If you intend to purchase a laptop which you intend to use for broadband, you need to make sure it will be compatible.

There are two main types of broadband available:

ADSL (e.g. BT, Bulldog, Wanadoo / Orange , Tiscali.etc)
Cable (e.g. Virgin Media)

For a new installation of either type, make sure that you choose a laptop which has a CDROM drive so that you can setup the software which comes with your broadband installation package.

For ADSL you will need to make sure you have a USB port available. All Pentium II and beyond based laptops will certainly have this, and some Pentium I spec machines will, so when looking at laptops below the £150 price barrier, please check the technical specification to make sure the laptop is equipped with USB (We point this out clearly in our product information)

For cable broadband customers, the broadband modems povided are usually 'ethernet' type, i.e. they use networking technology and you will need a network card to use them. Most Pentium III based systems and above tend to have built in network cards but not always, so please check carefully. Network cards can easily be installed into almost any laptop which does not have a card built in - the card simply slots into the PCMCIA Cardbus port on the side of the laptop. We sell network cards from £9.99 in store - please see our 'Accessories' section.

Please note that sometimes a cable provider may issue you with a USB modem instead of an Ethernet one so you should check with your cable broadband provider first so you know what you need.

So, in summary what you'll need:

ADSL Broadband: CDROM drive, USB port
Cable Broadband: CDROM drive, Network Card / Ethernet Port

Please note that if you intend sharing the broadband connection across multiple computers/laptops then you will need to set up a small network using a router.