if you can't find the door, you make one

Introducing My New Laptop Search Tool

Written by

Walter G.

Published on

May 11 2014

Modified on

June 11 2014

Filed under

General

I mentioned this idea 2 weeks ago to a friend, as I was looking for a potential new laptop and couldn't find a decent one to save my life. Since I rely on my laptop mainly for my day to day work it was important that the specs matched what I needed. Well a few hours later and no solid match yet, I gave up and cleaned my laptop screen and figured good as new. Then I asked why can't there be a good solid laptop search tool where I get exactly what I want. I want an i5 or higher, 6GB+ of RAM, and a screen smaller than 15.6. I went searching on the webs and ran into alot of this:

The Problems

Immediately..a few problems arose.

Problem #1

The insane amount of laptops being returned for every single query was the biggest. If you tell someone to choose between 5 items, it's quick. They'll look at 5 items and make a selection without hesitation. If you tell them to choose 1 from 1000, they're going to be there a while, and halfway through they'll forget the beginning of the list, and in the end they'll end up choosing somewhere along the end of the list. The truth is, at any one point in time, there are probably only a handful of laptops that meet my criteria and the closer I can get to that list the more time I can save. I spent probably a good two hours reading the descriptions and reviews for pages of laptops, and in the end decided they all kind of sucked and I didn't need a new one. So it saved me some money, but left me wondering.

Problem #2

Single select filter options. A great enemy on this journey. Many site filters only allowed me to select 1 single option at a time, for example a single processor at a time. Which makes that filter totally useless, because how am I suppose to know that there isn't some awesome i5 processor laptop out there that I would consider when I select i7. This particular flow requires me to repeat my search each time for every processor, which again takes time and effort better suited for anything else really.

Problem #3

The varying number of filter options that some websites feel they need to have. Like weight. I mean I get it, some people want lighter laptops, but no one is going to sit there and say "if this laptop doesn't weight <3lbs then I'm not buying it". Guess what, if it weights 4lbs and its a great machine at a good price, they will buy it.

The same goes for Manufacturer/Brands filters. When it comes down to it, I want a good solid machine and whoever decides to make that machine is non of my concern. Single select filters, mixed in with less than helpful criteria make for a bad experience in my book.

My Solution

So, I couldn't find a decent website that did what I wanted. So I did what I do best. I went out and built one.

The search revolves around 5 main filters. You can select any or all that you want, and the results will match exactly what you select, all in a quick and painless interface. The selections in the screen capture above is exactly what I was looking for when I was looking for a new laptop, and I ended up with 10,000+ results, many of which matched only parts of my criteria.

I'm still in the process of acquiring more data, such as laptops, specifications, stores and prices and such. I'm also working on price and link validation to make sure everything is as accurate as I can make it. Not 100% guaranteed (disclaimer: ahem), but as close as I can make it. And a few other helpful features for all your laptop shopping needs. To check it out just click on the old banner to the right of here => on top
Feel free to let me know what you think and offer any suggestions that you may have.

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