Laptop Buying Help Needed - Please Help!

[Citadel535]

I am looking into getting a Toshiba 1800-S254. However I read somewhere that lower cost notebooks use Pentium IIIs and not Pentium III-Ms. Is this the case with this one? Also with the Pentium 4 notebooks coming out in March, would I be better off waiting or will it be the same case as with the desktop Pentium IIIs versus Pentium 4s where the Pentium III is actually a slight faster?

Thanks for everyone's help here since I am so indecisive in the first place

 

[bigshooter]

I just got my sister a Dell Inspiron 4100 with a 1ghz P3, 256megs ram, and a 20 gig HD for $1500. That was with the 16meg ATI card. They also have an option for a 32meg Geforce2go now fgor gamers. I played with it a little bit and its great. I do need to get a new keyboard for it since the tab key is a little messed up from something, but other than that it's great. It came with the -m mobile processor, not the older .18 micron mobile processor. Some notebook manufacturers who may have the older mobile p3's left are putting them into the lower priced notebooks to get rid of them. try calling toshiba tech support or just ask. Most of the time the p3's that are 1Ghz and lower are designated with a -m if they are .13 micron.

edit: oops didn't read the full post. The difference between the old p3's and the newer mobiles are the new ones, -m, are .13 micron and have 512k cache, basically a mobile tualatin. The older ones were .18 micron with 256k cache. They do not put regular desktop versions into laptops. The mobile p4's will be .13 micron, and possibly have 512k cache as well, we'll ahve to wait until they come out. I think the p3 will do just fine. If you get a 1.2 Ghz it should be prety comparable to a 1.4 Ghz P4 unless they throw some other tricks in there.

 

[apoppin]

This question has bees asked quite a few times in the last few weeks. If you do a "search" on 'notebook' or 'laptop', you will get a lot of opinion.

If you need a notebook - NOW is a great time to buy. There are even some great deals in the Hot Deals forum now.

It also depends on your budget. Dell even has the new Mobility Radeon 7500 for the Inspiron 8100 (but you will pay a pretty penny for it).

I am going to Hawaii for 10 weeks on a working vacation and NEEDED a nice notebook. I also game but don't have a lot of bucks to spend so I got a VERY nice deal on an brand New Dell Inspiron 4100 - PIII-M 866Mhz/320MB PC-133/ATI Mobility Radeon 16MB DDR/DVD-ROM/back-up battery - all for $1200 and they threw in a Fuji FinePix1300. (Couldn't stand WinME, however, Win2K works fine except for a few games.)

It will play the latest games at either 1024x768 (MaxPayne - details set to "mid") or 800x600 (RtCW & Serious Sam-II - details set to "high") with no slowdowns on my 14.1' SVGA TFT. For a few bucks more you can get the 1.0Ghz P3-M and the Geforce2Go. (Or a LOT more for the 1.2Ghz and the 7500.)

Thye choice is yours. There is ALWAYS something better coming out "pretty soon".

 

[jschuk]

That unit is using the mobile PIII, not the mobile PIII-M. I haven't hear about mobile PIV's, but I would imagine that they require a lot of power, similar to the desktop versions.

Bigshooter:
Actually, quite a few laptops contain desktop processors. I have seen Compaqs with them and quite a few generic brand laptops get away with using them. If you are buying a generic laptop, remember to look for an Intel processor with speedstep listed.