You need to create a tethered connection which allows the laptop to use the internet through your smartphone. If your carrier catches you tether, then they will start charging you a tethering fee on your cellphone bill. I think it is around $30 so you must check.
I recently started tethering my smartphone to my laptop. I use a program called PDAnet which you can google for. You need to install it on both your smartphone and your laptop. After you download it onto your smartphone and is installed it should ask if you need to download a Windows version for your laptop and it should provide you with the link. So download it onto your phone.
Connect the phone to the laptop as a USB device so that you can install the windows PDAnet program onto your laptop. It will then give you instructions. Basically, you need to enable "USB Debugging" which is in Settings / Development. Then launch launch PADnet on your phone to enable tethering.
In the Windows tray icons you should see the icon for PDAnet. Right click it, then choose Settings, then click "Hide Tether Usage" and enable Level I. You will get a warning message.
There are two limitations to the free version of PDAnet. To get around the limitations you need to pay $15 for the full version.
1. Cannot connect to Google. No big deal, I do searches using Yahoo.
2. This one is important. You cannot go to secure sites (i.e. HTTPS) which means you cannot make purchases online because all purchases are made in the secured section of the e-tailer's website you intend buy from.