Stupid tech

[absinthelisa]

ACK! I'm looking at laptops on a website and I'm sure there are 4 that are exactly the same.  All HPs, all priced within $50 on sale, all with more or less the same memory and hard drive space.  How do I tell the difference?

What's the difference between an Intel Pentium dual core processor, and Intel Centrino dual core processor, an AMD Tuoron Dual

Comments

[joran]

Intel is better than AMD. Cache is VERY important. 1.72 is probably enough to make a difference, but would not outweigh cache or Intel.

Storage space can be added on to, but I'd go for as much as possible. :)

[absinthelisa]

I'm buying a 250 gb external hard drive as well so I can throw a few hundred of my cds on there and not have to haul them around physically. So I'm not terribly worried about the difference between a 100gb and a 120.

But cache is the most confusing. 2 of them have 256 + 256kb L2, 1 has 1MB L2 and 2 have 2MB L2

My last one was a Pentium 4 processor at 2.8 Ghz, they all seem to have gotten slower since then. But it only had 256 MB ram so it went really slow.

Is Centrino better or Pentium?

[joran]

But cache is the most confusing. 2 of them have 256 + 256kb L2, 1 has 1MB L2 and 2 have 2MB L2

I will add to the confusion and say that 512k L2 per chip is enough.

My last one was a Pentium 4 processor at 2.8 Ghz, they all seem to have gotten slower since then. But it only had 256 MB ram so it went really slow.

Heh. I assume you're getting at least a gig, now?

Is Centrino better or Pentium?

I'm not entirely sure. I presume Pentium, but a quick glance at reviews suggests they're better at different things.

250 gigs worth of music. I'm very envious. :)

[absinthelisa]

I don't think I actually have 250 gb worth of music, I'm positive I don't, but between 400-odd cds, about 20 seasons of various tv shows, and random other stuff, I figure the money will be well-spent when I don't have to move it all overseas with me. I'll pull out my 50 fave cds and leave the rest in a box here, dump all the burned avi file disks, and have everything in one place. I can get the hard drive for something around $100

Considering all I do on a computer is internet, torrent, and some music-file fiddling, I'm sure any of these models would provide more than adequate specs. They all have 1gb ram, some are upgradeable to 2.