Ok, I'm not very knowledgeable on these things and easily confused so please bear with me.
I'd like a laptop to replace my desktop, my partner and I currently share a LAN on broadband at home with two desktops.
I'm told we can either have a wireless or wired LAN but not a mixture of the two. I'd like to use a laptop in the garden, on the sofa etc and perhaps even away from home but I'm too tight to pay for an extra net connection on another pc.
How can I make this work?
And does anyone know about well priced quality laptops please?

You can use a wired and wireless LAN simultaneously, I do it here with the laptops on wireless and desktops on wired.

Easiest way to do it in your case would be to get a wireless router, something like the Netgear DG834G for ADSL, and this connects to the internet and the desktops\laptops connect to this independently of each other through the wired and\or wireless connection.

I think I get that and thanks for the equipment recommendation. I shall have to try to get this sorted, you make it sound so simple!

I did the same thing yesterday. I went to Staples (who have 10% off this week) and bought a belkin wireless G router. I know nothing about this type of thing and asked them if it was easy to do.

Low and behold it was!!! It took 10 minutes to install and I was away. You can run 64 PC's from it without wires!!! My laptop detected it straight away.

It cost approx £50

Originally posted by bonny
I did the same thing yesterday. I went to Staples (who have 10% off this week) and bought a belkin wireless G router. I know nothing about this type of thing and asked them if it was easy to do.

Low and behold it was!!! It took 10 minutes to install and I was away. You can run 64 PC's from it without wires!!! My laptop detected it straight away.

It cost approx £50

Just make sure you read this thread:

http://www.sheffieldforum.co.uk/showthread.php?s=&threadid=43295

if you're just setting up it might be worth investing in 802.11n kit rather than g (and definitely not b).