The first item I’d always tell my friends to omit in their laptops is the optical CD or DVD drive. I don’t have a drive in my current Lenovo X61 ThinkPad. The key reason is that you don’t always access it. Think about it. It’s true isn’t it? You can always copy the data you need into your hard drive since they are so big nowadays. The best thing about omitting the optical drive is that you cut off a lot of weight from the laptop. And heck, you also save money.

Next item I think you don’t need is – an extra battery. Ok, granted, I did mention before in some other articles that an extra battery is a must. But increasingly, I find that unless you’re on extended travel, it is not necessary. It’s probably needed for extreme road warriors. As long as you bring along your fully charged battery, you won’t need a second extra battery.

One thing that is increasingly uncommon in laptops these days is infrared connectivity. Most of us use USB / Bluetooth nowadays. If you find a laptop model touting its infrared connectivity as a plus point, try to find a model without the feature instead, in order to save some money. Some phones / devices don’t support infrared and it’s also an old technology.

A dedicated graphics card is very useful for gamers. But unless you intend to play intense 3D games on your laptop, it is one of the most expensive components on the laptop you intend to buy. So think twice about having a dedicated nVidia or ATI graphics card in your laptop. Some laptops even tout dual graphics card which, in my humble opinion, are a real waste of money if you’re not a gamer.

The last item I feel you don’t need in your laptop is the ExpressCard slot. These days, most peripherals are USB or Bluetooth based. There is hardly any need for ExpressCard slots since you can hardly find any peripherals supporting it. I used to find wireless network cards slotting into ExpressCard slots, but those network cards are mostly built into laptops now. Remove them from your laptop configuration and save money.