Laptop processor help needed! Don't understand specs!

[HeatherC]

Hi Everyone

I am looking to buy DD 15 a laptop for Christmas. But I have no idea what I should be looking for? Saw a Toshiba Satellite at Best Buy for $270 with an AMd processor. Then I saw a bunch with dual core processors and celeron processors, etc. and my head is now spinning.

She is a freshman in HS and would use it for school papers, surfing the internet, facebook, and email. No video gaming. No netbooks either...thinking 15".

Budget is a concern this year, and I am wondering if anyone could point me in the right direction on what to look for?

Are certain processors better than others? Anything else I should be aware of?

Any help is really appreciated. I am an IPAD girl and have not paid attention to laptops in a while.

Thanks so much!

 

[Mom3girls]

I am also looking for a laptop for my 15DD and have no idea what I'm looking for!!! Hope we get some good advice!

 

[Local_Girl]

I asked my DH if he could give you some ideas...he's an IT guy with years of experience. We just bought a fairly high end laptop for my HS senior DS18 to take him into college, but he also wanted a machine with gaming capabilities.

Anyway, here's what DH had to say:
There are only two companies who produce processors these days: AMD and Intel. Intel still reigns king, but AMD keeps up fairly well. I personally stick with Intel processors, because they historically have fewer failures and often perform better.

The number of cores in a processor (also called a CPU for “Central Processing Unit”) determines its processing power. In the old days, one CPU had one core and we measured its performance in the number of cycles it ran. We measured those cycles in hertz, megahertz, or gigahertz. Today, CPU makers have the ability to put multiple cores into a single CPU which effective doubles (for a dual core) or quadruples (for a quad core) the CPU’s processing capabilities. Without going too much in depth, a Celeron processor has less performance than a standard CPU, because it has less cache memory physically on the chip. I recommend staying away from them, because you can purchase a notebook with a higher performance Intel core i5 or i7 processor for just a little more money.
There are many good value notebooks on the market, but I prefer Lenovo, Dell, or HP (in that order). Dell usually has some good deals listed on their website, so I always recommend them to people looking to purchase notebooks for their school-aged children. The notebooks start around $399 and go up from there. Lenovo and HP build excellent units, but they are usually significantly higher in price.

Hardware-wise, you should choose something that has the specifications I listed below. I only list three items, because they are the most important items, and other options are really more user preference than anything else (DVD drive, screen size, etc.). The notebook with the components below will have enough performance to easily last your student for 4 or more years.

Intel Core i5 CPU
3GB (gigabytes) of RAM minimum—more is always better when it comes to memory and prices are very inexpensive for additional memory.
500GB hard drive or larger

Hope this helps!

 

[HeatherC]

Island Girl...THANK you so much. Very helpful.

I found an Acer that meets these requirements on Walmart.com for $379. It has an Intel Pentium Dual Core with 500gb hd and 4gb RAM that is expandable to 8gb. Does this sound like a decent one?

 

[kerplop]

Dual core is kind of mediocre right now, to be honest. Most newer machines have at least an i3 or i5 which is a quad core processor and as you can guess they go from i3-i7 and the higher the number the faster. Dual core is obviously two cores less.

 

[britfish]

This info is so helpful!

so if all other things were equal, which would be better:

Intel core i3-370m processor 2.40 ghz 3mb L3 cache

or

Intel Pentium dual core P6100 processor 2.0 ghz 3mb L3 cache


thank you so much for any insight.

 

[thomas998]

I have to disagree a bit with the previous post. You should get at least 4gb of memory to start with. That is a given...

If you aren't going to be doing games and only need it for the basics, then any processor will do just fine. You don't need the i3, i5 or i7... I know lots of people seem to think more cores are better, but the reality is that if you aren't multi-tasking or using software that is designed to use all the cores, well then the clock speed will still matter more. I know this for a fact because at work we have some very specialized software for forecasting, it would take several hours to run the program, without checking with the software vendor we set out to build the ultimate machine to cut down the processing time.... After creating our monster machine using the fastest quad core processors we could find at the time we didn't notice any real savings in time. I installed the stuff on an old single core gaming computer I had at home and was amazed to find it was faster than our state of the art machine.... when we finally got with the vendor we were told that they had never optimized the program to run on multi-core machines so a single core was all that would ever be used... so don't think more cores are better. They might not be worth it depending on what you are doing with the computer.

As for Intel vs AMD... unless you are trying to create a hackintosh computer there is no reason to chase one chip over the other... they will both run your basic software equally well.

In short, the amount of install memory should be 4GB... if you want to watch movies then make sure it has a DVD drive... If you are concerned with battery life then make sure it is a LED display and not the older LCD display... After that for a basic machine, just stick with bigger names and shop for the best price. Dell, HP, Toshiba, Compaq all make decent machines that you can usually find accessories for easily (like spare batteries) when you move into the second tier machines like Acer you will find that finding accessories that are computer specific can become harder.

 

[timmac]

Dual core is kind of mediocre right now, to be honest. Most newer machines have at least an i3 or i5 which is a quad core processor and as you can guess they go from i3-i7 and the higher the number the faster. Dual core is obviously two cores less.

This is largely incorrect.

Core i3 is dual-core only. Core i5 is only quad-core on desktop machines, and even then only sometimes; it comes in both dual and quad core flavors. On the laptop side, they're all dual core currently.

Unless you're doing heavy multitasking, or using software that utilizes the additional cores, the different between and dual vs quad core may not even be noticeable.