Teach me quick!

[Hermskii]

I'm about to buy a laptop for my wife. I'm up to speed on full size desktop CPUs but I don't know a thing about how to compare the mobil chips that come in laptops like Centrinos vs AMD vs Pentium M chips and all. I tend to lean towards AMD but not if Pentium has a better laptop chip in it for the money or just by design.

I'll buy from www.frys.com most likely. They have Toshiba, HP and all the big names. I could order from Dell. Please throw me a bone. I need quick advice. I'm looking to spend about $1,400 total.

Comparison site links would be good too. I'm in a big hurry to do this by end of this weekend. Thanks!

[steven975]

pentium M is a very good processor. So is the Turion.

The Pentium M has the best overall battery life, but the Turion will have better battery life if you do higher-demanding tasks. The Pentium M can turn parts of itself off, so it is better at idle and light loads. The Turion uses less power at load, though. The Turion also has the best performance.

One thing I do not like about Centrino is that it requires intel chipsets and wireless cards. It's an abuse of their market power in CPUs; they have driven many wireless chipmakers (whose chips ARE better) out of business.

The Celeron M should not be overlooked, either. It is a good value.

[Enmore]

The Celeron M is great value, but be aware that it doesn't have the same power saving ability of the Pentium M, so battery life won't be a good. It also has half the cache, but that's not really that big of a deal performance wise.

[Hermskii]

Isn't the Turion a cut back version of the AMD64? Or is the Turion a full version AMD 64 that is mobil? What is the difference between Centrino and Pentium M? I know the Celeron is crap. What is the difference between AMD64 and Turion? I think that Sempron is the AMD version of a Celeron right? If battery life isn't an issue as my wife will have the laptop on a table and plugged in usually, then what do you suggest?

[scrandman]

I'm afraid its not as clear cut in terms of performance vs price as you might think. The Celeron D processors are actually much better than the old vanilla Celeron processors, the main difference being a smaller L2 cache than the equivalent Pentium CPUs.

As for Turion - they are mobile S754 AMD64 CPUs with 1MB L2 cache and lower power consumption than the standard A64 CPUs. They are not sub-standard by any stretch of the imagination.

Sempron CPUs (S754) are basically A64 CPUs with half the L2 cache and a lower clock speed when compared to the equivalent PR number A64 CPUs. There are several variants on the Semprons - the very latest have 64 bit extensions enabled and can support SSE3 instructions. They are also reknowned to be good overclocking CPUs.

[Enmore]

Yeah and Centrino isn't a processor, is a combination package of Pentium M, chipset & Wi-Fi card. Marketing in other words.

[Hermskii]

OK! Thanks. You've all been a big help. It is amazing how fast you can learn something just by asking questions to the right people. I'm going to do a drive by with my wife today. She will certainly prefer one over the other and now I know what to show her as far as her choices go! Thanks people!

[scrandman]

OK! Thanks. You've all been a big help. It is amazing how fast you can learn something just by asking questions to the right people. I'm going to do a drive by with my wife today. She will certainly prefer one over the other and now I know what to show her as far as her choices go! Thanks people!

LOL - I thought a drive by in America normally resulted in a shooting. I hope this is NOT what you meant

[Hermskii]

LOL. Nope. I meant it to mean that I'd make her oooh and ahhh as she checked them all out and told me what she prefered. Glad I did as she suddenly had ideas about what she really wanted. I'll say later what we really ended up with. A hint is 15" screen HP w/ Turion. She likes it. I'm happy. Exact model and all later ok!

[RatboyX]

OK! Thanks. You've all been a big help. It is amazing how fast you can learn something just by asking questions to the right people. I'm going to do a drive by with my wife today. She will certainly prefer one over the other and now I know what to show her as far as her choices go! Thanks people!

Going to call you two Bonny and Clyde.

[Hermskii]

So here is what I got and let me say that the picture does zero justice as it is actually a very attractive laptop.

http://www.circuitcity.com/ssm/HP-Pa...oductDetail.do

It is an HP Laptop. It has a Turion64 2Ghz processor. It has 100GB hard drive. It has 1GB 2700 DDR ram. It has a wide screen for the DVD movies (15.4 in). It came with Windows XP Media Edition OS. It has built in lan and wireless lan network cards. It has an 8X DVD Reader/Burner w/ lightscribe, CD Rom Reader/Burner. It has tons of expansion ports, media card readers, USB2 ports, a firewire port, TV out port, 56k modem, and finally it has a Radeon Express 200M video card that produces right at 100FPS while playing UT and looks great!

This second. I am very happy with the purchase. My wife loves it. I went with the AMD chip for the 64 bit capabilities in the future.

[Enmore]

/\ Very nice indeed.

I'll definitely get a widescreen model whenever I get a new laptop.

[Hermskii]

Thanks! Can anyone tell me how to stop it from throttling down the power while on batteries? I hate that!

[thelmores]

sweet choice, even saved a little on that $1400 budget.......

what are the warranty terms, and is it useful to get an extended warranty..... desktop no way, but laptop?

oh, and it will be a cold day in hades if ever buy centrino crappolo!