Selecting a laptop is all about trade-offs.

The age-old question. The decision means less than it used to, though; important apps like Microsoft Office or Adobe Photoshop come for both platforms, and peripherals like printers and scanners usually will work with both too (though not always, so best to check first).

Macs are generally more expensive than comparable PCs, but as any Mac-zealot would tell you, Macs also usually have higher-end stuff inside, and higher customer satisfaction ratings, so they're really not as overpriced as they first appear.

Generally if you're going to be doing a lot of image editing or photography - or working with people who do - Macs are the better call. If you're going to be playing games, go with PCs. Either are fine for office work & general internet surfing.

New laptops are fresh from the factory, with that new-laptop smell. Refurbished laptops are usually either returns or laptops off corporate leases that have been fixed up and cleaned by the original manufacturer or the retailer. The upside to buying refurbished is that they're often much cheaper; the downside is that they're older, and usually come with a much shorter warranty.

Laptops come in all shapes and sizes, but they broadly fall into a few distinct categories:

The Netbook is usually small, cheap, and slow. Its screen size is between 9 and 11 inches (diagonally), only occasionally comes with a full-size keyboard, and rarely has a CD/DVD drive. They are excellent couch laptops (though that role is increasingly filled by tablets) or for situations in which the laptop might be damaged or stolen.

The Standard is what you usually think of as a laptop. It's not remarkably small or light, but generally hits the sweet spot between features and price. These tend to include CD/DVD drives.

The Ultrabook is high-end, ultra-mobile. The term is trademarked by processor manufacturer Intel, but has now come to apply to any computer that is very thin, very light, with a long battery life and a high price tag. The most common example of this class is probably Apple's MacBook Air. They rarely have CD/DVD drives.

The Convertible laptop is rare but growing in numbers, especially now that Windows 8 is designed with touchscreens in mind. Think of the convertible as a tablet-laptop combination. Depending on the model, the screen can either twist around and close over the keyboard, or detach from the keyboard entirely. They're usually so-so laptops that turn into so-so tablets, but if you need both but only have room - or money - for one, a Convertible might suit you.

This is one of the most important considerations when buying a new laptop, possibly even more imporant than price. Lighter laptops either cost more than their heavier counterparts, or are slower and less powerful, and they will almost certainly have smaller screens.

But after a long walk to class or home from the train station, carrying an eight pound laptop will feel like lugging around a bowling ball, and some of the bigger laptops are physically too large to be opened on an airplane (unless of course, you're in first class).

Never. The laptop will rarely be moved off my desk
Sometimes. I'll have to move it around not more than a couple times a week.
Often. It'll be in my backback or briefcase every day.

If you pay enough, you can get a light laptop with an enormous screen, but until foldable computer screens hit the market, there's no way to have a small laptop with a large screen.

It may seem like a no-brainer, but there are good reasons to prefer smaller laptops even if you don't carry them around all the time. Some people use an external monitor with their laptops, and so a larger screen isn't worth paying for. Others may travel infrequently, but when they do require a laptop that travels well.

Which is more important for you: having a larger screen or a smaller laptop?

The ability to run without being tethered to a wall socket is one of the great advantages laptops have over desktops. You can use them on an airplane, in a coffee shop, or on a couch. But a long battery life comes at a cost. A big battery can crowd out other components and make the laptop heavier. Laptops designed to be fuel "sippers" instead of fuel "guzzlers" accomplish this by using components that are slower and less powerful, just like fuel-efficient cars are less powerful than sports cars or trucks.

Almost any laptop today can last for two to three hours on a full charge. Fuel "sippers" can last anywhere from eight to twelve hours, if you're careful. What kind of battery life do you need?

Most of a computer's speed is the result of two components: the computer's processor (aka CPU) and memory (aka RAM). The processor is the brain of the computer: it performs all the math the computer needs, and the faster the processor the more calculations it can perform. It's usually measured in gigahertz (GHz), which means the number of "cycles" the processor goes through each second. If a processor is "dual-core," as many are today, it means there two processors stamped onto the same chip. The relationship to speed is complicated - a dual-core 2.4 GHz processor will not be twice as fast as a single-core 2.4 GHz processor - but it's a useful shorthand for speed.

The memory is the computer's short-term memory. Everything you're actively doing on the computer - pictures you're browsing on Facebook, the word processing document you're writing, the music you're listening to - are all stored in a computer's short-term memory. If a computer runs out of memory, it has to start saving those active files to the hard drive, which is much, much slower. Memory is usually measured in gigabytes (or GB), the same as a hard drive, but the memory of a computer usually ranges from 2 GB to 8 GB.

A laptop with less than 3 GB of memory and a processor slower than 2 GHz or so will be noticeably slow, though some laptops meant for long battery life make that sacrifice. Unless you plan on doing a lot of video or photo editing (using applications like Adobe Photoshop or Microsoft Movie Maker) you probably don't need a super-fast processor or a lot of memory.

The hard drive is the long-term memory of your computer. If you primarily do word processing and listen to music through internet services like YouTube, Pandora, or Spotify, you can get away with a small hard drive. If you have a lot of multimedia files - be they pictures from your digital camera, mp3s, or video files - you may need something more spacious.

A recent trend involves putting solid state drives (SSDs) into laptops, either on their own or in conjunction with a traditional hard drive. A traditional hard drive contains a series of magnetic platters that spin in order to read and write information. A solid state drive has no moving parts.

The advantages of a solid state drive are threefold: first, it's fast - up to twice as fast as a regular hard drive. This means the computer will start up faster, and feel zippier in general. Second, it uses less power, which means a longer battery life. Finally, it's smaller and lighter, shaving off a few precious ounces from the machine.

All of that comes at a price: they are expensive, and generally much smaller than their traditional counterparts. All but the most discount laptops come with at least 200 GB of storage space, which is about the bare minimum (unless you use external hard drives, or are using the laptop as a second machine), but solid state drives can be as small as 64 GB. So be warned: unless you're ready to spend a lot of money, or plan on storing most of your files elsewhere, stay away from solid state drives.

Small. I will only have a few word processing files and a handful of pictures
Medium. I have a lot of mp3s and a few home movies
Large. I have thousands of multimedia files
SSD. I want the speed of a SSD and don't care about the size

Some people have a special place in their heart for computer brands - and others have horror stories that make them swear off brands entirely. If either of those apply to you, let us know below. If you don't care, just skip on to the next section. Don't worry, we take reliability ratings into account automatically.

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Laptops these days come with a dizzying array of features. Below are some of the most common. If you'd like more information, click on the name of the feature.

If you don't know, just leave as No Preference. Don't worry that you'll be paying more for a fancy gadget you won't use: the goal of this site is to find you the cheapest laptop that fits your needs. If it recommends a laptop with some unneeded wiz-bang feature, it means it's either cheaper than a similar laptop without the feature, or that no cheaper laptops met your other criteria.