by the way i was about to put a similar thread then saw this,what should one look for when buying a laptop,the main features,i am looking for one that can do normal browsing,skype,gaming and is it possible to connect mine to the set top box and what is the type of cable?
For browsing, skyping, you can get a normal laptop with a Pentium, and the maximum being an i3. However, low end laptops have very crappy video cams so you may have to buy external camera.
Gaming is another issue entirely. What games do you want to run? From what year are they? At what resolution and settings do you want to game at?
A gaming laptop is also power hungry and cannot last long without being plugged in if it has a dedicated GPU.
You should consider this
1. Portability thus screen size and weight
2. Battery lifetime
3. Screen resolution if its for gaming
4. Dedicated GPU if its for gaming
5. Age of laptop since if it is too old the manufacturer will not provide drivers for GPU or laptop overall. New games don't perform well with opd drivers till updated.