Some have screens as large as 15 inches. As a general rule, the more power and memory your laptop packs, the more it weighs up to 10 or 12 pounds in some cases. And if you're going to be toting around that kind of baggage, you want to really be using it. Even so, some lawyers say laptops are the only way to go. Bell adds that you'll probably want to go high-end if you buy a laptop, to give yourself maximum efficiency.
Experts still recommend that most law firms stick with desktop computers.
So unless otherwise noted, this article will focus on the desktop while making periodic comparisons to their laptop competitors. Random Access Memory, or RAM, is the most important single factor in the overall speed and efficiency of your computer. So if you're picking one place to splurge, do it here. In fact, it's wise to buy far more RAM than you need at the moment since the computer industry is notorious for releasing new programs that require greater and greater amounts of RAM to operate smoothly. That will suffice for most of the applications used in law offices today, and for those that we can expect to use in the next couple of years.