Is a 1.5Ghz pentium M processor any good??

Question

I've seen a nice HP pavilion laptop that seems to have great specs and looks nice and is a good price except that the processor is only 1.5GHz. I want it for generally doing officey-type work and for giving power point presentations. I know that you always have to compromise on something with a laptop (unless you're loaded), but should I compromise on this?? What will it mean in terms of how the laptop runs? Cheers

Answer 1

Listen, the best of the best, while still getting a bang for your buck is an AMD Athlon Processor. Athlons are better than Pentiums for one good reason, FSB (Front Side Bus). FSB determines how much information can be sent at one time. The bigger the FSB the more data can be transformed at one time, and vice-versa. Even though Pentuims are faster, Athlons can process more data at one time, making them best for multi-tasking. Let me help you visualize. Imagine a waterfall. The water in the river that leads to the waterfall is represented as data. Now, River A is a skinny river but its moving fast. River B is a really really wide river, so it moves slower, but dumps more water at the end of the waterfall then River A. Since River A is so skinny, it easily gets clogged up. And Since River B is so fat, it rarely gets cloged up. So, River A not only doesnt send as much data as River B, but sometimes it can get clogged up in itself. River B , on the other hand, is a little slower but dumps way more water because its so fat, and usually never clogs up. In other words, Peniums usually come with a low FSB. Thus, they can only send and process a little bit of data at a time, Thats why they have to be fast, to make up for the low data transfer. This makes Pentiums good for doing one thing at a time. Athlons, are a little bit slower, but have WAY more FSB than Pentiums (Usually 2000MHz). This makes them extremely good at tackling many processes at once. Not only that, but they are usually cheaper. Just let me give you a little guide to buying a PC.



The 4 most important things to look at when buying a PC or labtop are:

1) Processor speed

2) FSB

3) RAM

4) Memory



The Processor Speed and the FSB must have a balance. If you get a slow Processor, than you need a lot of FSB. If you get a fast Processor, than you dont need that much FSB. (A fast processor runs over 3GHz. A slow one runs under 2GHz. A lot of FSB is around 2000MHz. A little FSB is under 1000MHz.)



The RAM is very important as it also increases your computers ability to compute and store many things whenever it needs it. Thats why its called Random Acess Memory. (A lot of RAM is over 512MB. A little RAM is under 512MB.)



The regular Memory (Hardrive) is sometimes used as RAM. This is called Virtual Memory. Which is why its also very important because it helps out the RAM. (A lot of Hardrive memory for a Laptop is over 80GB. A little Hardrive memory for a Laptop is under 60GB.)



So, really, there are 3 important factors. Processor speed, FSB, and RAM. But since the Hardrive is used to help RAM, its important to get a lot of it. (they are cheap anyways, you can get them about .25 cents a GB)



I Hope this helps you pick out a good labtop.

Answer 2

For office work and presentations a 1.5GHz Pentium M will be fine with at least 512MB RAM. The graphics may not be up to gaming standard but for what you say you want to do will be perfectly OK. Make sure you get XP Professional, Home is a poor second choice

Answer 3

ithink good . as nothing you buy with money can be bad. make it good if it is not.

Answer 4

A 1.5 Ghz Cpu sounds fine for what your asking it to do, The Pentium M Cpu is not bad ( better than a centrino anyway) aslong as you have at least 256 -512 mb ram to back it up it will run well.

Answer 5

It's OKAY. Depending on your budget you might want to check out this laptop, http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16834115246 this is what I like to call a no-comprimise laptop, it has specs that will best even some desktops, it's an Acer with the following features (priced at $1069):



I have left a few notes below the specs.



Operating System Windows XP Home

CPU Type Intel Core Duo T2300(1.66GHz)

Screen 15.4" WXGA

Memory Size 1GB DDR2

Hard Disk 120GB

Optical Drive DVD Super Multi

Graphics Card ATI Mobility Radeon X1600

Video Memory 128MB

Communication Modem, Gigabit LAN and WLAN

Card slot Type II PC Card slot

ExpressCard/34 slot

Battery Life 3.5 hours

Dimensions 14.3" x 10.8" x 1.1" – 1.4"

Weight 6.6 lbs.

