Greetings, esteemed citizens of the Dope. After being, as the Metropolitan Police put it, “the victim of an assault on a train at or around 17:15 on 15th May 2007, at Stanford Hill Railway Station”, * I find myself sans laptop, and in dire need of a replacement.
Having had a trouble-free experience with Dell the last time round, I’ve decided they’re getting my money again. I have my eye on the Inspiron 6400 as a decent blend of portability and performance, at the sort of price a peniless student can afford. I have the option of configuring this with a 1.73 GHz Pentium Dual-Core processor or a Core 2 Duo at the same speed for an additional £125. Now before I splash out my hard-earned money on that upgrade, I was wondering if anyone had any problems using a Pentium D on a laptop - battery life and heat are particular concerns of mine. I’m not looking to upgrade just for the heck of it (for what I’ll be doing on that machine, 1.73 GHz is plenty) but I would consider it if there were serious problems. I’ve looked at the processor specification charts, and the Thermal Design Power for both processors is around 32W - which means, I presume, that they produce roughly the same amount of heat and therefore should not significantly affect battery life or thigh toastiness, but it would be good to have that confirmed.
Dell also gets my money, incidentally, because they’re allowing me to buy it with XP - I refuse to entertain the horror that is Vista.
Any advice, hearsay or what-my-friend’s-neighbour’s-great-aunt-said-to-her-cook would be most welcome.
- I was mugged and had my laptop stolen. It all happened very quickly, and Enquiries are Proceeding. I’m not sure if I’d recognise them again, but there was CCTV on the train and the station, so I’m still hopeful that they might be caught.