Laptops

[jasonchiu]

hey guys, i wanna get a laptop for x'mas and an example of what i am looking for is this



my budget around that and i was something at leas t 1.6 ghz centrino and L2 cache.

thanks

[v0od0o]

we sure don't understand most of that and we don't know how to translate HK$ to US $

[andyhui01]

$1 USD = 7.8 HKD

[Dark_Templer_102]

Thats pretty good...nice graphics card, L2 cache....80 gigs...but 1.7 Ghz??

[andyhui01]

its 1.7 Ghz Centrino... so it should be equivalent to a Pentium 4 3Ghz...

BTW.. for those who do not know... its about $1895 USD

[Jostyrostelli]

Uhhh I thought Centrino was the battery?!

[andyhui01]

Originally Posted by Jostyrostelli

Uhhh I thought Centrino was the battery?!

I dunno... thats what my salesman told me when I went to buy my fujitsu laptop

[v0od0o]

Nope, the salesman just wanted to sell u stuff
Centrino 1.7 GHz is just a 1.7 GHz processor, some of these are celerons and some are pentium 4s, centrino is just a name intel came up with and it seems to certify laptops for some features before it awards it the centrino name, most of the stuff are battery saving features (like speedstep technology) and stuff. It's a lot of hype so I had a hardtime separating hype from the truth, but anyway, it's not equivalent to P4 3GHz

--EDIT--
I take back some of that as I read more about centrino, I will post my final opinion in a later post

[Dark_Templer_102]

Though, i love how its chinese and English...i can read all the english and some of the chinese (i'm chinese)

[zenon]

If you are going to be using your laptop on battery power quite a bit, I would highly recommend you get a Centrino or AthlonMobile chip. With these new power hog laptops (2.5ghz and up) it is not uncommon to get around an hour and a half of battery life.

But if you are buying a laptop, what you should do is decide exactly what you will be using it for. If all you want is mobile computing, that laptop would be perfect. If you want a desktop-equivalent, then you will want to look at something a lot more expensive.

However, from my own personal experience, I'd say what you have there is perfect in terms of a laptop. Personally, I think a perfect laptop should be small, light, have good a screen and long battery life. A laptop will never be a true desktop equivalent so you may as well go for something small and efficient.

I've got a bit of experience in this area to, as I did tech-support for HP\Compaq laptops all last summer.

[Jostyrostelli]

I have this: with some extras (100gb HD, and some RAM)
http://www.cbsys.net/en-gb/dept_73.html

Battery is for about 2 hours.
Screen is clear.
Touchpad has a scrollfunction (move your fingertip down the sides and the page scrolls down with the speed you want, very very handy)
No problems sofar.

Bad things:
When using it in the train it gets a bit hot when you have it on your lap, can be nice in the winter, but I'm not using it that much outside
It's not as flat as others, kinda heavy too (about 3,5kg)

I bought it for school, but most of the time I'm on the laptop instead of the regular pc.

It was about 800euros and it works fine, can play all games and no speedproblems.

Maybe you should check this out?

[Kip_6666]

Don't be fooled by the ghz, centrino's are very fast.
Just like amd models they do more work per clock cycle.

Here are some benchies:
http://www.x86-secret.com/popups/art...dow.php?id=108

The biggest, and most important factor i think is that they're very easy on the battery. Consumeing a considerable less amount of power.

The laptop as a whole looks great too, nice amount of ram, nice vid card, and a big hdd to store all your favourite top gear episodes.

But, if your only gonna use this thing to watch movies, surf the interent and your avarge office stuff its overkill.

Games one the other hand will work nicely

[Overheat]

Originally Posted by v0od0o

Nope, the salesman just wanted to sell u stuff
Centrino 1.7 GHz is just a 1.7 GHz processor, some of these are celerons and some are pentium 4s, centrino is just a name intel came up with and it seems to certify laptops for some features before it awards it the centrino name, most of the stuff are battery saving features (like speedstep technology) and stuff. It's a lot of hype so I had a hardtime separating hype from the truth, but anyway, it's not equivalent to P4 3GHz

Wrong, wrong, wrong.

Firstly, Centrino is the name of a technology by Intel as far as my understanding goes. They use it to describe laptops that use Mobile CPUs, the best of which is currently the Pentium M. A 1.7GHz version of this is the equivalent of a 3.4GHz Pentium IV desktop chip (a simple rule of thumb that is easy to follow is to double the figure, which works at the moment). My laptop has a 3.0GHz desktop chip in it and as a result is cheaper, but also consequently is a lot bulkier as it requires a lot more cooling and the battery will not last as long.

As for the laptop you've chosen, it seems to be a good laptop specs wise, but be aware that Compaq haven't made a decent Presario laptop for at least 2 years now. Always look for reviews when hunting down a new laptop as specs aren't everything. They tell you nothing about build quality, durability or even general performance.

For your budget and for the specs that you want I would recommend a Systemax Tourbook 5207:



Read a review of it here: http://www.pcpro.co.uk/reviews/63383...book-5207.html

I hope this information is helpful to you.

[bahnstormer]

centrino is awesome. currently the best for laptops, heck
i'm even cosidering running the dothan chipset on my pc
http://www.gamepc.com/labs/print_con...d=dothangaming
check the specs and benchies there...

u can run a centrino o/ced and not even use a fan...ridiculous =]
and for about 1/2 the price of a top of the line amd/p4 u'll have
benchmarks just as good!

[Overheat]

The Acer Ferrari that Josty posted isn't a bad laptop at all, but you are paying over the odds for the paintjob. Depends whether you're a form over function person, as to whether you are attracted to this laptop. I would not recommend it though. Here's a good review of it from my usual source:

http://www.pcpro.co.uk/labs/64864/ac...i-3200lmi.html

[v0od0o]

Centrino processors (also called Pentium-M) are basically an evolution of the PIII architecture, for those of you in the know u'll remember that the PIII architecture (and the Athlon's) does more work per clock cycle than the P4, so why didn't intel stick with it you may ask, because it doesn't allow them to get to higher clock speeds.
Without getting into much detail about the internal architecture, Centrino processors are somewhere in between the PIII and the P4 processors, they tried to get the best of both worlds and come up with an architecture that allows the processor to do more work per clock cycle than the P4 and still max out at higher clock speeds than the PIII, they pretty much succeeded.
However you should not double the clock speed as someone here said to find an equivaltent P4 processors, generally speaking a centrino 1.6 GHz can match or slightly outperform a P4 2.4 in some tests while the P4 can trash it in others that are optimized for the Pentium 4. Currently a 2GHz Centrino is almost an even match for a P4 3.4GHz
And of course being designed for laptops it boasts better power saving to help prolong battery life.
This is just to correct the mistakes I mentioned in an earlier post

For jasonchiu in a nutshell, I guess this is a good laptop

[dukenukem]

I am stuck with either staying PC or going mac cant make up my mind one either

[Overheat]

Obv depends on the application.

[dukenukem]

i need UNIX for my grad courses and i need my games too why cant i have both !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Overheat]

u can - multiple os' don't bother with macs if u want games tho, and same goes for a solo linux partition