Please Help me order a Laptop...

[Caveman]

Planning on a Dell system...

1.) Would you get a get XP Home or Pro ($79 price difference)? Just plan to use the Laptop for simple things and a small home network (4 computers max). Wouls Pro be of any value here?

2.) USB 16 MB Memory storage key. Seems like a great idea in placed of a floppy. Any comments why it wouldn't be a good idea?

3.) Radeon 7500 16 MB or 32 MB? Not really planning on gaming, just business apps -- will I benefit from an additional 16 MB vid mem? Are these cards DX 8.1 compliant? Are these about equivalent to a Nvidia GF3?

 

[John]

1) Home is fine for you
2) I still use floppies for random things. If you don't think you'll ever need one then get the flash memory instead
3) The Radeon mobility 7500 is DX 7 compliant, the 9000 is DX 8.1

Which model are you looking at?

If you plan on keeping the laptop for a while I would spend a little more money and get a Centrino notebook.

 

[Caveman]

http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.cfm?catid=40&threadid=1033334&FTVAR_MSGDBTABLE=

From the "Hot Deals" forum here... Computer is at link above.

As for the Centrino, I'm confused... 95% of my computer time will be "plugged in" so the power savings isn't to much of an advantage for me. Does Centrino offer anything else for basic laptop use?

Do you know about how fast a 7500 is compared to a GF3???

 

[DannyBoy]

7500 is like equivalent to a GF2.

Try looking around eBay. You get some good bargains there

1 more thing, try the "Notebooks & Small Form Factor" forum for a question like this