getting to know laptops, but need help

The Core 2 Duo is the best choice for a laptop. It beats most other chips for the performance and power consumption. Don't worry so much on the little details, any one of them is a great CPU.

If you are planning on Vista, definitely get 1 GB of RAM. Vista will benefit greatly by having 2 GB of RAM though, so try and get more.

Generally most laptops are preinstalled with Vista. You can ask, depending on the manufacturer, to get it installed with XP. But they usually only preinstall one, you would have to buy a seperate copy of Windows to install the other. They can be dual-booted so you're running both... or you can just use the setup to wipe out the old one and install the new one. Just remember you still have to get the drivers from the manufacturer.

At this point, I say stick with XP if you can. It is very stable and still supported, in use by many computers.

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More important is the video card. Most laptops aren't upgradable here.
You'll certainly want a video card with discrete memory. They are usually more costly and less available than other systems.. the ones you see stocked on retail have the Intel chips or an integrated Nvidia or ATI. Avoid those.

Which games do you play? If its the latest FPS ones, you'll certainly want top-of-the-line here. The top you can get with DirectX 10 is the Geforce 8700M.. and below that the 8600M GS and GT. If you're concerned about raw performance, the DirectX 9 ones are still great - the Geforce 7900s and Radeon X1900s.
If some other moderate games, some of the latest RTS ones, I would go for a midrange card.. one using the X1600s or 7600s.

Really, the biggest factor is the size. Do you want a portable laptop?
Usually these are the 12"-13" screens with a smaller keyboard and lighter weight. They are good for mobility, but may not support the latest video cards, etc.
On the other end is the desktop-replacements - 17"+ sizes. A great size screen and full-size keyboard. But these you generally don't want to walk around everyday with.
The middle (and my recommendation) is the 14.1"-15.4" range. A mid size system that's still fairly portable and still has a full-sized keyboard usually (minus numpad). You can get a midrange video card and play most every game.

Celeron = less battery life. And no dualcore obviously, but I don't care about that as much. Otherwise they are pretty much the same, there are performance differences obviously but they are not significant (well aside from dual vs single core). Put this way, if the game does not support dual core, it will be almost the same with Celeron and Core Duo, and a little faster with Core 2 Duo.

A while ago companies were offering XP with a cheap "Express Upgrade" to Vista, but that was before it came out (Jan). I don't know if they still do that. BTW, Dell still has XP available hidden somewhere on their site, at least a month ago they did. Downgrades are not a cheap option, optimally you'd start with XP and get the cheap Express Upgrade, otherwise you're stuck shelling out the cash to switch to one of them.

