Bottom Line: Erase Celerons, Pentiums, and Turions from your vocabulary. For middle-of-the-road users, the Intel Core i5, and the AMD Phenom II X3 are perfect picks.

Where it was once about speed, CPUs are now purpose-driven. If you anticipate some serious video editing or need to have lots of apps running at the same time (multitasking), you're safest going with the Intel Core i7. For everyday computing, the Core i3, the Core i5, or AMD Phenom II X3 will suffice. The AMD Phenom II X4 is also worth a look for a competent, budget-conscious pick. Celerons, Pentiums, and Turions are being phased out of the market; simply put, the technology is dated, and even though some have relatively high clock speeds, they run slower due to their single-processor design.

Bottom Line: A good indication of graphics card performance is the amount of memory on it, so the more MB, the better.

Graphics processing is a big factor in price, battery life, and performance. The main technologies are integrated graphics and discrete graphics. The average user who is word processing and net surfing will be quite happy with the integrated solution that comes standard on many laptops.However, HD movies and games (now in 3D) call for more robust discrete graphics such as the Nvidia GTX and GTS Series -at a cost of reduced battery life and increased price. Some technologies like Nvidia Optimus and AMD Hybrid allow the user to turn the discrete graphics on or off depending on the planned task.

Bottom Line: If you need the security, extra performance and you have the bucks, we recommend an SSD. Otherwise, go with the highest capacity HDD you can afford.

SSD is the next big thing but are more expensive. SSDs have no moving parts, so no noise and feature a sizeable speed and security advantage over their HDD predecessors including a quicker start up time. If you go with a standard HDD, look for one thats at least 7200 rpm, if you appreciate speed.

Bottom Line: RAM is one of the easiest, cheapest and performance boosting upgrades that you can do yourself. You can often save a few bucks on your initial laptop purchase price and add memory later.

Bottom Line: The latest USB standard (3.0) is just starting to emerge. Called SuperSpeed USB, 3.0 is 10x faster, will save power and is backwards compatible with USB 2.0.

Bottom Line: A 10 to 12-inch screen is a great size for travel. 18-inch screens will spend a fair amount of time at home or the office. A 15-inch screen gives you the flexibility to do both.

Bottom Line: These replace the traditional keyboard log-ins and tighten up security. Fingerprint readers have you swipe your finger and match the print to the user. Facial recognition technology like VeriFace uses your laptop's webcam to scan facial features, store them, and match them up with each user profile.

Bottom Line: These let you insert and read memory cards from devices like cameras and cell phones without the need for hardwire or wireless connections but most laptops now come with some type of card reader.

Bottom Line: It's short-range and high-speed. This wireless transfer technology, developed by Sony, works by merely touching two electronic devices together. Security risks are minimized because of the close proximity. Physical layer transmission rate is 560 Mbps, which rivals USB and FireWire.