Laptops are getting ever cheaper and are crammed with technology to tempt you. But how much should you spend? And which features should (and shouldn't) you be looking for?

1. Deciding what you want

There are two ways to look at buying a laptop. You can either go by price point or you can choose on features.

Choosing by price isn't as surprising as it sounds – there are some fantastic deals to be had both online and in the high street.

What type of laptop do you want?

A decent enough laptop can be had for under £500. You can get a good sized screen which may not be super high quality, and a reasonable battery life from budget machines these days.

They're fine for surfing the web and running office apps.

Around the £600-£700 mark you'll get an awful lot more for your money. Look for a fast processor, a decent sized hard drive and a high resolution screen with good colour contrast.

Ultraportables are just that. These lightweight laptops that are ideal for on-the-go use.

They may not be super powerful – although there are a lot of dual core ultraportables these days – but they should offer good battery life and weigh in at under 2Kg.

A new class, dubbed 'Ultra Mobile PC' or UMPC, currently consists of the Asus Eee PC and the HP Mini Note, with new competition on the horizon.

These are very cheap laptops that are incredible small, but even less powerful than the traditional ultraportable. They may not, for example, even have a CD drive.

Desktop replacements are the most expensive. These are best-in-show laptops that have the most powerful processors and graphics options.

They are not designed to be moved out of the home, but are ideal for situations where you may not have the room for a desktop machine. Some desktop replacements are specifically designed with gaming in mind.

Both major chip makers have released dual core laptop processors that are more power-efficient than ever. AMD has released the Turion X2, Intel and the Core 2 Duo.

Generally speaking, Intel machines are more power-efficient and quieter, but AMD machines are better value for money.

These are the two processors that you should be looking out for in everything but the very low end of the market. Here, the Intel Celeron M and AMD Mobile Sempron processors fill the gap.

These are perfectly capable chips, but are not suitable for things such as photo or video editing.