I bought my laptop a little over two years ago. I’m not sure how much laptops have advanced lately. I know they’re all coming with Blueray and HD monitors, so I was thinking about getting a new one. But actually, I dont watch movies on it anyway. Other than my 1200x800 resolution and my mere DVD drive, is my laptop lacking in the performance market?
Clicking on MyComputer I see that it has:
Microsoft Windows XP
Professional
Version 2002
Service Pack 3
Dell XPS M1210
Intel® Core™2 CPU
T7400 @ 2.16GHz
2.16GHz, 3.00 GB of RAM
Physical Address Extension
Any opinions?
It depends what you use it for. I’d say that’s quite a decent spec for a two year old machine. If you only use it for surfing, office suite etc. then there’s no real reason to upgrade. What about games? You don’t mention the graphics adapter, but I wouldn’t think you’d need an upgrade in that department unless you wanted the cutting edge.
That’s basically the same spec as my Mac, and my Mac is no slouch. You’re good for at least another three weeks.
Edit: I’d wait until the issue of adding more than 4 gigs of RAM is resolved. The chipsets are almost there now; it’s just a matter of bringing the operating systems up to speed. When most programs and hardware drivers work with 64-bit Vista, Mac OS X 10.6, and/or whatever flavour of Linux, right out of the box, we’ll be good. OS X 10.6 is slated for next summer; that might be a good time.
That’s more or less the specs for the laptops I currently buy for the folks at my workplace. For standard business use, it’s more than sufficient. Unless you’re doing high-end gaming, CAD design work, or massive number crunching, you’re fine. Is there anything you regularly do that seems painfully slow?
Indeed. Clearly the OP hasn’t got any idea of what they’re doing or why, which puts him/her in the mainstream. People (in general) don’t buy this stuff for it’s utility value (we’d still be running DOS for goodness sake), they buy it for the same reasons we buy deodorant - advertisers make us feel inferior if we don’t. We’re not competitive! Good grief.
That’s a pretty worthless test. I’m more concerned about it being able to perform tasks I may require of it in the near future. Your approach isn’t very proactive.
We are not psychics. Your OP doesn’t describe what your current or planned tasks are. You use a vapourous term like “competitive”. Then you get snippy.
Expect the helpful responses to your question to decline from hereon.
My laptop is older than that, with an Athalon64 3500+ 2.19GHz processor and only 1G of RAM, and I was able to run AutoCAD Civil-3D 2008, in the 3D graphics mode, without too much trouble. Slow to load and save, but generally I could manipulate my work and work for hours without any noticeable delays, slowdowns or lockups. If I had to do CAD every day, and a lot of it, I’d get something more powerful, but for very occasional use, this laptop was more than enough.
I think for home, and even much business use, computer power has kind of reached a plateau. A few years ago, you could see a huge difference in computing power between computes made only a few months apart. But generally, people don’t notice anymore if a given computer is much faster than another, at least not any computer made in the past 2-3 years, IMHO. So unless you really do need it for some graphics-intensive or huge number crunching purposes, then replacing a computer just because it’s a few years old isn’t necessary anymore.
Getting a new laptop because it would be more useful, or just for fun, however, is still a good reason! I got an Eee PC this year because it weighs a tiny fraction of what my other one does, so it’s easier to carry to school, and I use it a lot, but it really isn’t much more powerful than my old laptop (which I use at home… bigger screen).
You don’t need to be psychic to parse a very helpful answer such as:
“Your processor is adequate to handle all but the most intensive 3D CAD Applications. With a decent video card of 512mb or more, you can play all of the latest games, but will probably have issues with the new games coming out next year because they will all have graphics wich require an advance rendering engine and more than a GB of video memory.
Your RAM is sufficient and comparable to most midrange laptops currently sold today. Your operating system is only 32bits. You shouldn’t need to upgrade to a 64 bit OS for another year or so. By then, most all applications will require it…”
Boy was that hard? It’s all bullshit, but someone who actually knows about computers could easily answer in that style without getting all butthurt about my use of the word “competitive” in the title. I didn’t even say it in the OP. I simply asked if my laptop was lacking in performance. If it’s behind the power curve, and will I notice it’s lack of processing ability in the near future. No need to freak out about the word “competitive”. Maybe “comparable” would have been better?
astro, hogwash, jsexton, mnemosyne and sunspace were all able to provide helpful opinions and generalized information without being “psychic”. Nor did they result to being insulting like sunacres.
This is IMHO, not General Questions. I gave enough information for people to share their opinions. If enough people posted that the system is comparable to theirs and they have no problems, then great. If they say that in their opinion, they’d get something better, then that’s good to. I’m asking other people what their opinions are. Hell, someone might say that they play all the latest shooting games and that they’d definitely upgrade if that’s what they had!
When I first got the laptop, I asked a similarly vague question about it. I got a lot of posts and learned some stuff about the limits of a 5400rpm hard disk and such. Had I asked about specific software or applications, nobody would have even mentioned what can’t be done with a 5400rpm hard disk. So sometimes, less specific is better.
Bear_Nenno, the only relevant information you’ve provided is that you don’t watch movies on your laptop. That’s it. Despite several requests that you provide additional relevant information, your clarifying post pointedly refused, claiming that you might learn more by being vague.
Posting the specs of your current system tells us nothing at all. Many people still run productive lab instruments on very old machines running early versions of Unix and even DOS. The majority of users today feel constrained more by their connection speed than their processor speed (some Vista users notwithstanding).
Not if no one mentions what it is that they’re doing.
I’m sorry if this hurts your butt, but it sounds like you’re asking if you should feel embarrassed to be seen in public with your laptop, not whether it’s adequate for your needs.
