 | This stylish Dell Inspiron N5040 laptop in Red gives you easy portability at a great price. Use built-in WiFi to surf the net on the comfort of your sofa, keep up to date with your social networking or study your business emails while travelling on the train. The Dell Inspiron N5040's 15.6" screen is LED backlit for sharper visuals, making it perfect for viewing your digital camera pictures in detail, enjoying your favourite websites or watching films through the DVD/RW drive. It's powered by an Intel Pentium dual core processor and features a speedy 4GB RAM, with a 320Gb hard drive that gives you storage space for up to 91,000 digital photos, 80,000 MP3s, 140 hours of DVD standard video or 38 hours of HD video. Comes with an up-to-date software package, including Windows 7 Home Premium. The Dell Inspiron N5040 laptop is also available with an upgraded Core i5 processor and 500Gb hard drive - FYFD4 Useful info:
|
| View all Dell products |
Buying Guide
Buying a new computer can be a tough decision with so many different and important elements to consider. With technology advancing so quickly it is important to try and think what your future computing needs will be as well as your present requirements. If it’s a desktop PC for the home or a mobile laptop to use on the go we have what you are looking for with prices to suit all budgets.
What will you need to get your PC up and running? And what will you need to access the wide range of facilities available through your PC? From printing high quality photographs to connecting your PC to your home network for sharing HD content and watching downloads, we have all you need to get the best from your PC.
Things to consider when buying a new PC:
Processor
The processor is the PC’s brain, the processor drives performance and quality of applications. The processor speed is shown in Gigahertz (GHz), the higher the GHz the faster the processor. Our computing range features both Intel and AMD processors from standard everyday use to ultra fast advanced processors for home entertainment and gaming.
RAM (Random Access Memory)
RAM is the PC’s working space where work progress is stored and is measured in Kb and Gb. The more RAM your computer has, the more efficiently it will perform. 1GB of RAM is suitable for running everyday tasks such as emailing, browsing the internet and word processing, for running numerous applications together 2GB of RAM upwards would be required. For gaming and home entertainment requirements 3GB – 4GB of RAM is optimum.
Hard Drive (HDD)
The hard drive is where images, software, music files and all data is stored. HDD is measured in Gigabytes (Gb) and can go up to Terabytes (Tb), the higher the figure, the more storage space. External hard drives can also be used in conjunction with the main hard drive, these can be used to increase the computers hard drive capacity and/or to back up important files. The table below shows the volume of files that can be stored on your computers hard drive. *
| Capacity | Digital Photos | Songs (MP3) | DVD quality video (hours) | HD Video(hours) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 160Gb | Up to 45,000 | Up to 40,000 | Up to 71 | Up to 19 |
| 320Gb | Up to 91,000 | Up to 80,000 | Up to 140 | Up to 38 |
| 500Gb | Up to 142,000 | Up to 125,000 | Up to 220 | Up to 60 |
| 750Gb | Up to 214,000 | Up to 187,000 | Up to 330 | Up to 90 |
| 1Tb | Up to 280,000 | Up to 250,000 | Up to 440 | Up to 120 |
* Available capacity dependent on operating environment and file size
Optical Drive
Optical drives allow you to read and in some cases write discs in order to use CD’s, DVD’s, load and install software and write data to discs.
- CD-ROM - only reads CDs
- CD-RW - Record and play CDs
- DVD-ROM - reads CDs and DVDs
- DVD RW - Record and play CDs and DVDs
- DVD Dual Layer - Loads double DVD
If you are looking for high definition (HD) playback then look for items that have a BluRay drive. BluRay drives also plays CD’s and DVD’s.
Connectivity
To get the best from your PC you may want to consider how to connect to other devices to utilise some of the more advanced applications
Bluetooth wireless technology is a short-range communications system intended to replace the cables connecting portable and/or fixed electronic devices. Bluetooth uses radio waves to wirelessly link compatible laptops, mobiles, scanners etc within 100m radius (dependant on conditions) and allows users to view contents of a mobile phone on a PC.
Wi-fi is wireless networking - the ability to connect to a network or PC using radio signals (as opposed to network cabling). It's faster and has a greater range than Bluetooth, and is ideal for home or office connectivity. Check www.jwire.com for wireless hotspots.
Graphics
- Integrated graphics – a graphics processor/chipset is included on the computers motherboard. The integrated chipset requires memory so will be shared from the main PC RAM.
- Dedicated graphics – this is a separate card fitted into a computer that has a graphics processor and its own dedicated memory, ranging from 64Mb up to 512Mb.
If you require your PC primarily for surfing the net or doing general computing like word processing and creating spreadsheets integrated graphics will be sufficient to do this. If you want your PC for multimedia projects or gaming then look for dedicated graphics with the higher the dedicated memory the better.
Computing A - Z Jargon Buster
-
A
- ADSL
- Stands for Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line. A technology that converts an ordinary household telephone line into an extremely fast internet connection.
- AntiVirus
- Software designed to protect PCs from malicious computer code.