I'd shoot for the new 800 MHz FSB Core 2 Duos rather than the 533 MHz one you listed. The T7100 1.80 GHz will be a bit faster and has a lower power usage at idle due to the FSB dropping features of the GM965/PM965 chipset. All depends on your OS and usage. If you run Windows 2000 or 32-bit Linux, 512 MB would be enough for general usage. Windows XP and 64-bit Linux likes 1-2 GB, 32-bit Vista likes 2-3 GB (but not more than 3 GB) and 64-bit Vista demands 2 GB and likes as much as you can stuff in it, usually 4 GB. [qupte]i plan to play some games and so wondering about graphics cardbut my desktop dosen't have a graphics card and it plays games fine.[/quote] That all depends on what games you play and what resolution and frame rates you want. Something like Text Twist will do just fine on integrated graphics, but FEAR won't. You'd be surprised. Use a notebook with a 4200 rpm drive and then swap it out for a 7200 rpm unit. You'll see more of a difference than you think. Since battery life isn't important, shoot for a 7200 rpm drive or a big 5400 rpm unit, since both RPM and size lead to better throughput, RPM more so than size. [qoute]now, even though i said i want an "Intel Core 2 Duo Processor 1.73GHz" tbh i don't really know the performance differences between that and a celeron or an amd.[/quote] There are two generations of Core 2 Duo CPUs. The first is the 533 and 667 MHz FSB models. These use the 945GM/PM chipset. The newest Core 2 Duos use the 800 MHz FSB and have an updated GM/PM965 chipset. The 965 chipset allows for better performance and battery life than the 945 did, so I'd get one of the 800 MHz FSB Core 2 Duos if I were you. The currently-shipping Celerons are Core Solos with no SpeedStep and 1 MB L2 cache. They are cheap but will idle hotter and perform worse than a Core 2 Duo. Think of a Celeron as a Pentium M without SpeedStep and that's about what you'll get. A Core Duo is the forerunner to the Core 2 Duo and performs roughly 15% slower clock-for-clock than a Core 2 Duo. They also tend to run hotter. These are also 32-bit chips, unlike the Core 2 Duo. AMD's Turion 64 X2s are comparable in clock-for-clock performance to the Core Duo but are 64-bit chips like the Core 2 Duo. They are slower than the Core 2 Duo at the same clock speed, but they are significantly less expensive and the newest ones have been reported to run very cool. The Turion 64 X2s use entirely different chipsets than any of the Intel CPUs use and one of them, the AMD M690T, is probably the best-performing laptop chipset out there. The graphics capabilities of AMD-powered laptops is better than Intel-powered laptops without a graphics card. This is because the two chipset makers for AMD are NVIDIA and ATi, who are primarily graphics-oriented rather than CPU-oriented like Intel is. Unlike desktops, a laptop's chipset makes a much bigger difference with performance. So it is entirely possible for a slower CPU with a better chipset to perform better than a faster CPU with a poorer chipset. For this reason, I suggest that you go with the Core 2 Duo 800 MHz FSB chips and the GM/PM965 chipset or the AMD Turion 64 X2 and the NVIDIA MCP51 or AMD M690T chipset. Nope. A CPU's cache is simply some very high-speed memory that's part of the CPU itself. Cache is much faster than RAM, so more cache usually is better as the CPU can access its data faster if the cache can hold it. More cache is better, at least when comparing CPUs by the same maker. AMD and Intel have different memory access techniques, so AMD CPUs don't need nearly as much cache to perform well as Intel CPUs do. A total of 1 MB cache is generally enough for an AMD CPU while Intel CPUs like 2-4 MB cache. Vista does take up more RAM than almost every other x86 OS out there that I know of. 1 GB would be enough only if you had the 32-bit version and didn't do much beyond office programs. You would also not take advantage of the fact that Vista will put commonly-used items into RAM so they load much faster the next time you use them. 32-bit Vista really likes 2 GB of RAM. 1 GB of RAM would not be sufficient to run the 64-bit version of Vista as the OS itself uses something like 700 MB of RAM just to boot up. 2 GB would be the real-life minimum for 64-bit Vista and I'd recommend 4 GB if you wanted a good experience with 64-bit Vista. Note that all of the vendors that I've seen ship Vista Home Basic or Vista Home Premium by default, and those are all 32-bit versions. Some versions of Vista Ultimate are 64-bit, but that should always be spelled out for you if it is 64-bit. You can install any OS you want on your laptop, provided there are drivers for it. Here have been my experiences: 1. Windows 2000 and XP are more or less interchangeable. Windows 2000 drivers will work with XP and almost all drivers are for Windows 2000/XP and not just XP. 2. If your computer shipped with Windows XP, you have a good chance of getting Windows Vista 32-bit (called x86) to work with it as most Windows XP drivers work with Vista x86. 3. If your computer shipped recently and has Vista on it, you may be able to get it to work with XP. Vista 32-bit drivers usually don't work with XP, so you might have to hunt down drivers from the device manufacturers, like Intel, Realtek, SigmaTel, Broadcom, AMD, NVIDIA, etc. 4. If your computer model didn't ship with Vista 64-bit as an option, you probably can't run it. The 32 and 64-bit drivers are not interchangeable, nor can you use Windows XP 64-bit drivers for 64-bit Vista. XP 64-bit was rare anyway. If your model did have 64-bit as an option and you picked the 32-bit version, you can put the 64-bit version on later if you wish. 5. Most notebooks today work pretty well with Linux and the drivers for the Linux OS are included in the kernel, so no downloading extra drivers. Device compatibility between 32-bit and 64-bit versions are essentially identical as the drivers are open-source and only need to be compiled for the right version. I'd recommend that you go to the small business section of your favorite laptop maker and get a laptop with 2 GB RAM and Windows XP. That will be the most compatible and stable of all of your choices, unless you want to go to Dell and order an Inspiron E1505 with Ubuntu Linux. THAT would be the most stable, but I think that's probably not what you're looking for.

