Buying A Notebook PC: What To Avoid?

Archived from groups: comp.sys.laptops (More info?)

I've been looking, on and off, for a notebook PC and am tempted by the
prices of some of the Celeron-M notebooks that are out there. Is there
a catch?

While I would appreciate advice in terms of which notebook brand to
get, I'm more concerned about features missing in one of these "value"
notebooks. I've slapped together plenty of desktop PCs together myself
but have zero knowledge of what is being built into the current
notebook PCs.

It's my understanding that while the performance of the Celeron-M is
compromised by its having a smaller cache than the Pentium-M, it isn't
as crippled as the desktop Celeron is relative to the desktop Pentium
4. If correct, I would guess that this is because neither the Pentium-M
nor the Celeron-M uses the NetBurst(?) architecture of the P4. I may be
digressing now but am I correct?

What I fear is that performance WILL be crippled on a discount notebook
because the graphics may be highly dependent on the cpu instead of a
dedicated graphics gpu like what can be found on an ATI or nVidia card
within a desktop PC.

What should I look for to see that this isn't happening? What's the
consensus for Intel's "Extreme Graphics" video?

Archived from groups: comp.sys.laptops (More info?)

The only thing that I may want to do that may be cpu-intensive is hook
up a DV camcorder via firewire for video editing. The main thing that I
will worry about is dropping frames on any video transfer. I doubt that
any internal notebook hard drive will be able to keep and will most
likely need a 7200rpm drive in an external enclosure using either USB2
or firewire.

bobb wrote:
> Unless you are planing to play heavy duty games with this thing I
> wouldn't worry about the graphics part, else research what graphic
> chip$ does one need to play the games you are thinking of.

Archived from groups: comp.sys.laptops (More info?)

<amuskratt@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1107730125.703837.170660@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com...
> The only thing that I may want to do that may be cpu-intensive is hook
> up a DV camcorder via firewire for video editing. The main thing that I
> will worry about is dropping frames on any video transfer. I doubt that
> any internal notebook hard drive will be able to keep and will most
> likely need a 7200rpm drive in an external enclosure using either USB2
> or firewire.
>


You can replace the internal HDD with a
7200rpm 16MB cache unit such as the
Toshiba MK-5024GAY.



dk

Archived from groups: comp.sys.laptops (More info?)

> It's my understanding that while the performance of the Celeron-M is
> compromised by its having a smaller cache than the Pentium-M, it isn't
> as crippled as the desktop Celeron is relative to the desktop Pentium
> 4. If correct, I would guess that this is because neither the Pentium-M
> nor the Celeron-M uses the NetBurst(?) architecture of the P4. I may be
> digressing now but am I correct?

It is correct. Unlike the Celeron which is a crippled chip, the
Celerom-M is simply a Pentium-M with half the L2 cache. Therefore, it is
very good value for money compared to the P-M.

> What I fear is that performance WILL be crippled on a discount notebook
> because the graphics may be highly dependent on the cpu instead of a
> dedicated graphics gpu like what can be found on an ATI or nVidia card
> within a desktop PC. What should I look for to see that this isn't happening? What's the
> consensus for Intel's "Extreme Graphics" video?

IMO, don't even bother with the Extremely Slow Graphics chip. Even an
old chip (like the Radeon 7500 many Thinkpads use) is a much better
chip, plus it frees up memory for program use.

>The only thing that I may want to do that may be cpu-intensive is hook
> up a DV camcorder via firewire for video editing. The main thing that I
> will worry about is dropping frames on any video transfer. I doubt that
> any internal notebook hard drive will be able to keep and will most
> likely need a 7200rpm drive in an external enclosure using either USB2
> or firewire.

Although, as correctly stated by others, DV is not impeded that much by
HD speed, if you want a decent drive, just get the 7k60 Hitachi, which
is a 7200rpm 60gig drive that is on par with desktop drives, while being
virtually silent and cool (unlike the Toshiba suggested above).

Hope this helps
Stavros

Archived from groups: comp.sys.laptops (More info?)

Which notebook PCs will allow me to swap hard drives without voiding
its warranty? Which brand sells the Hitachi 7200rpm drive as an option?

One of the possibilities that I may now consider is trying to get a
refurbished notebook cheap just to play with the insides. Cheap so that
I won't get a heart attack from possibly destroying a $1500+
investment.

I've seen refurbished IBM 1.2GHz P3 notebooks going for about $700. I
haven't seen anything comparable for the Pentium-M. Perhaps these will
apppear when the Sonoma chipset notebooks come out?

Stavros Christoforou wrote:
> > What I fear is that performance WILL be crippled on a discount
> > notebook because the graphics may be highly dependent on the cpu
> > instead of a dedicated graphics gpu like what can be found on an
> > ATI or nVidia card within a desktop PC. What should I look for to
> > see that this isn't happening? What's the consensus for Intel's
> > "Extreme Graphics" video?
>
> IMO, don't even bother with the Extremely Slow Graphics chip. Even an

> old chip (like the Radeon 7500 many Thinkpads use) is a much better
> chip, plus it frees up memory for program use.
>
> >The only thing that I may want to do that may be cpu-intensive is
> > hook up a DV camcorder via firewire for video editing. The main
> > thing that I will worry about is dropping frames on any video
> > transfer. I doubt that any internal notebook hard drive will be
> > able to keep and will most likely need a 7200rpm drive in an
> > external enclosure using either USB2 or firewire.
>
> Although, as correctly stated by others, DV is not impeded that much
> by HD speed, if you want a decent drive, just get the 7k60 Hitachi,
> which is a 7200rpm 60gig drive that is on par with desktop drives,
> while being virtually silent and cool (unlike the Toshiba suggested
> above).
>
> Hope this helps
> Stavros