Planetarion Forums

Rids · 3 Apr 2005, 18:25

...So, I'm looking to buy myself a Laptop, I've browsed all the regular websites where you can get your laptop, while being anally reamed on the price too.

The problem is, I know little about laptops, normal desktops I'm cool with, I understand the processors etc.

But when it comes to Laptops, why is a Pentium-M 1.7 more expensive than a Pentium 4 3.06? Soo, my faithful denizens of GD, I throw this question out to you.

Budget £800 - could be extended to £1000 if there is something I absolutely positively must get. Bluetooth is a must. Wifi is a definate bonus. Full size, not one of these faggy half Vaio's.

Show me what you can do!

MrL_JaKiri · 3 Apr 2005, 19:08

A Pentium M 1.7 has about the same performance as a Pentium 4 3.06, but is implausably cooler and more power efficient.

"What do you want to do with it?" is the main question. Games? Work? Both? Neither?

Rids · 3 Apr 2005, 19:35

Bit of everything really, will be some gaming on it but nothing tooo graphically intensive, most it will have to pu up with will be a bit of WoW and some FM2005.

There will be some work related stuff on there, but again nothing too processor intensive.

Needs to be able to play DVD's (obviously)

Long battery life would be nice, but its not essential.

pig · 3 Apr 2005, 19:53

well Ive had two laptops a "m" and a high processer, what mrl_jakari said, the performence isnt that noticeable, but the M one is cooler. The general rule I use is, travelling, moving around, then I will take the "mobile" one. For stuff like gaming, watching dvds then I will use my 2.8ghz sony vaio with a large sweet screen.

Performance wise you dont notice much until you play certain games, but the m one is considerably lighter, and can of course connect to the internet at hot spots etc.

If you were looking for a laptop as a mobile extension of your desktop, I would recommend the m one, however if you were looking for a laptop as a replacement to your desktop I would go for the high ghz, high gb, high ram laptop.

My high ghz, high ram laptop has had a problem though, the ac jack fell into the back, its been sent away but needs a new motherboard..which leads me onto my next point get insurance it will be worth it, and you never know near the end of the 3 yrs insurance barrier your laptop might break mysteriously...

If you need any more help im on irc most of the time :/ or forum msg me and i can try and tell you which is the best...

good luck

pig

smeg9 · 4 Apr 2005, 18:57

Go for the CENTRINO Processor, the 1.7 one...

I am an AMD supporter, but the CENTRINO processor is very good, Pentium 4 based processors are far too slow. I use a 2 ghz P4 Mobile, but when it's on battery it cuts down to about 800Mhz to conserve power, but that's too slow to use for what I do... Even the Centrino 1ghz (in my collueges HP Tablet PC) is about twice as fast as the laptop. Even when the laptop is plugged in on mains. Go centrino. HP Make some solid machines, but they are expensive.

meglamaniac · 5 Apr 2005, 08:53

The main reason for the Pentium M series is power efficiency, so basicly if you get a P-M model you'll get more of that most holy of laptop resources - battery life.
If you're on a really tight budget, you can do a lot worse than something like this. Yes, it's a celeron not a pentium, it has a small harddrive and limited memory, and it has integrated graphics but it's a good starting point - the more budget you have the more of those things you can improve.
Getting one built around the Centrino platform can be useful for the wireless networking. Please note Centrino is not a processor, it's a brand name given to a certain combination of low-power Intel components including the Pentium-M, the specific motherboard chipset and wireless networking adaptor.

Frankly if all you want to do is play FM05 and WoW that would probably be ok, if a little limited on the memory side. The first thing I'd improve if you have money to spare is look for one with 512MB RAM and maybe a Pentium-M rather than a Celeron-M. There's not a lot of point getting a faster processor (in terms of Ghz) for the sort of thing you want to do, as all it will do is drain battery life - it doesn't sound like you'd be using it really.