Laptops like the hp dv2500, Dell Latitude D630/830 and the IBM 61 series have these chips. The chip you have linked to is a desktop processor. The FSB is the conduit for data to pass between the CPU and the RAM interface that sits in the northbridge. The speed of the FSB can play a part in what the performance of the CPU is, generally a faster FSB leads to more data getting to the CPU and it also getting there quicker. It will also deal with what speed the chip idles at- Intel chips generally have an idle speed of 150% of the rated FSB speed. Thus the 800 MHz FSB chips idle at 1.20 GHz while the 667 MHz ones idle at 1.00 GHz and the 533 MHz FSB units idle at 800 MHz. Note that AMD CPUs do not have a northbridge and thus lack an FSB. Sometimes there will be a speed quoted as the FSB speed, but this is the HyperTransport bus, not an FSB. The AMDs' HT speed makes almost no impact on the speed of the processor. All memory access is done directly by the CPU. This helps to make the CPU a little more efficient as there's one less hot chip inside the computer and it also lets the CPU get away with less cache.

At the same ghz, a Core 2 is 20% faster then an AMD. So the 1.73 Core 2 is faster than a 2.0ghz AMD processor. Of course the one you're looking at is not dual core, as well. Only get it if it's significantly cheaper then the Core 2 laptop.

The Dell D630 is around £843. Presumably they'll have a cheaper Inspiron w/ 800mhz fsb out in the next month or so.

Max I think you should surf around and look for a laptop you might b interested then we can help you in configuring it.

Check my Sig for my rig. Its a sweet setup and i have no problems running anything. Its a Dell E1705 17' laptop and it frikkin rocks

Also if you plan on playing games they are still working out the kinks in Vista so to save you possible headache I might try and configure one w/ XP

The Turion 64s are pretty much low-voltage Athlon 64s, or half of a Turion 64 X2. They are decent processors, generally comparable to the Pentium M but they are capable of 64-bit operation. The Turion 64 isn't a bad chip, but it would be hard to recommend a new laptop with one in it as the dual-core versions will be much smoother to operate if not much faster and the duals are not very expensive any more. Look at NotebookReviews.com at machines like the HP dv2500 and any Dell Latitude ending in "30" (e.g. D530, D630, D830), some Inspirons, and most "61" series Thinkpads like the X61 and R61. P-R-O-C-E-S-S-O-R. There ya go

DDR2 memory are cheap these days. You can buy a model with minimum RAM and add them later easily.

It seems that one has a slightly higher clock speed than the other.

Upgrading ram is very easy

Ram is very easy to upgrade on most laptops, like changing batteries. T5200 is Core 2 Duo. T2350 is Core 1. 20% rule applies, as in T5200 would equal a 1.93 ghz Core 1. So the T5200 is a teeny bit faster... probably not worth the price difference tho.

The T2350 is not a Core 2 Duo but a Core Duo. The Core 2 Duos such as the T5299 are much newer and will sell for more money as the Core Duos are mostly old stock and are being cleared out. The Core Duo will usually be outperformed by the Core 2 Duo by 15% at the same clock speeds. The Core 2 will also run cooler than the Core Duo. Almost all of the Core and Core 2 (533 and 667 FSB) chips use the same 945GM chipset. The new 800 MHz Core 2 Duos use a new chipset (GM965/PM965) that the Core Duos won't work with, although that's mostly due to the fact that the 800 FSB Core 2 Duos are Socket P rather than the Core Duo and Core 2 Duo Socket M.

So are you still doing homework or do you have your eye on a laptop???

It should not, at least in the U.S. According to the Magnuson-Moss Act, one can use non-OEM replacement parts in a device or piece of equipment and not void the warranty. However, the warranty does not extend to those new parts; that's up to the new RAM manufacturer to replace them if they break.