Tech Intel Centrino Duo Mobile Technology

CPU

CPU Type Intel Core Duo

CPU Speed T2300(1.66GHz)

CPU FSB 667MHz

CPU L2 Cache 2MB

Chipset

Chipset Intel 945PM

Display

Screen Size 15.4"

Wide Screen Support Yes

LCD Features Acer CrystalBrite Technology, up to 16.7 million colors

Display Type Wide XGA

Resolution 1280 × 800

Operating Systems

Operating System Windows XP Home

Graphics

GPU/VPU ATI Mobility Radeon X1600

Video Memory 128MB DDR

Graphic Type Dedicated Card

Hard Drive

HD Capacity 120GB

HD RPM 5400rpm

HD Interface SATA

Memory

Memory Slots 2x DIMM

Memory Speed DDR2 533

Memory Size 1GB

Max Memory Supported 2GB

Memory Spec 512MB x 2

Optical Drive

Optical Drive Type DVD Super Multi

Optical Drive Interface Integrated

Optical Drive Spec Read – 24X CD-RW, 24X CD-ROM, 24X CD-R, 8X DVD+R, 8X DVD-R, 8X DVD-ROM, 4X DVD+RW, 4X DVD-RW, 3X DVD-RAM, 2.4X DVD+R (double-layer)



Write – 24X CD-R, 8X DVD+R, 8X DVD-R, 4X DVD+RW, 4X DVD-RW, 4X CD-RW, 2.4X DVD+R (double-layer), 3X DVD-RAM

Communications

Modem V.92 56K

LAN 10/100/1000Mbps

WLAN 802.11a/b/g Wireless LAN

IRDA Yes

Bluetooth Yes

Ports

Card Slot Type II PC Card slot

ExpressCard/34 slot

USB 4

IEEE 1394 1

Video Port 1 x VGA, 1 x DVI, 1 x S-Video TV-out

Audio Ports Headphones/speakers/line-out with SPDIF support

Microphone and line-in ports

Audio

Audio Microsoft DirectSound and Sound Blaster Pro compatibility

Integrated microphone

Speaker Integrated two speakers

Input Device

Touchpad Touchpad with four-way integrated scroll button

Keyboard 88-key, inverted T cursor layout, embedded numeric keypad, hotkey controls, 2.5mm minimum key travel, international language support



12 function, four cursor, two Microsoft Windows keys



Web browser, e-mail, Empowering Key, one user-programmable easy-launch buttons; front-access WLAN, Bluetooth buttons



Volume up, volume down, play/pause, stop, next, previous media keys

Supplemental Drive

Card Reader 5-in-1 for MultimediaCard, Secure Digital Card, Memory Stick, Memory Stick PRO, xD-Picture Card

Webcam 1.3 megapixel CMOS camera

Power

AC Adapter 90-watt AC adapter

Battery 8-cell lithium ion

Battery Life 3.5 hours

Physical spec

Dimensions 14.3" x 10.8" x 1.1" – 1.4"

Weight 6.6 lbs.



The one issue with the laptop is that the hard drive comes with three partitions (two usable, one recovery). The two usable partitions are formatted as FAT32, hardly ideal. To change this, go to the command prompt and type the following command:



Convert C: /FS:NTFS, this will convert C drive to NTFS and then run Convert D: /FS:NTFS, this will convert the other partition to NTFS as well. DO NOT mess with the recovery partition.



I recommend keeping both partitions because if you have to restore, it will only restore the C: partition while leaving anything on D: intact. I find this very handy.

Answer 6

Base on your need, the PC ought to be sufficient.

Answer 7

For a laptop yes!! you will rarely see a reasonably priced notebook have anything larger than a 2 gig processor.

Answer 8

The reason why laptop processor speeds are loxwer than desktops is that the clock speed sucks battery life. 1.5MHz is fine and I wouldn't recommend anything higher until some new clock technology comes out.

Answer 9

that's fine for a laptop... you want at least 512mb of memory though so you might be better looking at dell

Answer 10

in my limited experience, i think it is ok!

Answer 11

Honestly ...AMD and Intel both have their own pluses and minuses. For games,heavy media,some scientific programs then use AMD. For day to day tasks,some graphics programs and video compression programs use Intel To the responder below...AMD's older Athlon based chips (before Intel's "Core" line came out) used on average less power,were cooler and had much higher cycle process (more ops completed per cycle on average) than the the P-4 line did which had to run at higher frequencies (not to mention ran extremely hot) to match AMD's output.. I own a technology company that builds dual gate system boards for both chip makers specs. There is very little difference and many trade off's in the old lines as well as the new lines of chips. But for Your use I'd Have to go with the Intel since most photo editing programs are inherently written directly for Intel's instruction set. So Intel would run a bit quicker,but each would do the job.Hope this helps