i need some guidance

Mobile AMD processors are paired with poor performing chipsets that reduces system performance greatly.

IMO, mobile P3 is the best. Laptop P4's are equipped with DDR RAM. They are slower than RDRAM + P4. P3 also consumes less power than P4 that means increased battery life. Mobile P3 offers little slower performance than mobile P4 laptops and costs less than mobile P4 laptops.

SDRAM is adequate for mobile P3. Get DDR RAM for mobile P4.

If you are an avid gamer, buy Mobility Radeon 9000 or GeForce4 Go chip equipped laptops. Mobility Radeon 9000 is the best mobile graphics chip.

If you want to play some games in your laptop, then buy GeForce2 Go equipped laptops.

If you don't want to play any games, any mobile graphics chip may suit for you.

When you are buying a laptop, you should check it's battery life.

ANOTYHER THING HAS BECOME VERY IMPORTANT TODAY WHEN BUYING LAPTOPS. MANY CHEAP LAPTOPS ARE USING DESKTOP CPUS INSTEAD OF MOBILE CPUS. AS DESKTOP CPUS CONSUME MUCH MORE POWER THAN MOBILE CPU, THEY DRAIN THE BATTERY VERY QUICKLY. SO BE SURE BEFORE BUYING A LAPTOP THAT IT IS USING MOBILE CPU.

Also make sure the company or seller offers an onsite warranty. Many places offer mail in service that can take over a week of downtime. Remember, you can't go to the computer store and replace too many of the parts that go dead. I think that this (and spitfire's last paragraph) are the two MOST important things to look at. See what you have left in the pool after that. Then look at maximizing your onboard peripherals. After that look for size and price. So long as any Transmeta chips are not in the remaining mix, I think you'll have a pretty decent system regardless of the processor.

so do i go for something like a 2 Ghz p4?? with some RDRAM if i can get some. is sd and ddr ram the same cause i read in different catalouges they make reference to both of them, in some it may read sd ram or ddr ram or sd-ddr ram. which provides the best performance?? i have always been told the athlons perform significantly better then intel chipsets. what is the truth and what combination of hardware will provide the best performing system??? and lastly 64 meg graphics card is better than 32 obviously is that all they are compaired by??


cheers lee

They make an RDRAM laptop? Where?

Complicated proofs are proofs of confusion.

Sorry I misread the post.

Complicated proofs are proofs of confusion.

Yeah, i too am looking into laptops, because they're very useful for school, and because since this thread is also talking about laptops, i decided to might as well ask now, now that the subject is at hand. However, I have different requirements.

What do you guys recommend for me: My requirements are that they be light, thin, and quite portable, and large TFT screen (they're better than LCD... right?). I don't care so much if its 2GHz or not, but as much HD space as possible IS a plus. If i wanted a powerful machine, i would buy a desktop, but i do want something portable, so i don't care that much of clock speed (just that i dont want a 400MHz or something so slow either. What's fast in today's current market).

The greatest risk of all is not taking one!

> in some it may read sd ram or ddr ram or sd-ddr ram.

LOL.. yeah, I understand your confusion. There is SDRAM and DDR SDRAM. The latter is often called DDR Ram (DDR=double data rate), but it is also a form of SDRAM. duh.. still not clear is it.. Either way P3's will only come with SDRAM, which is fine, since they cant really benefit from the faster DDR. P4's would come with either SDRAM or DDR (SD)RAM. Go for DDR if you decide on a P4

>i have always been told the athlons perform significantly >better then intel chipsets

Yeah, no, well.. lets hope this doesnt turn into a flamewar, lets just say Athlons are faster than P4s given the same clock speed (eg a 1400 Mhz Athlon is considerably faster than a 1400 Mhz P4). The same can not be said of P3's. Athlons and P3s perform about on par at the same clock. Now the tricky thing is, all new Athlons (the XP's) are labeled with a PR rating, not their frequency (eg Athlon XP 1600+). The PR number is roughly comparable to a P4 at that frequency.

Now performance is not only determined by the cpu, far from in fact. Memory, chipsets, harddisks, videocard can make a much bigger difference, depending on your application. If you want to play 3D games, you'r in for a disappointment. Laptops are not well suited for games, regardless of which cpu you get. If you want (limited) ability to play games, get a laptop with a Geforce2go videocard, and even then it will be a far cry from a standard desktop in gaming performance.

Before I go on: perhaps you'd better tell us what you will be using the laptop for, and what matters most to you: performance (on what apps ?), battery life, portability, features,price, .. ?

= The views stated herein are my personal views, and not necessarily the views of my wife. =

>Mobile AMD processors are paired with poor performing
>chipsets that reduces system performance greatly.

Sad but true, most AXP laptops come with poor components. Sony seems to have a nice one though, check <A HREF="http://www.sonystyle.com/home/item.jsp?hierc=9683x10011..." target="_new">out this baby</A>

= The views stated herein are my personal views, and not necessarily the views of my wife. =

i will be using the laptop for college and uni work, internet surfing, limited gaming and as a glorifyed mp3 player. however id like the laptop to have the capabilities to do what i ask of it. ill be looking to spend around £1500 which is i dunno how many dollars i just want a really good performing system, quick interface between memory a very capable processor good graphics dvd/ cdrw drive the works really

Heh heh. Glorified MP3 player.   My old Pentium 133MHz system used to be a glorified alarm clock, answering machine, and MP3 player.

In retrospect, it seemed kind of a waste of $2000. But then, eventually I finally used it for programming, graphical arts, and games. So it worked out in the end.  

<pre><A HREF="http://www.nuklearpower.com/comic/186.htm" target="_new"><font color=red>It's all relative...</font color=red></A></pre><p>

Mobile P3 or P4 based laptops are best for you.

Although AMD based laptops are poor performer, this Mobile Athlon XP 1800+ based laptop looks very good. It may outperform a 2.0 GHz mobile P4 laptop. This laptop is from Sony. It costs only $1500 (approx 1150 pound). To get more info cick <A HREF="http://www.sonystyle.com/home/item.jsp?hierc=9683x10011..." target="_new"> here </A>