Help me decide on a new laptop

[Kappo]

HOLA! I am going to be buying a new laptop soon and I wanted to get some opinions on what you guys would think of the ones I am eyeballing.

I have around $1600 total to spend (although less is better ), and the things that are important to me are speed (duh), light mobility (sub 8lbs), mediocre battery life (2ish hours), and screen quality.

As an idea I have found two that I like, although I am still looking (and not only at this vendor, they just have a good layout so you can see what you can get).

I will be using this laptop ultimatly to replace my desktop, but for the most part I REALLY dont need everything my desktop has to offer. I play a few games, but nothing that is REALLY demanding (Far Cry, COD, etc), I will be using this as a development machine (homesite, Virtual Server/VMWare, MySQL, Butchering pics with Photoshop), sufing, office apps (GAG lotus notes, access, etc), and the aforementioned style of games.

Obviously the more battery life the better, but just a few hours is good enough for me to get some coffee and not run into any issues. The straight P4's are just out because the batteries are almost worthless. Im pretty stuck between a centrino and an AMD64 processor.

My configs have all been pretty much the same other than the processor:

ATI 9700 pro
1 gig ram
40 gig 5,400 HD
15" SXGA+
DVD/CDRW

Here are two that I have been looking at. If anyone knows anything about the quality of these screens (which is pretty important to me), please let me know

AMD Machine

Centrino Machine

The AMD is heavier, but just at the limit of "to heavy". It also offers expandability for when the 64 bit windows hits. I only need to keep the laptop about 3 years so Im not sure if that is even remotely an issue.

The Centrino is lighter and better on the battery life, and is SLIGHTLY slower, but games are the same because they are mostly dependant on the GPU.

So that leaves the screen. Anyone got any info for me?

Thanks in advance!

 

[Kappo]

no love

 

[dariusw]

If you're looking at IBuyPower, you might check out the IBuyPower CL; it's the Compal CL-56, which is a notebook most-drooled-about by the hardcores on www.notebookforums.com.

 

[alexruiz]

The P-M is more than just slightly slower..... It has a lot of punch, no doubt, but keep in mind that so far NOBODY has performed a demanding review of a banias/dotham machine. All you find is the usual light stuff, sysmark, pcmark, the garbage called mobilemark, etc. A few have gone farther and run superpi (a cache friendly benchmark) Sandra, etc. However, no one has attempted to run autocad, or to transcode a complete DVD, or to create a video clip with transitions, no one has compiled code on a dotham/banias machine, etc. Almost no gaming benchmarks, but you have a good point about the GPU.

Set your priority. In fact, if you have the money and the willingness get both, test them head to head, choose and return the loser. Post results here

Power - K8
Portability - P-M


Alex

 

[DarkAmeba]

I'd say the Pentium M is the best windows notebook processor you can get. Awesome balance of power and portability.

One thing in your post you mention that your configs have the 9700 pro. There is no mobile 9700 pro. What you have been seeing is the 9700 m. Though a bit deceptive the 9700 m performes more like a 9600xt... not shabby at all but no where near 9700 pro speed.

Now.. I would recommend you to a Apple Powerbook G4. Just recieved my brand new 15 inch yesterday and I have fallen hopelessly in love

 

[Kappo]

Alex,

Most of the benches I have seen put the 1.8 dothan a bit ahead of the amd64 3000+ in encoding. I WOULD be very interested in seeing what crunches numbers faster overall, and by how much the winner is.

For my purposes, I dont need the absolute fastest at everything. If that were the case I would use my desktop Honestly, I can take a 5% hit in performance for 2 less pounds and 2 more hours of battery. It it is a HUGE difference then I would have to reconsider for sure, but I dont get to test alot of these laptops What benches would you suggest to test the business end (opening applications, running a database, crunching numbers, compiling, etc)? I dont have that many I can test (or get my friends to test for me and give me results), but any other way I can get an idea of how less/more powerful one or the other is.

"Now.. I would recommend you to a Apple Powerbook G4. Just recieved my brand new 15 inch yesterday and I have fallen hopelessly in love"

I will get an apple when they support all my games, allow me to run SQL/MySQL and give me the bang for my buck that Im looking for

As for the video card, I know it isnt like a desktop 9700 pro I dont ever use all of the one I have, so I know that will give me some longevity, but it is far from being a monster HOpefully it should suffice for 3+ years for the stuff I play

Thank you guys for the input! Keep it coming! You should see the sticky notes I have posted everywhere at work now! Notes on everything!

 

[jeffbui]

http://www.spec.org/cpu2000/results/cpu2000.html

The Pentium M 755 outperforms the P4e 3.4GHZ on CINT2000. Is this not in depth testing? It also outperforms the Athlon FX-51. The only chip that outperforms it significantly is the P4EE @ 3.4GHZ.

However, on CFP2000 it's performance is mediocre.

This chip can hold it's own under demanding apps. There's a reason Intel is dropping the Prescott core and switching their desktop processor line to something more akin to Dothan.