About ready to order up a M3450 seems like the perfect balance of performance and size for me. I am looking for something strong and solid performance wise yet not 8+ lbs to do mainly office, games like microsoft flight sim 2005, rollercoaster tycoon etc (not super new high end games), digital photo manipulation, web design, surf web, burn a dvd or two etc.
Had a few quick questions since this dual core stuff is all new to me, would a dual core really perform much faster on multiple tasks than a single pentium M chip? I was very close to ordering up a M3200 sentia but was a bit afraid it might be too small in person and the pent M vs dual core on this M3450 makes it seem like the 3450 would have more punch on performance and ram speed and that 14 inch screen on the 3450 would probably actually fit my needs even better size wise.
I also am curious would i see or feel a difference between
Intel® Core™ Duo Processor T2300 1.66GHz 2MB Cache 667MHz FSB
&
Intel® Core™ Duo Processor T2400 1.86GHz 2MB Cache 667MHz FSB
I was thinking of upgrading the processor vs upgrading the ram, then adding a stick of 1 gig on my own later (thinking in my mind it is probably easier to upgrade ram later as a customer than to attempt to upgrade a processor in a laptop). The step up from 1.66 to 1.88 is $100 currently on aw page btw, the next step up is an additional $150 so $250 more to go from a 1.66 to a 2.00 dual core, so I will probably stay away from that (due to costs) wife is already not happy with my first few priceout sheets.
Also question on AW in general, why is support for 2 yrs $200 more than support for 1 yr? Do these things have a high tendency to break at the 1 yr mark?
Also, hard drive wise, thinking of just getting the standard 5400 rpm 40 gig (plenty of room for me) but would like a 7200 rpm drive just for speed reasons, the only option they offer on this model is a 100 gig 7200 rpm drive for $175 upgrade price, who makes the hard drives in these and will I notice a 5400 vs 7200 in a dual core laptop?
Alien Autopsy - is it worth it or bunk? ANyone use it - what happens?
Alien Respawn - I don't even SEE this option on the M3450, do I get any sort of restore disc with this? I WOULD add this feature if they had it cuz restoring to orginal is nice sometimes to just wipe things off and redo, but I don't even see it as an option on the M3450, so what do I do if I want to wipe and start over, AW doesn't include OS disc or anything do they?
Thanks for any and all help on this, of course I spent time online with tech support live chat who was very slow yet was very incomplete answering my questions (saying stuff like "get the fastest processor available for maximum performance") ok duh I get that part, but just curious on some of the above stuff.
Also asked them about color choices got the standard reply that I have seen for literally months (no news on that yet).
Bill
Had a few quick questions since this dual core stuff is all new to me, would a dual core really perform much faster on multiple tasks than a single pentium M chip? I was very close to ordering up a M3200 sentia but was a bit afraid it might be too small in person and the pent M vs dual core on this M3450 makes it seem like the 3450 would have more punch on performance and ram speed and that 14 inch screen on the 3450 would probably actually fit my needs even better size wise.
I also am curious would i see or feel a difference between
Intel® Core™ Duo Processor T2300 1.66GHz 2MB Cache 667MHz FSB
&
Intel® Core™ Duo Processor T2400 1.86GHz 2MB Cache 667MHz FSB
I was thinking of upgrading the processor vs upgrading the ram, then adding a stick of 1 gig on my own later (thinking in my mind it is probably easier to upgrade ram later as a customer than to attempt to upgrade a processor in a laptop). The step up from 1.66 to 1.88 is $100 currently on aw page btw, the next step up is an additional $150 so $250 more to go from a 1.66 to a 2.00 dual core, so I will probably stay away from that (due to costs) wife is already not happy with my first few priceout sheets.
Also question on AW in general, why is support for 2 yrs $200 more than support for 1 yr? Do these things have a high tendency to break at the 1 yr mark?
Also, hard drive wise, thinking of just getting the standard 5400 rpm 40 gig (plenty of room for me) but would like a 7200 rpm drive just for speed reasons, the only option they offer on this model is a 100 gig 7200 rpm drive for $175 upgrade price, who makes the hard drives in these and will I notice a 5400 vs 7200 in a dual core laptop?
Alien Autopsy - is it worth it or bunk? ANyone use it - what happens?
Alien Respawn - I don't even SEE this option on the M3450, do I get any sort of restore disc with this? I WOULD add this feature if they had it cuz restoring to orginal is nice sometimes to just wipe things off and redo, but I don't even see it as an option on the M3450, so what do I do if I want to wipe and start over, AW doesn't include OS disc or anything do they?
Thanks for any and all help on this, of course I spent time online with tech support live chat who was very slow yet was very incomplete answering my questions (saying stuff like "get the fastest processor available for maximum performance") ok duh I get that part, but just curious on some of the above stuff.
Also asked them about color choices got the standard reply that I have seen for literally months (no news on that yet).
Bill
)
