[size="4"]I am in the market for a new laptop. would prefer to spend as little as I can since I am on a budget so I would like to keep my price under $700-$800 but for what i need the laptop for, a expensive laptop is not required. I only need a laptop for microsoft works program for writing and for doing ebay work on the internet at home or if we need it outside the home. Gaming, downloading, those are not options. i like the wireless internet option and like a laptop with a good size keyboard for comfort. I have seen more laptops than I dare count and had more opinions than I can recall and have many sales man tell me I need the dual core processor and I don't need the dual core processor. Some say get it or I will regret it, others say I wouldn't see a difference if I did get it since it's mainly for people that are heavy into graphics anyway. Could someone point me in the right direction on which processor is best? Should I go for the Dual core and would that in the long run be the better buy or save my money and just get the Turion and it do just as well? Also comes the decision on brand of laptop. I have looked at the Dells and the HP's. Some say run from the Dells, others say they are great. Any suggestions on who is better? I really don't know what to look for in a laptop. I hate to buy a laptop today that is completely outdated tomorrow. I have about made up my mind to wait till after christmas now to buy one when the market cools off and maybe the prices do as well since demand right now seems so high but I want to make sure which one I'm going for when I do since this is a big purchase and the amount I'm spending isn't pocket change. Any input is definitely appreciated. THANKS!

Hi and welcome to CompuForums. I hope that you post here often in the future, and it would also be nice if you could add yourself to our member map.

If you want your laptop to last a long time into the future and you want it to be as fast as your desktop computer [I am assuming that it's less than 3 years old] then I would say go for a laptop with an Intel Core Duo or Intel Core 2 Duo CPU [processor]. If you want value for money, then I suggest that you choose an Acer laptop. I brought one a month or so ago, and I am extremely pleased with the value for money I got. You don't always need to go to the biggest brands [although Acer is gaining market share] - often, you are paying for a label. While Acer's laptop designs are not the sleekest-designed in the world, they are certainly very functional. The keyboard is comfortable and my Core Duo CPU, alough 1.6ghz, even on the slowest battery-saving setting, it is as fast as my Pentium 4 2.8ghz CPU in my desktop. About the Turion vs Core Duo: The AMD Turion CPUs are not as advanced as the Core Duo ones, and you won't get as much battery life out of them. So I suggest a Core Duo. And I would suggest that you avoid Dell - while many people are satisfied with the quality and value, many others are not, and their support which has been outsourced to the Far East is reported to be terrible.
My advice to you is to go for an Acer, with a Core Duo CPU. Also have a look at what the online retailers have to offer, often they are cheaper and won't have the annoying salesmen who in most stores are trained to sell you a computer that has power that you don't really need. Also avoid any laptop which has any mention of "Celeron", "Semprom" or "Pentium M" - Celeron and Semprom CPUs are the budget desktop model CPUs which have simply been altered a little to run slower and on less power in a laptop, and Pentium M is now outdated.

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Thanks for all the help! I have seen the ACER laptops and looked at the acer Aspire laptops before. The salesman at walmart told me(and believe me I know you ask enough you get millions of different opinions, and I have for sure! ) said the ACER was a off brand and he wouldn't recommend it to anyone but looking at it I noticed it was loaded with all the latest in everything such as the core processor etc, so I was impressed just leery. I had just heard more bad things today about the dells so those definitely are looking like they will be off my list now. Now it's coming down between a HP and definitely giving more thought to the Acer. Battery life is important to me because I want to be mobile with it when I can, plus I hate to spend a lot of money on a laptop that today is great and tomorrow is yesterday's news and the salesman that sold it to me already knew that and I think a lot of them that are on sale today in the stores are like that and I'm not saavy enough to know which ones are and which ones aren't yet so that's why I'm asking as many questions as I can before I buy so keep the advice coming for sure! thanks again and I will check that ACER out again today. What model do you currently have? ELICIA

I think that the only reason that the walmart salesman told you not to look at it was because you get more for your money! Walmart know that more people know about HP and the other big brands than Acer, so they use that to get you to buy a more expensive laptop, which has all the features that you can get cheaper with an Acer.

The model I have [and recommend] is the Acer Aspire 5612WLMi. I was also looking for a value laptop, and I certainly feel that I have got my money's worth. With the screen set to low brightness and the CPU slowed down [you barley notice it when just word processing/surfing the web, since it's Core Duo], I get around four hours battery time on a full charge.

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Ash, I disagree--with the core duo vs. turion issue. Are we talking regular turion, or turion X2 (dual core, released earlier this year vs. the older core duo which is being replaced by the core 2 duo)? The core duo is neither more advanced, nor is it faster, nor is it more power-efficient than the turion X2. While the clock speeds are the same (~1.6 GHz), AMD processors can complete more in one clock cycle than an intel counterpart, so are therefore faster. I have a turion x2 dual core notebook, 1.6 GHz--I perform calculations on it using Matlab, and it far exceeds a core duo 1.6 GHz mobile processor that one of my colleagues has in nearly every cpu-intensive benchmark (though I'll always give it to Intel for audio encoding). Now, I'll agree, if we're talking single-core turion vs. intel core duo (not core 2 duo), and the object is multitasking, then yes, I'd go dual core over single even if it's intel over amd. However, single core turions clock speeds are much higher than core duo clock speeds of similar price range, so if you don't much care about mulitasking, then I'd go single core for the faster, more efficient, and cheaper processor. The 1.6 GHz turion x2 has a power-consumption rating of 25 watts while the 1.6 GHz core duo consumes 31 watts.

Also, I'm a bit apprehensive to believe that a core duo 1.6 GHz mobile processor is "faster" than a desktop P4 2.8 GHz single-core system. Maybe to mean to say that the dual core notebook runs smoother (obviously due to the better multitasking capabilities), and translate that into "faster," but given that a scarce few number of programs are multithreaded, cpu benchmarks would reveal that the 1.6 GHz core duo is not nearly as fast as a P4 2.8 GHz. Not a chance.

Seems to me, Elicia, from what you mentioned you'd use the notebook for, you might as well go single core and save your money if there's a big price difference between the single- and dual-core notebooks you've looked at because you didn't describe anything that's either cpu-intensive, or requiring multitasking capabilities. Likely you won't REALLY notice much of a difference given what you describe you'll be doing, and might as well go with single core. However, to contradict myself slightly, I have been spoiled by dual core systems, and can't honestly say I'd go back to single core, but I tend to do a lot of audio and video encoding, and lots of multitasking. Good luck. Acer is a fine brand--the components are of good quality, and I would not waste any money on a better-known name brand.

guyladouche, when I was comparing various laptops I was comparing Core Duos with the few Turions I saw. Don't remember any X2s so you may be right.
However, the Core Duo is still certainly more responsive than my Pent4 when surfing and loading programs [even though I only have a 5400RPM hard drive vs 7200RPM in my desktop]. However for things like computing primes, the Pent4 may be faster.

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I'm a fan of the amds but really in a laptop it dosen't make much diffrence acer is the way to go

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