First trip to Europe

You could but phone cards are very easy to use.

There's no need to take a laptop just to make and confirm reservations. Phone cards are very easy to use (as are computers at your hotel or an internet cafe).

Totally agree with above, don't buy the laptop and phone cards are simple.

If you have an idea of where your going and when your going to be there, make your reservations now, typically you'll get a better deal. My wife and I traveled to Italy in the summer of 2009. We had a few open days without reservations and found that Italians would rather not sell a room for the night if we didn't except their price. We also found that every place we visited only had one room left, even in the middle of nowhere. Then we had the option of a room with either a king bed or two doubles. go figure.

I've never had trouble using phone cards. I've found a phone call is way more effective than email for hotels though I suppose some travel reservations might be easier online.

Beverly, I bought a TIM phone at my first stop in Italy - the salesperson set it up for me. A simple phone was 29 euro, plus however many minutes you want to put on it. I used mine for confirming reservations, and the hotels had my phone number in case they needed to contact me (which happened at a few small B&Bs where the owners met me at the train/bus station). Another advantage is that you can store the phone numbers for the hotels and not have to pull out other documents or guidebooks every time you need to make a call.