Centrino vs. P4

[Martin]

Alright, I'm buying a computer for university, and I'm not sure whether to go with P4 or Centrino. As far as I understand, the Centrino is a package with a p3 w/ a 1mb cache. Also it has a longer battery life. Also, can anyone suggest anywhere to buy laptops cheap? I'm a little tight on cash.

[Martin]

Also, how important is RAM to a notebook? Right now I'm thinking of going with 1024 megs instead of 512, but I'm not sure.

[Paul]

Well, it depends on what you want to do with it, I only have around 260mb RAM on my notebook, P3 IBM thinkpad and it works fine for all the things I do. I only use it sometimes for accounting, and hook up to my computer to play CS or something so it doesn't need much.

[jonos]

for cheap laptops, build it yourself because then there is no price for the building of it, though then you probably won't get a warranty on the parts.

as paulbian said, it depends greatly on what you are going to be doing, i have a laptop with 8 megs of ram and probably a p2 though i don't know and it works fine for wordprocessing and dos games and whatnot but for anything else ... if you want an awesome laptop that will cost way too much go for alienware cause they are just amazing and they look awesome, but you'll have to ask dan about them vs building own probably.

if its for university desktop just get 1 gig of ram because then you won't have to upgrade your ram amount in the very near future (hopefully). i don't know anything about centrino vs. p4s but i know that dell uses some centrinos and i hate dell so id go with a p4 (which i have now). i don't know how much cache the p4 has though so don't go by my word on these processors.

edit: i meant by 1 gig, 1GB, not 1 1 gig simm

[Cervantes]

RAM is super important I strongly getting 1 gig of ram and lowering the CPU if you are light on cash.

I'm not sure how you should get that 1 gig though. You could get 2 512s, but then if in the future you want to upgrade, (assuming there are only 2 ram SIMS) you'd have to take out a 512 and sell it or use it in some other comp.. If you think you can sell it, or if you think you won't want to upgrade for a long time, go with 2 512's cuz it'd be cheaper. Otherwise, 1 1024 would be the way to go.
Personally, I'd go with 2 512's because I don't think I'd need anymore than that, esp. since its for university and I'd have to use my computer for work not games!

[wtd]

The Pentium-M processor at the heart of Centrino (they only get the Centrino name if they bundle Intel's wireless chipset) laptops is far away a superior design to that of the P4, especially for laptops. It's the obvious winner in that comparison, though I'd still favor the IBM PPC 750VX if I had to design a laptop myself.

[Rudiger]

y get a laptop? get a SONY CLIE they are so cool and you can do so much stuff with them. they are small (i mean tiny) they have a keybarod and touch screen. AND it has a MP3 player, also a camra. But you can put up to 1 gb of memery on it thats alot for it. My brother has 256mb plus 116mb (i think its less or more dont remeber ) on barod memory.

Also its slick>>>>>

But it is a awsome little thing
more awsome then POP TARTES

[Martin]

Portability man

[the_short1]

CENTRINO! ur on a mountain doing ur work and u have the net !!!! wicked stuff.... also... i agree on 1GIG (2 chips) cheaper... i dont think the computers of the near future will need anymore then taht.... hell i only have 64.. :

[Dan]

Darkness wrote:

Alright, I'm buying a computer for university, and I'm not sure whether to go with P4 or Centrino. As far as I understand, the Centrino is a package with a p3 w/ a 1mb cache. Also it has a longer battery life. Also, can anyone suggest anywhere to buy laptops cheap? I'm a little tight on cash.

centrino bascily just means it has a capry built in wifi card and a nice litte sticker. i bivle u can have centrino with a P4.

what i comes down to is what u whont in a laptop, if you are looking for raw computer power then a P4 + 1gb ram whould be good but the more stuff the more $, biger comp, haver comp, more overheating and less batry life. if u are just using it for word procesing then u dont need that much ram or cpu power.

my AlineWare has the P4 + 1gb ram and is heav as hell, shouts out air so hot u could cook stuff and one batty only last 4h when on noral useage and it is a big ass batry. hostly it is not the most probtal thing i have ever seen but the metal case keeps it safe. also if u are low on cash i whould defntaly not recomend AlineWare. I used to have a Dell, there repare service is gr8 but the fact that i needed it at least once a month for 3 years till the screen fell off was not. I find some of the Dell laptops to have bugs in the morth borads wich casued the keyborad to stop working or stuff to short out. but if it is under wartiy they come to your house and fix it for free. i also have seen some acer (if that is spelled right) laptops witch i personaly did not like but i think where cheaper then most other ones.

If i realy need a laptop and was low on money i whould probly go with dell as long as u get the 3-4 year full corverge at home reaper worinty. If you have lots of money to spend on it AlineWare owns all with there cool cases and crazy fast comps. If you shop at futter shop or best buy u can probly find some ok laptops for $1500 - $2000, as to where u get centrino or not i whould say get centrino if u have or will have accses to a wifi network and dont plan on geting an wifi card for the laptop.

[wtd]

Hacker Dan wrote:

Darkness wrote:

Alright, I'm buying a computer for university, and I'm not sure whether to go with P4 or Centrino. As far as I understand, the Centrino is a package with a p3 w/ a 1mb cache. Also it has a longer battery life. Also, can anyone suggest anywhere to buy laptops cheap? I'm a little tight on cash.

centrino bascily just means it has a capry built in wifi card and a nice litte sticker. i bivle u can have centrino with a P4.

Actually, this isn't the case, though it's easy to see how someone might believe that, with Intel's PR constantly talking about Centrino and wireless networking being one and the same.

This is kinda odd, since Intel's wireless networking technology absolutely sucks compared to chipsets from Lucent and such, while the underlying processor is actually quite powerful. Of course it makes sense if you consider that Intel has to avoid people asking why a Pentium M at 1.4GHz can give a P4 at more than twice the clockspeed a run for its money doing a lot of things.

So in short, the "Centrino" name applies to the combination of Intel's Pentium M processor and their own wireless networking chipset.

They're using a decent processor and a buzzword ("Centrino") to sell crappy wireless hardware so the world will think 802.11g in general sucks and will move to their own inferior 802.11b protocol.

[Dan]

ahhh....did i not say that?

[wtd]

Hacker Dan wrote:

ahhh....did i not say that?

You almost did. You just didn't have he part about the processor right. The Pentium M is not a Pentium 4, but rather an entirely different chip line, more directly descended from the Pentium III.

[Dan]

oh u ment about the P4 line. well i knew there was Mobile Pentium 4 so i thougth they could have goten it in a Centrino setup. any how the main point is that Centrino is just a "buzzworad" as u put it.

and for wifi crads i have found that interal/buitl in ones have a lot less rang then the cards u can get for laptops (epsly the ones that have a thing so u can atach an anatin that is extreal of the card).

[wtd]

Yes, "Centrino" is just Pentium M + Intel wireless.

And the reason internal wireless cards often don't have good range is that the laptops don't have built-in antennas that are worth anything. Many good laptops do have these, though, and get excellent range.

The antenna in the iBook, for instance surrounds the screen and allows for exceptional wireless range. The fact that the case is polycarbonate rather than metal helps as well, as the plastic doesn't block or reflect the signal as much.