From the course: Computer Literacy for Mac (2018)

Special considerations when using a laptop - Mac OS Tutorial

From the course: Computer Literacy for Mac (2018)

Special considerations when using a laptop

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- If you've decided to use a laptop or notebook computer, or if you really didn't have any say in the matter and had one issued to you there's some things unique to the use of laptops that you should be familiar with. First of all, the laptop is an all-in-one device. All the necessary components are built in, and for the most part you can carry it around and have everything you need to get your work done. Now, because it's a portable device it runs off an internal battery. These days, laptop batteries range anywhere from around five to 10 hours of usage time on a single charge, but your results will vary greatly depending on how hard you're using the laptop. So you'll always want to make sure to carry the laptop's power supply cable along with you so you can plug it into an outlet to charge the battery, especially if you know you're going to using it for an extended period of time. A laptop with a depleted battery and no power cable is completely unusable. Now, when it comes to actually using the laptop probably the most important thing to get used to is the mouse, or more accurately the lack of a mouse. This is a mouse and all computers need these for you to operate them. No Mac notebooks ship with a mouse, but you can get yourself a wired mouse that you plug into your laptop's USB port, or you can get a wireless Bluetooth mouse like the Apple mouse you see here. But all notebook computers come with built-in devices to act as the mouse, or pointing device as it's sometimes called. The most common pointing device on all laptops these days is the trackpad, which all of Apple's current line of MacBooks use. This is a touch-sensitive device and you operate it by sliding your finger around on it. The mouse pointer on the screen moves as you move your finger. On older MacBooks the trackpad has a button below it for clicking, but on the newer MacBooks the trackpad itself is the button you press down to click. MacBook trackpads also support multi-touch adjusters, meaning you can use two or more fingers to perform actions like scrolling on a page, zooming in on a photo, and so on. Some people are fine using the built-in trackpads on their devices, while other people prefer to carry a traditional mouse with their laptop. You'll have to decide for yourself what works best for you. Another feature you might have to get used to is your laptop's keyboard. While the keys on all MacBooks and MacBook Pros are the same size as a standard keyboard, the keys themselves might be spaced apart further or closer than you're used to. Or they might not press down as far as your used to. So typing might be a little bit more challenging at first until you get used to the built-in keyboard. Also, to space space certain keys might be combined together. For instance, the F keys, which are used for a variety of purposes, require you to hold down an Fn, or Function button in order to use them. You'll find that your F keys have been combined with the buttons for controlling the volume of your speakers or the brightness of your screen. And on certain MacBooks like the MacBook Pro Apple has removed the entire row of F keys in favor of a feature called the Touch Bar, which is a touch-sensitive screen that displays virtual buttons that change depending on the app you're using or the actions you're performing. That might be either an advantage or a disadvantage depending on how you like to work, so be sure to take that into consideration too. And as with the mouse you can also plug an external keyboard into your laptop if you prefer, or connect a wireless keyboard, although that's not as common since most people can't fit a full-size keyboard into their laptop bag. But again, you're free to connect a wide range of accessories to keyboards, to your mouse, to an external monitor. Now, as I previously mentioned, in recent years Apple has been moving away from building their notebooks with a wide range of ports for different accessories, and instead has opted for using a single style of port called USB-C. You can still plug different types of accessories like external mice or monitors into MacBooks like these, but they require a variety of adapters in order to make those connections. So be sure to consider this additional expense when deciding on a MacBook. But those are just some things to be aware of and keep in mind when or if you have to work with laptops.

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