A question about Dothan

[Cain000]

I?m buying a T42 sometime between now and July. I?ve narrowed my choices down to the following two options:

2378DUU - $1595
2378FTU - $1813

Both have 14? displays, 802.11g, dvd/cd-rw, 40gb, 256mg, and radeon 7500. The more expensive one has a 1.7ghz Dothan and the cheaper one has a 1.5ghz original Pentium M.

I?m wondering if the Dothan is worth the extra $200. I usually tax my systems pretty good. On my current 1.4ghz Athlon / 512mb desktop it is not odd for me to a p2p app with 40+ dls, photoshop, winamp, word, nero, and a dozen explorer pages all at one time. That?s pushing it, but ideally I?m a big multitasker.

Also, is there any harm in buying now? Would waiting another two weeks make any difference? Thanks for your help.

 

[rainypickles]

for me, 200 is not worth it, but if you really do that much, it might be worth it for you. i would guess it would help.

you should definitely get more than 256mb ram though, probably add a 512 stick.

btw, if you routinely have a dozen explorer pages open, you may want to get a browser that supports tabbing, such as opera (my fave) or firefox (forum favorite, it seems). it makes browsing a lot easier. that and mouse gestures.

 

[thuned]

If you really multitask to that extent, I suggest the money's better spent on a gig of ram than the 1.7 dothan. You really can't afford the disk thrashing in a slowass laptop hdd so you need to have everything in the memory if you want to run things at decent speeds. Not like any of the stuff you listed needs any processing power. (Except for that photoshop, but then you wouldn't be applying filters 100% of the time, would you?).

Would waiting another two weeks make any difference? Yes, especially the ram (I'm assuming you're going to put ram in yourself). Buy a 512 stick once you get your laptop. Once the prices go down in a couple of months, swap out the 256 for another 512 stick. Unless you change your multitasking habits.. which you might, since it's not a desktop anymore.