Laptop Processors - Help!

paint

Hi all,

I'm looking for some advice regarding a laptop purchase I'll be making in the next couple of months.

My criteria are:-

decent battery life
light & portable (important as I'll be travelling)
wireless connectivity
used mainly for internet surfing and light office tasks (no gaming) and possibly watching the occasional DVD
not bothered about a lot of ram as I'm happy to upgrade myself, but looking for the best core components (i.e. CPU) for the price
cheap as chips (under £500)

I'm conufsed as to which the best processor is these days. I have an Intel Celeron in my old (Sony) laptop, and haven't been happy at all with performance; but I imagine technology has moved on a lot in the last 3 years! What's all this Dual Core business? I'm so behind the times!

Any recommendations as to which processors to go for (and to avoid) would be most welcome.

Thanks

PeteHerts

Have a look at this link.

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=337958

Chippy_Minton

Dual core is two processors on one chip, allowing applications, particularly multi-threaded ones, to run faster.

For wireless dual core laptops, look for machines with Intel Centrino Duo (Core 2 Duo) or AMD Turion 64 X2 processors.

epz_2

it is very doubtfull you need a dual core cpu, the only reason people like them so much is they tend to have crap running in the backgroung of windows that hog's the cpu and makes the app feel unresponsive. in general your cpu will sit at 99% idle and your disk drive will be the biggest slowing factor.

that said the core duo is a hell of a cpu and not much more than the compition, if you are on a budget i would prioritise ram, then an external video card with its own memory then a big disk and finally a cpu.

in order of cpu arch to look for core duos are then best, followed by amd turions (wich i would buy unless the duos are within £50), the pentium M's and finaly the semprons. i didnt mention the cellerons for a reason, their lack of L2 cache hurts you a lot more than any power or price saving helps you.

seriously consider how mobile you wish to be though, example my 17" toshiba has been out the house 3 times but in case i do go out i have 2x 2.5 hour batteries, it means i have a balls out desktop replacement that can be considered portible in terms of battery life if not weight.

£$&*"($£&(

If you need decent battery life that probably rules out the cheaper Celeron-M laptops (the Celeron-M is a far better processor than your old Celeron) as it doesn't have the power saving features of the Pentium-M. I don't know how good AMD processors are with power saving so if you don't go for them your best bet seems to be one of the first generation dual core laptops. These are quite cheap these days and seem to have replaced the Pentium-M. The processor number starts with T2 rather than T5 for the later generation. I am assuming they have the same power saving feature of the Pentium_M

paint

Thanks guys, that's a massive help! Decided to give the Celeron-M a miss on your advice, grahawk, and instead look at the AMD Turions on your advice, epz and Chippy .

Very useul clarification and guidance on what's what regarding the processors currently on the market!

This one seems to tick all the boxes, I think (or something similar spec to this one)... unless anybody can spot anything dodgy-looking with it!

Processor: AMD Turion 64 mobile technology MK-36 / 2 GHz
Cache Memory: 512 KB - L2 Cache
RAM: 512 MB (installed) / 4 GB (max) - DDR II SDRAM
Card Reader: 5 in 1
Hard Drive: 60 GB
Optical Storage: DVD±RW (+R double layer) / DVD-RAM - integrated
Display: 14.1" TFT active matrix 1280 x 800 ( WXGA )
Graphics Controller: ATI Radeon Xpress 1100
Networking: Network adapter - Ethernet, Fast Ethernet, IEEE 802.11b, IEEE 802.11g
Wireless NIC: Acer InviLink 802.11b/g
Power: AC 120/230 V ( 50/60 Hz )
Battery: Lithium Ion
Run Time (Up To): 2.5 hour(s)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005

Only down side I can see is the smallish screen, but I need the unit to be small and portable so that's not an issue really. At £399 a decent buy?

CAT-THE-FIFTH

This notebook is a bit above your price lvel but is relatively small and lightweight:

http://www.morgancomputers.co.uk/shop/detail.asp?ProductID=3662&CategoryID=11&SubCategoryID=228

http://www.msi.com.tw/program/products/notebook/nb/pro_nb_detail.php?UID=623