You don't have to be a technology guru to end up buying the laptop of your dreams. After all, we all have things that we want our laptops to be able to do. If you are looking to purchase a new laptop, look no further than the tips below to help you make decisions.

Don't buy a laptop solely on price alone. Yes, cheap laptops can keep a lot of your hard earned cash in your wallet, but they also might be susceptible to breaking down. It may end up costing you more in the long run if you decide to go cheap early on.

Ask friends and family for recommendations. They can be a good source of information, and you can also use their laptop before you shell out money for your own. Family and friends will be quick to share whether they like their laptop, and they will be very honest about it as well.

Investing in a cooling pad for your laptop will extend its life by keeping it from overheating. Excess heat is among the most common causes of laptop trouble. You can buy a cooling pad for your laptop for about twenty dollars. This is a smart investment that will extend the life of your laptop.

Consider a touchscreen laptop. More and more software for PCs is being created with touchscreen technology in mind, meaning this option will become increasingly essential as time goes on. By purchasing the technology now, you can take advantage of the touchscreen features and not feel a necessity to re-buy another computer for several years.

If you have never heard of the brand selling the laptop you are considering, it might be a good idea to steer clear of that brand. They clearly don't have an adequate market share of the laptop market for a reason, and you shouldn't be getting your laptop from a company like that.

Make sure that any new laptop you buy comes with a way to return it if it doesn't work right. Sometimes if you buy a new laptop they will give you a certain amount of time to return it if you have a receipt. Be very careful about this so that you don't end up with an expensive broken computer.

If you need to squeeze as much life as possible from your laptop and a recharge is far away, then set your screen to the dimmest setting possible. This will effectively double your battery life. It has been shown that the screen uses the majority of the laptop's battery power.

Are you afraid of your laptop being stolen? Invest in a tracking software such as CyberAngel Security, Absolute Software's Lojack for laptops or TheLaptopLock (which is free). These increase the chances of recovering your laptop by pinpointing the location of the registered notebook once it connects onto the Web.

For people who do a lot of multitasking, then RAM is an important feature on their laptops. The cheapest laptops will have less RAM than the more expensive models. For high-end applications, gaming, and multitasking, a computer with a large amount of RAM is going to be a necessity, not an option.

Consider the software that is included in a laptop. There are some programs like word processors and spreadsheets that may be important for you to consider. Be careful as some of the included software is over-hyped. You need to know whether what is included are the full versions, demo versions, or shareware programs.

If you are looking to reduce the weight of your laptop, consider skipping the optical drive. You don't need a DVD or Blu-Ray drive because most content can be downloaded from the Internet, including movies, games and software. You can save about a half pound of weight by losing the optical drive.

Be sure to ask what comes with your laptop, new or used. For example, a new laptop may come with a charging cord, but it may be slow, intended for European outlets, or too short. If you know what you're getting, you won't be surprised when you pull it out of the box.

Pixels are important when choosing a laptop. Basically, the more pixels you have, the more information you can fit on the screen. Many budget laptops come with fairly low pixel counts. Higher end laptops will be full HD screens with very high resolution. You should see the difference in person at the electronics store before making a decision.

Battery life matters when buying a laptop. Although you may think that you will stay plugged-in most of the time, you do not want to be chained to the outlet. A minimum battery life should be 4 hours at peak performance. If you plan on being mobile often, look for a laptop that can last 6 hours plus.

If choosing between Mac and PC laptops, consider how easy it is to upgrade the system. If you are buying a laptop to use over the long term, you'll want one which you can swap out the battery on, or even upgrade the hardware. This is next to impossible on a Mac system.

After purchasing a laptop, make sure you thoroughly test it your first month. You have at least a 30-day return policy and you want to tax the system then. Most problems that creep up will happen rather quickly. If you don't use the system for the first two weeks, you may catch a flaw late. This is when you have to figure out if the laptop works with the needs you had in mind.

Get a laptop that comes with a built-in web camera. New technology is making video interaction more common. FaceTime and Skype are leading the way in making these types of interactions more viable. You can talk to your children or friends who live on the other side of the country. The camera will be handier than you thought.

It is easy to purchase a great laptop when you know what you should be looking for. You don't need to be technology savvy to purchase something that you will get much use out of. Hopefully, this article has helped you get a better understanding of the subject of laptops.