Are you in need of a laptop but have absolutely no idea what you are looking for? ..Then read on.  I will be listing the things to look out for and recommending the best value for money offerings at the moment.

Basic Laptop (For general use)
£250-£400

Entry Level Gaming Laptop
£400-£700

Power Users and High End Gaming Laptops
£700-£2000

Memory:  If I had to name one thing to look out for, it would be RAM (memory).  Make sure you have at least 1GB of  RAM, 2GB is recommended.  You will find the machine very sluggish is you skimp on this!

Processor : Most laptops now come with dual core processors.  Which basically means 2 processors in 1.  I would recomend looking for at least 1.9GHZ per core.

Hard Disk: If you are not planning on doing much more than using the laptop for a word processor then anything over an 80GB hard disk would be fine.  However, if music is a possibility then I would really be looking for somewhere in the region of a 250GB Hard Disk.  Furthermore hard drives generally come in two speeds. 5400RPM and 7200RPM.  7200 is faster and you should find the machine generally more responsive however it will drain the battery faster.

Screen Size: The two common sizes are 15.4" and 17".  The 17" versions also normally have a higher resolution the the 15.4's.

Recommendaton of the month!

The Samsung R700 for around £570 inc VAT is by far the best value laptop at the moment.  It comes with a dual core 2GHZ processor, 3GB RAM, 320GB Hard Drive and if you are into your games, the best thing about this laptop is the Geforce 8600GT 256MB Graphics Card.  This is capable of running games like call of duty 4 and even to some degree, Crysis (although you will have to lower the graphics a little!)