So I'm thinking about buying a laptop. I was suggested to buy one centrino powered as it offers longer battery life etc. I was also told that the centrino 1.4 chip offers the power equivalent to a pentium 2.0+ I'm not too confident in my sources though.

So how does the centrino compare to the pentium chip, the pentium - M, and athlon chips? Drawbacks and any plus sides other than the extended battery life? How about graphics wise?

The Centrino is the Pentium-M (Centrino refers to the combo of Pentium-M along with their integrated wireless technology). Pentium-M is the best choice hands down as far as I'm concerned. Longer battery life and high IPC (instructions per clock). So yes, a 1.4-1.5GHz P-M performs on par with a 2.0GHz+ P4.

You honestly shouldn't be thinking of getting a P4 notebook. They suck for notebooks.

The Pentium-M is the Centrino based processor. The Pentium 4 M is the non centrino. A 1.7 Pentium M is at least Equivalent, if not faster, than the 2.6 Pentium 4 M. (this is based on Intel's specs)

The centrino technology is also nice because it has built in 802.11b wireless. There is no need to get an additional wireless card.

My buddy who works for Intel says that Centrino is a big marketing hype machine but unlike some of the other hyped up technologies there, it actuazlly meets most of the hype.

A Centrino also runs a lot cooler than the p4M. If you are using it on your lap you will notice a difference. My mom has a 1.6 Centrino and I must say I was pretty impressed with how skippy it is even compared to their p4 2.5 desktop.

I have yet to hear really anything about the AMD mobile processors, but I would assume that they perform fairly well. Go to Tom's Hardware Guide to get good unbiased reviews of what you are looking at along with comparisons.

Hope this helped.

MrS

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Thanks a lot guys

my athlon notebook dies in an hour and a half of using Avid.

My brother's centrino lasts 4+ hours.

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my sister uses a centrino based laptop, she has had no problems at all with it.

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