-
B
- Bluetooth
- A technology that allows devices (computers, phones, printers, etc) to communicate with each other wirelessly.
- BluRay
- A new high capacity(up to 50gb) format that delivers high-definition technology on DVD-sized discs.
- Broadband
- Refers to high-speed internet connections, such as ADSL.
- Browser
- The short name for a web browser, an application that lets you view pages on the internet. Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox are the two most popular browsers.
-
C
- Cache
- A store for frequently-used data or files. Data can be accessed from a cache more quickly than from its original source. Web browsers use a hard disk cache for web pages, while computer processors often have small amounts of very speedy memory as a cache.
- Centrino
- This is a technology made up of a processor, chipset and integrated wireless capability designed for laptops. Laptops with Centrino should deliver better performance, have a longer battery life and increased wireless capability
- Chipset
- This is a group of integrated circuits that are designed to work together. The chipset can control communication between different parts of the PC.
- Connectivity
- To get the best from your PC you may want to consider how to connect to other devices to utilise some of the more advanced applications. (See Bluetooth, WiFi and Ethernet)..
- Contrast ratio
- The higher the contrast ratio of a monitor/screen the deeper and richer the picture will be. This is the measurement of the difference in light intensity between the brightest possible white and the darkest possible black.
-
D
- Double Layer
- A DVD drive that, by using compatible media, can read and write almost twice the amount of data than a single laser disc can..
- DSL
- Digital subscriber Line (See ADSL).
-
E
- Ethernet
- A type of computer network linked to LAN.
-
F
- Firewire
- An extremely fast data link between a PC and other devices, may also be described as IEEE 1394.
- Firewall
- A Firewall is a system used to protect a PC from unauthorised access. Home PC's normally have a firewall installed as software. Windows comes with a firewall pre-installed.
-
G
- Gigabyte (GB)
- A measurement of storage capacity equal to 1024MB (megabytes).
- GHz
- Used as a measure of how fast a processor works. The higher the GHz the faster the processor will work.
- Graphics
- The graphics is the part of the PC that displays the images you see on screen.
-
H
- Hard Drive
- The area of the PC used to store applications and documents with the files created. The capacity of the hard drive is measured in GB (gigabytes).
- HDMI
- High Definition Multimedia Interface, This is a cable that sends High Definition sound and images. PC's with an HDMI socket can be connected to compatible flat screen TV's for HD viewing.
-
I
- IEEE
- Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers is an organisation for the advancement of technology. It sets out standards in computing e.g. 802.11 WiFi standards.
- Internet
- A global network that links millions of computers, using phone and cable links. Users connect to server computers, which act rather like a local phone exchange. A modem connects your PC to the server from home, allowing you to become part of the internet.
-
K
- Kilobyte
- A measurement of storage capacity equal to 1024 bytes.
-
L
- LAN
- Local Area Network, If you connect your PC, modem and any other devices(e.g. printers) together at home you are creating a LAN.
-
M
- Megabyte
- A measurement of storage capacity equal to 1024KB (Kilobytes).
- Modem
- A device that enables two computers to communicate with each other over a telephone line. A modem is usually needed to connect to the internet.
-
O
- Operating System
- Operating systems govern the way the hardware and software components in a computer work together. Typical examples are Windows Vista Home Basic / Premium and Windows XP Home.
- Optical Drive
- A drive that uses laser light to read and write data. CD, DVD and BluRay are common types of media which can be read and recorded by such drives. Exapmles of these drives are CD, DVD and Bluray.
-
P
- Processor
- The PC's brain, the processor drives performance and quality of applications
-
R
- RAM
- The PC's working space where a work in progress is stored. The more RAM your computer has, the more efficiently it will perform.
- Resolution
- Each screen is made up of a number of pixels. The greater the number of pixels the better the resolution.
- Response Time
- Response time is the amount of time a pixel in an LCD monitor takes to go from black to white and back to black again. It is measured in milliseconds (ms). Lower numbers mean faster transitions and therefore fewer visible image artifacts.
-
S
- SATA
- Serial ATA storage interface for connecting host bus adapters (e.g. part of PC motherboard) to mass storage devices (e.g. PC hard drive).
- Skype
- Skype is a brand of VoiP.
- Software
- A program or group of programs that tells the hardware how to perform and allows users to perform tasks. E.g. operating systems, applications such as spreadsheets and games.
-
T
- Terabyte (TB)
- A measurement of storage capacity equal to 1024GB.
- TV Card
- A TV tuner card is a computer component that allows television signals to be received by a computer.
-
U
- USB
- Universal Serial Bus is a hardware interface which allows quick and easy connection of external peripherals such as scanners and printers to your PC. Typically the most common connections used on a PC.
-
V
- VoiP
- Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) is a general term for a family of transmission technologies for delivery of voice communications over IP networks such as the Internet. Skype is currently the most popular brand of VoiP.
-
W
- Webcam
- Webcams are video capturing devices connected to computers or computer networks.
- WiFi
- Wi-fi is wireless networking - the ability to connect to a network or PC using radio signals (as opposed to network cabling).
