify, but less computer savvy consumers may not even know their fresh, new system isn't performing at its peak. If notebook manufacturers put in the extra effort to offer fully tweaked and optimized machines from the factory, end user experiences will undoubtedly be enhanced, which makes for happy customers. And isn't that what every notebook manufacturer wants in the first place?