What Extras Should I Buy When Buying a Laptop?

HarleyPig asks: "I'm using my tax return to buy a laptop. I don't want to know which laptop to get (that's a religious discussion I'd like to avoid). What peripherals do you find yourself wishing you'd bought, or have ended up buying? I know I'll need a mouse, extra cabling, extra batteries and some kind of case to hold and carry around the laptop. What else should I consider putting in my list of stuff to buy with a laptop?"

Obviously

[El]

802.11b card (if not built in), so you can use it whilst in the bathroom.

Re:External Mouse

[PiranhaEx]

In addition, G is backwards-compatible with B, so a G card is really the way to go.

My suggestion: AC adapter, security cable

[GORDOOM]

I'd get an extra AC adapter - not as a spare, but so that you can have one live at your desk and one live in your notebook case. It makes it a lot quicker to just grab the computer and go.

Also, for the love of everything sacred, get a security cable!!!!!!

Stuff you can leave at home.

[rueger]

When we retired our old Toshiba, I wound up buying a used Dell Latitude LS. what I love about it is what's not built in - CD, floppy, some of the usual ports like the serial port.

The result is a laptop that really small, really light and really easy to toss into a briefcase and carry along.

When I look at some of the current laptops they seem so big and heavy that I doubt I would want to lug them around.

So think in terms of some of the models that lets you leave the less used stuff like CD drives at home and just carry the essentials.

Although Powerbooks... mmmmmm.

Two Things

[tiny69]

Purchase an extra battery. Batteries will only last for so long. They are also expensive to replace if your manufacturer no longer makes laptops that use that battery. I've also seen some laptops that will not work if the battery is bad.

Pay extra for the extended warranty. Since laptops are proprietary, the only place you can go to for replacement parts is from the manufacturer that made it. And the parts for laptops are not cheap. I recent tried to fix a laptop that had a broken screen (someone obviously sat on it). The only problem was the warranty had just expired. The cost of the replacement screen was over $900. Whether the manufacturer even offers an extended warranty is an indication of the quality of the laptop. I wouldn't purchase one from anyone that would only offers a 1 year warranty. For this reason, I will also pay extra for name brand laptops. Yes, you can get a no name one for next to nothing, but who are you going to turn to for repair parts when the company is no longer around.

Bluetooth for your peripherals

[mauryisland]

Be wireless. I have a bluetooth mouse, but I also need a bluetooth keyboard for when I'm not on the road. I haven't found a laptop yet that a has a keyboard that keeps me happy. The mouse, however, is small enough to be taken almost everywhere.

Get a warranty

[Jmstuckman]

Unlike your desktop, you can't easily take apart a laptop, troubleshoot what's going wrong, and fix it yourself. Fixing anything is going to cost you some serious cash unless you get a warranty to match. If you buy from Dell, consider getting the CompleteCare accidental damage warranty. It might be expensive, but if you plan to travel with your laptop a lot, disaster is one slip of the arm away.

Also, an extra battery would be nice. Your mileage may vary, but I found that buying a spare primary battery for my laptop during the sale was much cheaper than buying one after the fact. It also might be harder to get a replacement battery when the laptop is several years old, and this is when the battery that came with the computer might start wearing out.

Re:Obviously

[KhanAFur]

You don't need a wireless card, I have a red iMac in the bathroom named iCrap with a network cable going to it. It is a great place to read slashdot.

Re:2 things

[2nd Post!]

You can replace #2 with an iPod, if you're clever, *and* get a nifty MP3 player in the bargain!

Re:My list.

[MullerMn]

>>An extra AC adapter, to leave plugged in at home.

Absolutely essential - as is a second battery if you are not using it as a mobile desktop and hitting the road a lot - those AC adapter cables don't tend to like being repeatedly coiled and un-coiled, plugged and un-plugged... Also for some some unknown reason, laptop power supplies tend to be proprietary voltage/connector combinations which makes it very painful should one fail.

So, who're you going to be buying that replacement proprietary power supply from? Thought so.

Re:My list.

[Zocalo]

Actually, the answer is not necessarily "the original vendor", since I was using proprietary purely in the sense of the physical arrangement of the connector and power requirements.

My point was aimed at how laptop vendors don't even try and make it easy if you have a failure at a bad time, which it almost always is of course. The voltage and laptop connectors being proprietary to a given vendor means that you can't just jump in your car and go to a decent local electrical retailer for a generic replacement in an emergency. There is no technical reason I can think of why this should be the case; there are agreed standard connectors for almost everything else, so why not for laptop power (and media bays for that matter) as well?

Actually sourcing a replacement is not that hard, as a few quick Google searches will show that there are plenty of companies selling replacement PSUs for most major brands. It's not like matching a given power output to a connector requires a great deal of reverse engineering, is it? The problem is that, regardless of the source and state of warranty cover, the chances are you are going to have to order a replacement and then hope that the courier arrives before your battery dies.