Laptop - Centrino, Pentium - M Athlon - M etc.

**Porthos** · 25th January 2004

I want to get a laptop but it will be used 90% of the time at a desk with a power supply. As a result it doesn't need to be really efficient, save power or be light. Does this mean I would be better off with getting a straight p4 chip or athlon in my laptop with no centrino bollox or anything?

One of my m8s said his pentium - m 1.4 was equivalent to like a p4 2.5ghz, guessin thats bull or just a nice way of interpretting what its capable of?!?

**Hangman** · 25th January 2004

The Pentium M runs at a lower clock speed but has more L2 cache so it can do more per clock cycle. The chip doesn't run faster than the P4 or intel would be using them as p4's but they do run better and faster than the old p4 M.

The benefit of PM cpu's is they run cooler and give you a longer battery life and also they come as part of the centino platform so you will have wireless built in.

IMO if you will be using the laptop as a desktop replacement machine then go for one with a high speed P4, you can always add wirless in later if you need it and you will get more speed for your money. Also go for one with a dedicated video card that doesn't steal on board memory.

I don't know how much you want to spend but the Samsung V30 HVM 3060 is the bollocks.

**Porthos** · 25th January 2004

cheers, confirmed what I thought about basically ignoring the latest laptop technology because I won't be using it as a traditional laptop.

**radii** · 28th January 2004

are centrinos worth it then?

**Hangman** · 28th January 2004

Originally Posted by radii

are centrinos worth it then?

IMO yes if you will be using the laptop for mobile computing. What I meant earlier in the thread is that if you will be using your laptop mainly as a desktop replacement to your PC then you should buy one with a standard desktop processor and work from there.

Before you ever buy a laptop you always need to think about how you will use it and what you will use it for etc before looking at your options.

**sp41700** · 3rd March 2004

there is a laptop acer make that has a 17"tft screen. Ideal for what you want acer aspire 1700 series.

I would have bought one but its pretty heavy for a laptop and i wanted a centrino