Significant difference between 1.4, 1.6 and 1.8 mhz Pentium M? (1 Viewer)

[Brian Price]

I'm looking at getting a laptop and the model I'm looking at I can get a Celeron 1.4mhz or a 1.4, 1.6 or 1.8mhz Pentium M. Is there a big difference in performance? I'm mainly looking to wirelessly surf the web, transfer my digital pics and do some basic MS office work. Also, hard drives are offered in 4200 or 5400 rpm. Is this a significant difference in performance also? Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Brian

 

[SethH]

I doubt you would notice too much difference between the Pentium M's. I would not get the Celeron, but maybe that's just me. In my experience there is a very noticeable difference in startup and shut-down times using a 5400rpm drive vs. a 4200rpm drive. Also, if you have any plans for transferring videos onto it or editing videos (I know you didn't list these, but it may be something in the future) you definitely need the 5400rpm drive.

 

[Christ Reynolds]

unless you are trying to really limit your budget, definitely go with the pentium M. 5400 rpm hard drive too.

CJ

 

[DaveNel]

The speed of the drive and ram is the only thing that will tell them apart

 

[Brian Price]

So I would be better off to just get the lowest level Pentium M offered on this model (1.5mhz) and spend my money on the 5400rpm hard drive and more ram?

Brian

 

[DaveNel]

You also have to keep in mind that the way software is today, The faster the better. But if you arent planning
buying alot of software that requires a really super fast
computer. Just get enough ram and a suitable reliable hard drive.

If you want get up to 1GB of ram and a 160GB Hard drive for it. Thats enough ram and in time if you fill that 160GB up just go out and get another one.

You can put up to 4 drives in 1 PC hard drives and CD, DVD, CDRW, DVDRW, Plus now they have external drives on top of that. The solutions are endless.

Just set it up for whats best for you and make sure before you buy it has what you need in it.

 

[Ted Lee]

fwiw, i'm using a pentium m (1.6) for my work laptop (compaq nc6000). i run some relatively heavy apps simultaneously ... and i have yet to have any real issues.

i'm quite impressed with how well this laptop runs.

 

[DaveNel]

Thats what Im saying, You dont have to have a Nuclear PC to get the job done. As long as you keep good maintenance on it

 

[JoshEE]

I've got a 1.5gHz Celeron M and it runs all the stuff you listed just fine. It'll even play most last generation games (not new ones like HL2, Doom3) but thats what a desktop is for. I put in another 256mb stick to bring the total to 512 and i've never had a slowdown related to memory.

If I were to do it again though I would definitely go for the 5400rpm hard drive. The 4200rpm one thats in it is slow as molasses compared to my desktop 7200rpm raid setup. I plan on eventually getting one of the Hitachi 7200rpm notebook drives.

Another thing to keep in mind is the cpu may be upgradable. I know on mine it is (Dell 600m). I could easily upgrade to a 2.0 gHz pentium M in the future after they drop in price.

There a nice forum at wwww.notebookforums.com to do some research or ask questions.
-Josh