Ah, but not so fast! You may have read a great deal about what to look for when buying a laptop computer, but you may not know what to avoid. This is at least as important, as there are a surprisingly large number of landmines throw in the path of consumers

You opened up the Wal-Mart advertisement and – my God! They have a laptop for just $200. You rush out the door, buy it, and bring it home. All is well until you open Windows Task Manager and see just one graph bobbing along, spiking violently whenever you open a web browser.

Multi-core processors are so common that Intel dropped the “Duo” and “Quad” names from the company’s new processors entirely. Some single-core processors do still exist, however, and they’re built almost exclusively for the $200 and $300 doorbuster deal laptops. Although a single-core processor is adequate for some basic tasks, it will choke on processor intensive tasks like HD video playback. Even flash-heavy webpages could prove challenging.

Laptops with AMD processors almost always boast the number of cores the processor contains with a “X2″ or “X4″ label. This label is only forgotten when the laptop has a single-core processor. Intel no longer has a quick-and-easy label, but the majority of single-core Intel laptops sold use a processor called the Intel Celeron 900.

Note that netbooks are an exception to this – it’s OK for them to have single core processors. The performance will be poor, but speed isn’t a netbook’s niche.

Laptops are great, but they have disadvantages compared to desktop computers. For example, you cannot upgrade components that are easily switched out on a desktop. The display, for example, can’t be changed. This means it is important to check a laptop’s display quality before buying.

Open a text document or all-white web page and take a close look at the display. Can you see small lines that appears to cross the display both vertically or horizontally? This is known as the “screen door effect.” It’s surprisingly common on modern laptops, and can be annoying.

Also take a look at the display resolution and compare that to the display size. Most 15.6″ laptops sold today have a resolution of 1366×768. That’s not great, but it’s acceptable. However, there are some laptops now sold with 16″+ displays that have this same  resolution. This often results in large pixels and sub-par image quality.

If you walk into your local Best Buy you’ll be hard pressed to find laptops that offer less than three hours of inspiron 640m battery life. The only ones that are labeled with two hours or less are gaming laptops. The same is true if you search laptops online. You’ll even run into some laptops that offer ten hours of battery. Sounds great, right?

There’s just one small problem – those claims are exaggerated. There is no agreed-upon industry standard for testing battery life, so laptop manufacturers can advertise anything they manage to obtain, no matter how (un)realistic the conditions were.

My advice? Simply assume that laptops will be able to obtain 75% of the battery life claimed. That’s in light usage – if you’re intending to watch video or run any processor intensive application you can expect inspiron 640m battery battery life to be half the claimed amount.

The extended warranty plays upon the fear that occurs whenever a person shells out a lot of money for a product. Even a $500 laptop is nothing to sneeze at, and a $1000 laptop may be a substantial portion of a person’s yearly income. It’s easy to succumb to the pressure of the salesperson pitching the warranty to you. “Hey,” they’ll say, “this will protect you if something goes wrong. What if you spill a drink on your laptop?”

It’s true – disasters occur. However, the statistical rate of disasters isn’t high. Warranty company Squaretrade has found that the three-year failure rate of a laptop (including both accidents and hardware failure) was just over 30%. And remember – in three years your laptop will be woefully outdated. You may be wanting a new one anyway.

Extended warranty service isn’t prompt, either. Although some companies are better than others, most companies try very hard to find a reason not to honor an extended XPS M1330 battery warranty. Even if the warranty is honored, your laptop may need to be sent away for repairs, a process that can take weeks. Does that sound like it’s worth $150 to $300 to you?

Another common sales tactic that trips up laptop buyers is the bundled accessory. It’s incredibly common for a store to offer extras as part of a laptop deal. These can include everything from USB and HDMI cables to printers and external hard drives. The store makes these offers attractive buy listing huge discounts of 50% or more.

What the stores don’t tell you, of course, is that the original price of the item was absurd. HDMI cables are the most famous example, and one relevant to laptops now that most come with HDMI-out. Stores often sell HDMI cables for $50 to $100, nevermind the fact that great cables can be purchased online for $5 or less. You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to figure out that 50% off a $100 HDMI cable is still a terrible deal.

Buying a laptop computer can be a great experience, but you always need to be careful. It would be nice if manufacturers didn’t exaggerate claims, and it’d be great if sales representatives always directed customers to laptops that are truly the best. This is not the case, however – you need to stay informed to obtain the best deal.

Did we miss anything out?   Is there something else we should bear in mind when buying a laptop computer?   If so, let us know in the comments.

Original story: 5 Things To AVOID When Shopping For A Laptop

But it’s still way too easy to run out of juice in flight, or during the course of a long day away from a wall socket. Here are some tips for keeping your IBM laptop running as long as possible when you’re on the go.

Ditch the Peripherals, Tweak Settings

When you’re on the road, you can significantly conserve Thinkpad X40 battery power by dimming your laptop screen’s brightness. Make sure there are no CDs or DVDs sitting in your optical drive, and don’t connect any USB peripherals–all power hogs. Turn off Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and 3G networking (you have to do that in flight anyhow).

Also, tweak your laptop’s power settings to conserve your IBM Thinkpad X41 battery. For example, in Windows Vista, go to Control Panel, Power Options and select the “Power saver” setting You can adjust the “Power saver” settings, if you want, or create your own power plan.

Buy a Second Battery

Many laptops today can run off two batteries. When the juice from the primary battery runs dry, the auxiliary kicks in. In most cases, the primary battery comes with the laptop; the second is an optional purchase. For example, HP’s EliteBook 6930p promises up to 24 hours of use from one charge–but only if you attach an optional, external 12-cell ultra-capacity battery pack ($189) as a secondary battery to augment the laptop’s internal, primary six-cell battery (There are other requirements, too, such as the need to downgrade to Windows XP.) Keep in mind that second battery packs, sometimes also called thinkpad r50e battery slices often add bulk and weight to your laptop.

Another option: Buy a portable fru 92p1121 battery pack. I like the Duracell Powersource Mobile 100 (about $110 and up online) because it lets you power a variety of devices, such as laptops, cell phones, portable DVD players, and video cameras, using their own power cords. By comparison, some portable power rechargers require special tips or cables to recharge your gear. The Duracell Powersource can also recharge two USB devices simultaneously with your laptop.