Each of the above types of laptops has certain technologies that you should look for. Some of the technologies have become ubiquitous for all laptop types. These range from processor types to kinds of wireless connectivity.
Processors
On the desktop side, Intel and AMD are the two major players, so it should come as no surprise that they’re also the two major players on the laptop side. Intel has traditionally dominated the laptop sector, but AMD is becoming an increasingly competitive presence.
The Intel mobile platform is called Centrino. The Centrino platform consists of a Pentium-M, Core Duo, or Core Solo processor; an Intel mobile chipset in the 855, 915, or 945 families; and an Intel Mini-PCI or Mini-PCI-E wireless card. If the laptop has all three of these features, it is Centrino, but if it only has one or two of the features, it’s not. So if it is an entry-level laptop with an ATI or Intel 910 chipset, or if it has a non-Intel wireless card or no wireless at all, it’s not Centrino.
One of the processors that does not fall under the Centrino umbrella is the Celeron-M. Traditionally, Celerons have been scorned as low-performance chips, but although Celeron-Ms run at lower bus speeds and have slightly less cache than their Pentium-M/Core counterparts, they provide comparable performance to low-end Pentium-Ms and Core Solos. The important difference is that Celeron-Ms are missing the power-management circuitry that Pentium-M/Core chips have, called Advanced SpeedStep, which allows those chips to lower their speed and voltage while not under heavy usage and/or while on battery. If you’re not going to be using your laptop much away from an outlet, then a Celeron-M should be more than adequate for most purposes, but if battery life is a concern, the Pentium-M/Core chips are worth it.
The latest craze on the desktop side is dual-core, which allows you to run two applications at a time at full speed. Intel is cashing in on this craze in the mobile arena too, with its Core Duo lineup. Core Duo chips provide two cores in one package, with shared cache so that they can communicate more effectively. The trick feature that they provide kicks in when you unplug your computer from AC power; the chip automatically shuts off one of its cores to conserve power. So you get the power efficiency (and performance) of a single-core chip while on battery, and the performance (and power-efficiency) of a dual-core while plugged in.
For a while, AMD did not have a credible mobile solution. Recently, however, it came out with the Turion lineup, a competitor to the Pentium-M. The budget version of the Turion is the Mobile Sempron. Both offer excellent performance, but neither has especially spectacular battery life, and there is no dual-core Turion version as of this writing. So the best mobile chip at this point is the Core Duo, for both multitasking performance and battery life.
Many desktop replacement laptops feature desktop Pentium 4s or Pentium-Ds, or Athlon 64s or Athlon 64 x2s. In my opinion these are not a wise purchase, not just because of their abysmal battery life, but also because the relatively weak laptop cooling systems have a hard time dissipating the large amount of heat that desktop CPUs generate. This leads to instability and/or larger laptops with more robust cooling systems (which of course means more weight).
Hard Drives and Memory
Because laptops are so compact, they have to use special compact memory, called SO-DIMMs (small-outline DIMMs). This memory is more expensive megabyte-per-megabyte in comparison to desktop memory. Most new laptops also only max out at 2 GB, versus 4 GB for most desktops (although this is changing with the newest Intel-based laptops).
Hard drives are also smaller in laptops than in desktops – 2.5 inches wide versus the 3.5 inch drives in modern desktops. They are also much thinner. As such, they hold considerably less. Until recently, the largest laptop drive you could buy was 120 GB. With the advent of perpendicular recording, 160 GB drives are showing up on the market, but they have premium price tags.
Laptop memory is as fast as its desktop counterparts, but laptop hard drives are usually slower. Most laptops come with 5400 rpm hard drives, and some come with especially pokey 4200 rpm units. In comparison, the norm for desktops is now 7200 rpm. Performance laptop drives are available with 7200 rpm rotational speeds, but high-end desktop drives spin at 10,000 or 15,000 rpm. Although laptop drives compensate somewhat with high data density and large caches, disk IO performance on laptops is not up to desktop levels.
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