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Laptop Questions

M

Morik

Junior Member
I am a long time reader of anandtech, but i have never bothered to post any. Well now I have a few noobie type questions.
My Questions:
There are many laptop processors out there, like the athlon 64, turion 64, pentium m, pentium 4, and others. Which of these is the best for gaming, best for battery life, and best for multitasking?

Also, I came across a site, http://www.xtremenotebooks.com/ and thought that they might be a good place to buy a laptop. Anyone know if this is a reliable place to buy from?
 
The best CPU for any laptop is probably the Pentium M. You could argue that the Turion is a better bang for the buck and almost as good, or you could argue that the Pentium 4 is a little faster with much worse battery life, but overall the Pentium M is the best.

You generally have to decide how important gaming is to you first. If you want a really good gaming laptop it's going to be hard to find something with a GF 6800 that isn't a P4, and it's not going to have good battery life or be light. If you want a semi-gaming laptop that's still very portable, it's pretty easy to find a good Pentium M laptop with something between a Radeon X300 and a GF 6600. The Dell XPS2 has a GF 6800 Ultra and a Pentium M 2.0 (or 2.13), so you'd still get decent battery life, and I don't think the CPU is exactly going to be a bottleneck for anything.

xtremenotebooks.com certainly has impressive feedback:

http://www.resellerratings.com/seller1277.html

Still, I don't see what you'd want to get there. Comparable Dells are hundreds cheaper without even considering coupons, and as good as their reviews are, I'd still be more comfortable with an on-site warranty from a place like Dell/Gateway.

 
thx man, its just what i needed.
What about the athlons? are they any good in laptops?
In the laptop that im thinking of buying, id much rather sacrifice battery life for performance. Im not gonna take it anywhere much, so its gonna be a desktop repacement to save space. I would go with the p4 but the cost is so much more.
 
Here's a rundown of the current mobile chips:

Pentium 4: runs very hot, powerful, HORRIBLE battery life; found in most desktop replacements
Pentium M: runs very cool, VERY efficient & in general a powerful CPU, top-notch battery life; generally found in most mid to high end notebooks, few "value" Pentium M machines
Celeron M: crippled Pentium M chip, runs cool, runs slower than a P-M but still sufficient, unimpressive battery life; found in most value systems

Athlon 64: very powerful, runs cooler than P4 but hotter than P-M, typically found in desktop replacements; battery life more than P4 but a good deal less than P-M
Turion 64: low power version of Athlon 64; runs almost as cool as P-M; ROUGHLY 10% less battery life for ROUGHLY 10% more performance; found in thin & light notebooks

If you want the best performance for the money, get an Athlon 64 notebook.
What screen size are you looking for? Budget? Gaming?
 
I have a budget of around 1500 bucks(more or less), and am looking for about a 15.4" screen.
I have looked over dell's deals and they look much better than xtremenotebooks in price, But i am interested in getting an athlon notebook. Is there any good places to buy them from?
Also I would like a 128 mb graphics card for some gaming (not sure what is a good laptop graphics card)
 
Boy do I have the perfect machine for you: Gateway 7510GX

Athlon 64 3700+, 15.4" WXGA, 100GB, 1GB RAM, DVDRW, 8-cell battery

Retail: $1399, usually on sale for $1200

Hit up Best Buy, they should have them in store soon
 
You are right, i like that laptop alot, especially for the price. But there is a problem, I live over 300 miles from the nearest Best Buy...
I cant buy online cause i do not have a credit card, is there any other place besides best buy that sells the Gateway 7510GX?
 
I just bought a laptop from extreme, i would say stay away from them, they have 15 day return policy after the time they ship it which basically means 7 days, and i wanted to return mine but it was too late.

The screen i got was shat, it was obvious that the entire thing was hastily put together, all the stickers were crooked, the touchpad was falling off and the keyboard made wierd sounds. get a dell, thats what i would do, even if they arent as powerfull.
 
fbrdphreak had a good laptop im gonna look at, so im not looking at xtreme anymore. Thx for the info though
As for comp stores....i dont know...
I live in the middle of nowhere, 70 miles from the nearest wal mart (hehe). I wouldnt know of any computer stores nearby. Im just wondering if there is an online website i can buy the Gateway 7510GX from, without a credit card (best buy requires credit card).

I never knew how hard it was to purchase stuff off of the internet w/o credit. xtreme had a check payment method..
 
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