My two cents:
I have a recently-purchased (Sept) Inspiron 5150 with the P4 Mobile (or was
that Mobile P4??) 3.06GHz chip. I've got both the internal WiFi 1300 Mini
PCI and PCMCIA Linksys WPC54G (MUCH better range) and the battery life
compared to my older Toshiba Sat Pro 6000 is GREAT. I get a good couple of
hours with the WiFi going and running all kinds of spreadsheets and
graphics stuff (technical term).
As for obsolescence, the I5150 P4 Mobile is now coming with Hyperthreading
technology. If only I'd waited.....but then, I'd still be waiting.
I went for the 5150 because I wanted a desktop replacement package that I
can lug around and I wanted the incredibly nice UXGA 15" LCD (Sharp
Electronics). I don't mind the weight and as I stated above battery life is
pretty decent. If you want to save space and weight, go Centrino, otherwise
I don't think performance suffers the other way.
Regards,
Morey G
Inspiron 5150
Dimension 4500, Dimension 4300, Dimension 4100, Toshiba Sat Pro 6000, Axim
X5400MHz
"Timmy" wrote in message
...
X-No-Archive: yes

"Erick" wrote in message
...

"Whelan" wrote in message
...
Is the Centrino the smart choice for all of us who are buying a
laptop
these
days?
Does it make a laptop purchased today with an older processor
obsolete
before its time?

Or is it just appropriate for the Mobile segment of the market, not
the
Desktop Replacement segment?

[snip]

What is a smart purchase today?
Nan


I would have to say for longevity and battery life... go with the
Pentium-M
(or Centrino if it includes Intel's WiFi chipset). Personally, I
wouldn't
tie myself to the internal WiFi as I like to keep my options open, and
Centrino WiFi does not have 802.11g yet.

Erick
--
http://www.gadtronics.com


I agree. I just got an 8600 and the battery life is good compared to
other
laptops I have used in the past. PC and Powerbooks. My 1.7Ghz is pretty
fast, but I actually think my Gateway 2Ghz Pentium 4 desktop with a
little
less memory is a little faster. It's close anyway. Long battery life is
great to have and you can put a couple of batteries in the 8600s and
really
go for a long time. Dell's customer service has plummeted in the past few
years however. If they spent more on customer service than on those
stupid
commercials they run on TV incessantly, they would probably have a fatter
bottom line and happier customers.