Pentium M vs. P4 in a Dell laptop

/usr

Do Pentium M's run faster than P4's in laptops, or are they mainly developed for cooler running and power management? I'm just comparing the Dell Inspiron 600m and the 5100. I have my eye on the 600m, but it's around $300 more. The only difference I see is that it's 2lbs lighter (major plus to me, as I hate heavy laptops.) and the Pentium M. Can anyone enlighten me as to which one may be better? Maybe I'm missing something, I'm not sure.

Sartan

The mobile processers usually give off less heat, and more control over the front side bus by the motherboard for power saving.

The newest model includes fancy NetBurst 2 architecture, including bigger caches, faster transfers, larger address space, and bigger pipelined bursts.
It even saves power -- between keystrokes. The sleep on the mobile processor practically grinds the laptop to a halt compared to a desktop processor.

Webmaster

The Pentium 4 Mobile series are indeed mainly developed for cooler running and power management. But you are referring to the Pentium 4 Mobile - M, I think the M stands for multi-media improvements, but has been replaced by a newer line Pentium 4 Mobile processors with HyperThreading.

Check out a press release from Intel here.

and specs here.

/usr

In short, would I still notice the 2.4GHz P4 being significantly faster than the 1.4Ghz Pentium M?

One more question, how about the difference between resolutions of an SXGA+ display and an XGA display. I won't be playing games on this machine, except possibly Magic the Gathering Online. I'll mainly use it for web page design, etc. I'll be running Photoshop, Dreamweaver, Fireworks...but nothing as graphic intensive as Warcraft 3 or another game.

Webmaster

Yes.

I don't know the exact differences between those display types. I do know that I run Dreamweaver MX, Photoshop 7 and a bunch of other graphical software, including an older version of Truespace, on an Intel Celeron 700 Mhz, 256 MB, 1024x768... smoothly. On either of the machines you mentioned they should at least run VERY smooth

/usr

I can get the 5150 for significantly cheaper (around $200 - $300) I'm just drawn towards the smaller size of the 600m. That and I actually do like the power management stuff about the Pentium M's. I've still yet to decide. I don't want to rush something that costs this much cash. It's a lot to me due to the fact that most of my money goes towards college.

Webmaster

Please keep your questions about your future notebook in one topic... I removed the new topic and posted it here:

LostInSpace wrote:

I know the P4 is going to be faster than the Pentium M, but I need an opinion on the one which you think is better overall.

P4's won't run at their highest clock speed on a battery, or so I hear. How much do they slow down?

I can deal with a "mobile desktop" or a notebook, it makes no difference to me, so size isn't THAT important. I want something that I can possibly play a few games on as well. The P4 would be better for that I think, but I'm concerned with it slowing down if I run on a battery.

Also, the video card in the 1.4 machine is a 64 meg Radeon 9000, or Radeon Mobility 9600 pro, depending on the machine I choose.
In the 2.8 machine its a 64 meg Radeon 7500.

/usr

No problem.

Any suggestions?

2lazybutsmart

Have you checked out on the new Dell latitude with the Centrino processor?