Hard drive – If there is no internal optical drive then the hard drive needs to be larger to incorporate items that you might have kept on DVD. Around 160GB could be plenty if you don’t have a large media library. If you want to hoard every film made in Los Angeles then the sky is the limit (though most portables don’t go much about 5oo GB Sata).

Memory – The bigger the better. 4GB should be fine the moment but a new wave of machines with larger ram capacity is expected in the near future.

Graphics – Important for editing images and video. A dedicated graphics card (with its own memory) is becoming a necessity if you want to undertake this sort of work, ranging from 128MB to 2GB. This decision has to be influenced by your budget.

Ports – If you’re using a lot of complex machinery – cameras, musical instruments etc. – then you need to make sure that it will connect to your laptop without much trouble. Standard connections should be three or four USB ports (preferably USB 3.0 though this is very new technology) and it could be the case that you need a Fire-wire port. Laptop manufacturers often choose to exclude this port.

Fan – If you are recording music using your laptop then does it need to be silent? There are a number of almost silent fans on the market but are quite expensive. It is also the case that modifications to this part of the laptop can be difficult so if you require a silent machine then it may be best to consult a specialist music supplier.

DVD/Blue Ray Disk – Absolutely, for your office works and critical works you must add a Blue Ray disk drive, or DVD ROM. Now, this generation time, blue ray disk is most important.