New Laptop Purchase--General Questions

vanagon40vanagon40 Indiana Member
edited August 2007 in Hardware
My son is starting college in two weeks. The university recommends (minimum)

Windows XP Professional or Windows Vista Ultimate
at least a 2.0 GHz Pentium 4 (or compatible) processor
1 GB of RAM or higher
80 GB hard disk or higher
Support for DirectX 9 graphics with:
WDDM Driver
128 MB of graphics memory (minimum)
Pixel Shader 2.0 in hardware
32 bits per pixel

Here are my questions (I’m looking at a Dell Outlet–refurbished–notebook):

1. What is the practical difference in AMD Turion, Pentium M, and Intel Core 2 Duo? (If your answer includes the words “clock” or “bus,” I will not understand. I attempted to read the sticky in this forum and understood nothing.)

2. Is “Intel Core 2 Duo T5500 (1.66GHz) 2M L2 Cache, 667Mhz Dual Core” “at least a 2.0 GHz Pentium 4 (or compatible) processor”? 1.66 GHz is less than 2.0 GHz, but maybe “Duel Core” means it is twice as fast? (See, I am really dumb.)

3. What is the difference between a Dell Inspiron and a Dell Latitude, other than price? I know the Inspiron is marketed for the home user and the Latitude is marketed for the business user. Specifically, does the Latitude have heavier duty components or will it otherwise hold up better?

4. I (my son) can get Windows Vista Ultimate for $45. I assume that if I purchase a laptop with a lesser O/S, I can easily upgrade to Windows Vista Ultimate. In other words, if I found a good deal on a laptop with Vista Basic or XP Home, could I upgrade for only $45 and it would not be a problem? I do need to worry about losing data as the system will be new to us.

5. I understand nothing about the last requirement (DirectX 9 graphics). Is there something specific I need to look for (e.g., Integrated ATI Radeon X1100)? Or will any computer with Intel Core 2 Duo and Vista Ultimate have these features?

And yes, I know I can get a discount through the University, but prices still start at $1200+. I am trying to get the job done for around $800 to $900.

Thanks in advance for any insights.

Comments

  • ArmoArmo Mr. Nice Guy Is Dead,Only Aqua Remains Member
    edited August 2007
    1: the AMD Turion and the Pentium M sacrifice a bit of proccessing power in order to use VERY little electricity to opertate. those 2 processors will have the longest battery life.

    2: any dual core processor will be plenty, the way the college is looking at it its looking for a single processor at or over 2GB, dual core machines can spread the weight of heavy processesing over 2 processors so in effect it is 2 1.66Ghz processors, plenty fast.

    3. the diffrences in my experiance between business and home are the warrenties. business models usually have longer warranties and cost a bit more.

    4. i wouldnt see a problem with Vista basic ( but im no Vista guru, im sure more posts will clear that up.

    5. you cant really buy a video adapter these days that isnt at least a DX9 card. even the intel xtreme grafics are DX9 certified if i remember correctly.

    one thing to look for are the 30% off cupons you can get off ebay for about $4, when i bought my dell it was about a $1100 machine i got a $4 cupon off ebay and got $300 off :)
  • LeonardoLeonardo Wake up and smell the glaciers Eagle River, Alaska Icrontian
    edited August 2007
    Armo's advice is good. So is his explanation. Unless you plan on a lot of battery use, in my opinion, the almost any dual core processor is far superior to almost any single core (Turion, Celeron, Pentium4/M, Athlon (not X2) )

    Dual core makes a huge difference when you have more than one application or program running simultaneously.
Sign In or Register to comment.