New laptop help

Factual Questions
1

Hey folks,

I’m looking into buying a new laptop and was wondering about a few things… First of all, I travel for work (seriously… most of my things are in storage and I live on a bus and in hotel rooms) so I’m thinking it’s time for an end-all-be-all purchase here. My Toshiba Satellite is getting to be a bear, plus it’s heavy to cart around (9 pounds).

But here’s the thing: I was looking at Sony Vaio notebooks, and I like the FZ series, and everything I’ve found online agrees that it’s a great product. But when I go to customize it (just to see the prices) the highest processor speed it will allow me to choose is 2.6 GHz. But… my old Toshiba is at 3.06 GHz. So, what am I missing? This thing can hardly handle iTunes and Firefox at the same time, so why is the processer speed higher?

Also, I added a 200 GB hard drive, a Blu-Ray Disc Read and Write Drive, a bigger battery, and 2 GB of memory, and the total is coming to about $2,500 before tax and shipping. Is this good?

Any info is appreciated before I make this big purchase! And of course, any suggestions for a completely different product is also appreciated. Like I said, it’s basically a desktop replacement, so I need something for everyday-use, gaming, business, etc… Thanks!

2

[QUOTE=DooWahDiddy]
Hey folks,

I’m looking into buying a new laptop and was wondering about a few things… First of all, I travel for work (seriously… most of my things are in storage and I live on a bus and in hotel rooms) so I’m thinking it’s time for an end-all-be-all purchase here. My Toshiba Satellite is getting to be a bear, plus it’s heavy to cart around (9 pounds).

But here’s the thing: I was looking at Sony Vaio notebooks, and I like the FZ series, and everything I’ve found online agrees that it’s a great product. But when I go to customize it (just to see the prices) the highest processor speed it will allow me to choose is 2.6 GHz. But… my old Toshiba is at 3.06 GHz. So, what am I missing? This thing can hardly handle iTunes and Firefox at the same time, so why is the processer speed higher?

Also, I added a 200 GB hard drive, a Blu-Ray Disc Read and Write Drive, a bigger battery, and 2 GB of memory, and the total is coming to about $2,500 before tax and shipping. Is this good?

Any info is appreciated before I make this big purchase! And of course, any suggestions for a completely different product is also appreciated. Like I said, it’s basically a desktop replacement, so I need something for everyday-use, gaming, business, etc… Thanks!
[/QUOTE]

#1 Ditch the blu-ray, not enough call to be worth it on a day to day basis unless you do have a specific need for it.

#2 How much HDD space do you really use? If you tend to run fairly light you might consider a solid state drive and carry a 2.5" external for bulk storage of media. SSD’s are IMHO taking off nicely, they will make you machine faster when caching, more resistant to shock damage, and increase your battery life dramatically.

Where are you running the customization so we can all play along

3

Thanks for the info on the Blu-Ray. I know 200 gigs is a lot, but it was just a matter of wanting it to be a long-term solution. I do have a 160GB external (travel size) hard drive… what is a “solid state drive”? I’m not sure I want to have to plug something in every time I want to run a program, though.

I’m just at sonystyle.com, looking at the VAIO FZ290.

4

[QUOTE=DooWahDiddy]
Thanks for the info on the Blu-Ray. I know 200 gigs is a lot, but it was just a matter of wanting it to be a long-term solution. I do have a 160GB external (travel size) hard drive… what is a “solid state drive”? I’m not sure I want to have to plug something in every time I want to run a program, though.

I’m just at sonystyle.com, looking at the VAIO FZ290.
[/QUOTE]

SSD’s are replacements for standard hard drives that use flash ram rather than spinning disks. They are significantly faster, more durable, and less power hungry. Problem is, they tend to be on the small side. A 32G runs about $400

On the plus side you also get a machine that boots in 10-15 seconds.
Nice detailed article

5

Your old one is a - Celeron?

The prospective one a core duo Pentium with 2 cores?

I have a much cheaper Toshiba, an Equium A-100 with a 2-core Pentium core duo running at 1.6GHz (each) and 1GB RAM. it runs Vista home premium more than acceptably well and I can have three browsers with multiple tabs (up to 30), Open Office running and Media player playing all together quite happily.

6

[QUOTE=Myglaren]
Your old one is a - Celeron?

The prospective one a core duo Pentium with 2 cores?

[/QUOTE]

I’m sorry, are you asking me something or telling me something? I’m having a hard time figuring out if you’re answering my question or asking for more information. I’m not completely computer-illiterate but basically I was just looking at the numbers… 2.6 is lower than 3.06. Is it not that simple? Of course, it wouldn’t surprise me if it weren’t…

7

[QUOTE=DooWahDiddy]
I’m sorry, are you asking me something or telling me something? I’m having a hard time figuring out if you’re answering my question or asking for more information. I’m not completely computer-illiterate but basically I was just looking at the numbers… 2.6 is lower than 3.06. Is it not that simple? Of course, it wouldn’t surprise me if it weren’t…
[/QUOTE]

You are probably looking at a 2.6Ghz Dual Core, meaning, two 2.6Ghz processors working tag team or roughly 40% more power than your older 3.06.

8

Also the Pentium is a completely different animal to the Celeron, much faster for the given clock speed.

Yes, I was kind of asking but also presuming that it may be that the old one was a Celeron given your description of it’s limited abilities and that the new one would be a dual core Pentium.

9

Clock speed (e.g., your “3.06 ghz” figure) is only useful for comparing processors within the same family (say, one Pentium 4 vs another Pentium 4). Changes in chip architecture, like the aforementioned move from a Celeron or even a Pentium 4 to an Intel Core 2 Duo, make a huge difference. A Core 2 Duo of any clockspeed is incredibly fast–you won’t be disappointed.