Laptop shopping

In My Humble Opinion
1

I have some questions regarding laptops, or really I suppose, all the specs.

How much does processor speed really matter?
Is an AMD Turion™ 64 Mobile Technology ML-32 at 1.8GHz better/worse than an Intel® Pentium® M Processor 740 (1.73GHz)

What really matters in this alphabet soup?

How easy is it really to expand memory?

Here’s the laptop I want ($1149):

Processor & Memory:

* Intel® Pentium® M Processor 740 (1.73GHz)
* 1GB DDR2 SDRAM (2 x 512MB); expandable to 2GB

Drives:

* 80GB hard drive (5400 RPM)
* DVD±RW/CD-RW combo drive with Double Layer support

Graphics & Video:

* 15.4" WXGA BrightView widescreen display; 1280 x 800 native resolution
* Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 900 integrated graphics

Communications:

*
  Intel PRO/Wireless 2200BG WLAN
*
  Integrated 10/100BASE-T Ethernet LAN
*
  Integrated 56K modem

Audio:

* Built-in Altec Lansing stereo speakers

Keyboard:

* 101-key compatible keyboard
* Touch Pad with On/Off and dedicated vertical scroll pad
* QuickPlay Music and DVD buttons
* HP Mobile remote control

Expandability:

* One ExpressCard/54 Slot (also supports ExpressCard/34)
* One Type I/II 32-bit card bus

Ports:

* Four USB 2.0 ports
* IEEE 1394 (Firewire) port
* VGA (15-pin)
* TV-Out (S-video)
* RJ-11 (modem)
* RJ-45 (LAN)
* Expansion Port 2 connector
* Headphone out
* Microphone in
* Consumer IR (Remote Receiver)

Operating System:

* Microsoft® Windows XP Home with SP2

Additional Software:

* Microsoft Works
* Microsoft Money
* Microsoft MSN Encarta Plus
* Symantec Norton Internet Security 2005 (60 days complimentary live update)

Additional Information:

* Approximate Weight: 6.5 lbs.
* Dimensions: 14.11” W x 10.15" D x 1.32/1.67" H
* 90w AC adapter
* 6-Cell Lithium Ion battery
* Includes an HP Sport Backpack

And here’s the laptop I’m willing to pay for ($779):

Processor & Memory:

Learn More About AMD’s Turion 64 Mobile Technology

* AMD Turion™ 64 Mobile Technology ML-32 at 1.8GHz
* 512KB L2 cache
* 512MB DDR2 SDRAM (2 x 256MB); expandable up to 2GB

Drives:

* 60GB hard drive (4200RPM)
* DVD±RW/CD-RW combo drive with Double Layer support

Graphics & Video:

* 15.4" WXGA BrightView widescreen (1280 x 800) display
* 128MB ATI Radeon® Xpress 200M w/Hypermemory™

Communications:

* 54g™ 802.11b/g WLAN with 125HSM/Speedbooster™
*
  Integrated 10/100BASE-T Ethernet LAN
*
  Integrated 56K modem

Audio:

* Built-in Altec Lansing speakers

Keyboard:

* 101-key compatible keyboard
* Touch Pad with On/Off and dedicated vertical scroll up/down pad
* QuickPlay Music and DVD buttons

Expandability:

* One ExpressCard™/54 Slot (also supports ExpressCard/34)
* One Type I/II 32-bit card bus

Ports:

* 2 USB 2.0 ports
* VGA (15-pin)
* TV-Out (S-video)
* RJ-11 (modem)
* RJ-45 (LAN)
* Expansion Port 2 connector
* Headphone out
* Microphone in
* Consumer IR (remote receiver)

Operating System:

* Microsoft® Windows XP Home with SP2

Additional Software:

* Microsoft Works
* Microsoft Money
* Microsoft MSN Encarta Plus
* Symantec Norton Internet Security 2005 (including 60 days complimentary live update)

Additional Information:

* Weight (approximate): 6.6 lbs.
* Dimensions: 14.1” W x 10.4" D x 1.38/1.77" H
* 65w AC adapter
* 6-Cell Lithium Ion battery

In all honesty, the latter will probably do just fine, since I just need this for business and school, though I do want it to be strong enough for photo processing, web design and programming stuff (just starting out) and holding a fair amount of my audio files. I want it to be fast, to be able to do wi-fi internet without a lot of freak outs. I want it to be able to keep up for the next five years. I’d prefer a better battery life than I’m seeing posted.

How much of a difference does hard drive rpm make?

I’m totally open to recommendations, I’d like to keep it under $800. I was hoping for even cheaper but it seems like all the budget places around here are all Acer crazy. I don’t need an OS, if that saves any money.

I appreciate you reading this far, for another boring computer question. I did do a search which lead me to think that I don’t have to buy big memory right away, but I’m interested in what people have to say about the rest of it, and comparison and any possible leads to better deals.

Thanks,
Wendy

2

Spend the extra money for another 512 Megs of RAM, or else you will wind up wishing you did. I was going to recommend also springing for the extra $90 or so to upgrade to XP Pro (XP Home is crap), but since you say you don’t need an OS I’m guessing that you either already have XP Pro, or you will be using Linux.

3

Clock for clock, Turion and Pentium M processors have nearly identical performance and battery life, so the 1.8ghz Turion would be slightly faster, though the difference would be very hard to notice. The Radeon x200M video chipset in the second laptop is much better than the cruddy Intel GMA in the first laptop, though it won’t be much of a difference if you only do 2d work. Then again, if you plan on upgrading to Windows Vista when it comes out, Vista will heavly use the GPU to accelerate the eye candy.

4200 RPM drives are noticely slower, when you are loading stuff up. This could be a pain in the butt when you work with audio files.

As for the RAM, I would reccomend configuring a machine with 256 MB Ram, and then buying a 512 MB or 1 GB stick separately, from Newegg - all the major laptop makers way overcharge on their RAM. I know HP charges $50 to upgrade from 256 to 512, while you can buy a seperate 512 MB stick for less then that - $45 for a 512MB stick from Corsair (which makes top notch memory.) Crucial (another good company) has 1 GB sticks for $110. More RAM minimizes the problems caused by a slow hard drive, since you don’t have to hit the swap file so often.

4

In general, if you’re going to keep it for 5 years, I’d recommend spending a little extra and getting the best system you can afford. It’s money well-spent, IMO.

The only problem I have with system #2 is the hard drive. I’d go with the 80gb 5400rpm HD. If you’re really down to shaking pennies out of the piggy bank though, my thinking is you would have a better system if you offset the cost of a faster hard drive by getting a slower processor as opposed to getting a faster processor but with a slower hard drive. With system #2 I think it would be well worth the $50 or so to upgrade to the bigger, faster HD and leave the processor as is. 512mb RAM should be sufficient.

5

How easy is it to swap out hard drives, say, two years after purchase?

6

I have to confess I don’t know how your two laptops work. But I can say you should check this out…in both my present one and the one prior, the hard drives were ejectable. If that is the case, as long as the new, higher-capacity hard drive fit your laptop, it would be no problem going larger.

A bigger issue would be transferring stuff from the old to the new hard drive.

I heartily endorse the above reccomendations to get as much RAM as you can up front. Sometimes it is a real bitch upgrading memory in laptops. Very brand-specific, though.

That’s about all I can add.