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Technology laptops: bulky and powerful or tiny and slow
Started by stoic
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flighterdoc said:
True but the impact of a faster hard drive on battery life is not all that great. That is if the user knows what you're doing, specifically the user should have enough RAM to the point where the laptop doesn't have to use the pc's virtual memory often. At least 512mb of RAM IMO.
And the impact of a faster hard drive on battery life isn't all that great especially compared to the impact the (type of) cpu has on battery life.
Andrew_Doan
Ophthalmology, Aerospace Medicine, Eye Pathology
Moderator Emeritus
Lifetime Donor
20+ Year Member
My inspiron 600M weighs a little more than 4 lbs. With a 1.5 Ghz processor, SXGA screen, 64 MB Video Card, and 512 MB RAM, I'm able to do everything I want. I can run Powerpoint, Word, Excel and Photoshop simultaneously. This computer has enough power for most games too. I haven't tried Doom3 on it however. Looking at the game requirements, I can probably run this game too at the lower graphics settings:
3D Hardware Accelerator Card Required - 100% DirectX? 9.0b compatible 64MB Hardware Accelerated video card and the lateset drivers*.
English verision of Microsoft? Windows? 2000/XP
Pentium?IV 1.5 GHz or Athlon? XP 1500+ processoror higher
384MB RAM
8x Speed CD-ROM drive (1200KB/sec sustained transfer rate) and latest drivers
2.2GB of uncompressed free hard disk space (plus 400MB for Windows? swap file)
100% DirectX? 9.0b compatible 16-bit sound card and the latest drivers
100% Windows? compatible mouse, keyboard, and latest drivers
DirectX? 9.0b (included)
The best thing about a light laptap? I have over 7 hours of battery time with my extra modular battery installed.
3D Hardware Accelerator Card Required - 100% DirectX? 9.0b compatible 64MB Hardware Accelerated video card and the lateset drivers*.
English verision of Microsoft? Windows? 2000/XP
Pentium?IV 1.5 GHz or Athlon? XP 1500+ processoror higher
384MB RAM
8x Speed CD-ROM drive (1200KB/sec sustained transfer rate) and latest drivers
2.2GB of uncompressed free hard disk space (plus 400MB for Windows? swap file)
100% DirectX? 9.0b compatible 16-bit sound card and the latest drivers
100% Windows? compatible mouse, keyboard, and latest drivers
DirectX? 9.0b (included)
The best thing about a light laptap? I have over 7 hours of battery time with my extra modular battery installed.
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Mr Reddly said:
My HP ze5300 (essentially a Compaq) is so loud that I cant even take it to school. I have had it for >1 year, and it is still a tech beast (2.6 GHz, 60 GB HD, 512 RAM, 802.11b, nice video and decent audio) but the fan is always going and it isnt very quiet. Its really the only reason I wouldnt buy one today though. Very good computer, I use it about 3-4 hours every day and have never had any problems.
Idiopathic said:
Those laptops are loud because the processors in them (Pentium-4-M's) get very hot (and thus use electricity quickly) and require big a*s fans to cool them. I'm telling ya, Pentium-M/Centrino laptops are the way to go. They're lighter, thinner, typically make less noise and the batteries last a lot longer (usually twice as long as Pentium-4-M laptops). The Pentium-M/Centrino processor was designed for laptops while the Pentium-4-M processor is a desktop Pentium-4 cpu that's just been stripped down so it doesn't consume as much power as its desktop breathren.
Also, about Pentium-M/Centrino processor cpu speed. A 1.5ghz Pentium-M/Centrino has a cpu performance roughly equivalent to a 2.0 ghz Pentium-4-M chip. That's because Pentium-M/Centrino processors have 1MB of L2 cache (which is very fast RAM that's 'close to' the CPU) vs. only 512kb of L2 cache for Pentium-4-M chips.
My thinkpad T40 (which has a 1.5ghz Pentium-M chip in it) can encode a whole audio CD into mp3's in about 8-10 minutes. So the advantages of a hotter (literally) and faster Pentium-4-M chip (and when I mean faster I mean 2.8ghz or more) only really show up either when encoding DVD's to a format like DiVX (which usually takes a few hours to complete) or playing the latest 3D games.
Andrew_Doan said:
I'm familar with the Inspiron 600M (its pretty good). But your laptop has a Pentium-M/Centrino not a Pentium-4-M processor. And it definately doesn't have an Athlon because Dell doesn't even put AMD chips in their laptops (I'm 100% sure of that). And if the laptop had a Pentium-4-M processor in it (which it doesn't) then in order to get 7 hours of battery life, it would need a battery so big, the whole thing- laptop and all- would probably weight close to 9-10 lbs! (and I'm not kidding about that).
Andrew_Doan
Ophthalmology, Aerospace Medicine, Eye Pathology
Moderator Emeritus
Lifetime Donor
20+ Year Member
globalism said:
😉
Can I play Doom on it?! I'm too cheap to go buy it. Waiting for a Demo!
Who the hell said not to get a centrino? Are you nuts? I have a 1.4ghz centrino and its unbelievable--best battery life out there. Centrino scales down its power usage for the applications that you are actually running, unlike the pentium 4. The pentium m is good too, but the centrino is still better. 1.4 or 1.6 ghz is fine. The whole fascination with processor speed is a grand marketing ploy--unless you're playing quake or doing intense number crunching you don't need some 2 or 3 ghz pentium 4! Seriously, even if you do plan on playing quake or whatever with your pentium 4 laptop, its still gonna suck because the graphics card will probably be subpar--get a desktop for gaming. Harddrive speed is far more important, get one with 5400 rpm.
Oh, and stay away from dells, they're all lemons. I'm not suprised that people get sold on their low prices, but they are IMHO the worst laptops out there, bar none (and I have at least 3 horror stories about 3 separate dell laptops to back up this opinion). If price is absolutely the most important factor in making a decision, get an acer or even a winbook or something, just stay away from dell!
I'll admit that thinkpads are unbelievable laptops. But they are also so expensive. I personally think sony laptops are just as good as thinkpads--or very nearly so. My sony pcg-z1va is dream, highly recommended.
Oh, and stay away from dells, they're all lemons. I'm not suprised that people get sold on their low prices, but they are IMHO the worst laptops out there, bar none (and I have at least 3 horror stories about 3 separate dell laptops to back up this opinion). If price is absolutely the most important factor in making a decision, get an acer or even a winbook or something, just stay away from dell!
I'll admit that thinkpads are unbelievable laptops. But they are also so expensive. I personally think sony laptops are just as good as thinkpads--or very nearly so. My sony pcg-z1va is dream, highly recommended.
Tiny is the way to go. I have a friend that has one with no drives and carries around a 2GB USB pen drive. Works great. Those monsters that weigh like 40lbs might as well be desktops.
Idiopathic said:
I have the same laptop and did experience the same loud fan going on non-stop. This is the most common problem that can be fixed with a BIOS update patch that you can download off HP web site. After I had my laptop BIOS flashed, the fan kicks in only when I do video editing.
If you need more help on how to flash the BIOS then let me know. Be careful! If you update it with a wrong update patch, your system can stop working permanently.
P.S. I didnt wanna sound dorky with my post 😀 ; Ive just spent 7 years fixing computers for living
DDS2BE said:
Hi, Can you tell me what BIOS patch will fix this problem.....it is loud.
Thanks
Michael
