In search of a good Laptop

We'll something will be changing in my life the following weeks. I'll be leaving Mexico to be in Spain for the next year.....My work PC will continue crunching at least part time while I'm away, but most probably my homecruncher will be turned off

Anyway, I'll be buying a laptop (most probably in Europe, but who knows) and I'll looking to get a good one to be used as a desktop-PC. What would be your recomendations?

I was thinking in getting a new P-M (Centrino) cruncher, probably 1.4 GHz or so with 512 MB of RAM, the biggest HD I can afford and maybe a 64 MB Radeon-M.....like the Dell Insipron 600m, but I'm open to suggestions.....

BTW how many WU can a Centrino get done?

We discussed it in this thread:

http://forum.oc-forums.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=186341

When are you leaving? If you can wait I'd get a laptop with the dothan core so you get 2MB of L2 cache. If you can't get that then at least get the fastest release of the banias core - 1.7GHz I believe will be the last. 512 ram would be good, but not absolutely necessary. I'd sacrifice some ram to get a faster hard drive. Laptop hard drives are the slowest part of the entire system. The best you can currently get are 5400rpm with 8-16MB of cache. IBM/Hitachi is coming out with the first 7200rpm model sometime this fall. Both the radeon and mobile geforce are good chips. I'd lean towards the geforce in a laptop from what I've read. Remember you can upgrade your ram later, but you're generally stuck with the cpu - so get the best you can. You can also upgrade your hard drive later, but it's not as easy as adding ram.

I was thinking along those lines.....I'll probably wait until I reach Spain in one month to purchase the system anyway, so if a new core is comming in those times I'll probably upgrade it to a 1.6 or 1.7 depending in what I can find in Europe.....Buying that kind of items here in Mexico is more expensive than in USA or Europe anyway .

So what would be the best get SXGA screen, the fastest Centrino I can find, and a 60 GB drive, with the smallest amount of RAM I can get my hands on?

Good luck in Europe and have a safe trip.

As far as the laptop, or desktop replacement as you said you needed. Depending on your battery requirements, you may want to consider the "Desknote" from ECS. I built mine over a year ago and it has performed very reliably from the beginning.

A barebones system without the CPU, RAM, hard drive nor Windows OS (although a version of Linux is included), can be had in the $650/$700us range.

The advantage of these systems is the ability to upgrade with desktop CPU's and RAM as your budget warrants. I currently have 512MB of standard PC2100 and an xp1600 averaging just a tick over 4hrs/WU.

Although there are no overclocking options on the XP version, there is a BIOS out there for the P4 version that will let you work with the FSB.

One of the downsides of these is the absence of an internal battery. An option that I declined to exercise is the external battery that would add an additional $100+/- to the cost and is reported to have a short runtime between charges with the power hungry desktop components. I elected instead to purchase an auto adapter and have found that this gives me all of the flexibilty I need.

I did a lot of research before I made the plunge and was able to get mine up for well under $1000us. At the time I decided on mine, a used IBM or something comparable with 600/800MHz proccesor was selling for $500+, and anything new was starting in the $1500 and up range without the performance nor the upgrade paths of the Desknote.

If this sounds appealling, check them out at the Desknote website.

Good Luck
FRANK

Dothan will be release around fall time if you can wait.

as for laptop, it's mainly depending on how far you travel it w/ u and how much battery life you'll need?!

if the above 2 isn't a concern, i would go for those "desktop replacement" notebook. you get the fastest CPU, biggest screen, and power hungry GPU too.

however, i do like those Centrino laptop due to the fact of lightweight, good battery life, and fast cruncher. for me, a laptop is used when i sitting on the deck, and browsing the net on a sunday afternoon. and spend all it's life crunching quietly on a desk. that's why i would choose a Centrino over anything.

but for a desktop replacement or the only do everything computer, i would go for the other way. i really love my GF's laptop that she brought 1/2 yrs ago. P4-M 2.0Ghz, 512MB, 40G HD, a very very nice 15.2" wide screen LCD, and Mobile Radeon. she can play games (FPS!) w/ me online w/ her little laptop. and it crunch a WU right around 4hr or a little less.

and i agree w/ TC 'bout HD! you sure want the "fastest" HD you can get 'cos if you had played w/ any laptop, you know how slow it takes to load anything.....