Is it worth holding off on a new laptop purchase for Santa Rosa?

I'm looking to buy a Core 2 Duo laptop in the next month, and have a budget of roughly 1,000 EUR (~671 GBP/1,310 USD), give or take. So, is it worth holding out for Santa Rosa chips to be included in laptops (which will be when exactly?), or will they be out of my budget anyway? For contextual purposes, I'm looking at Dell's Inspiron 6400 range, Toshiba's Satellite Pro A-something range, and HP's Pavilion dvt6000 (I think) range.

 

How soon do you need the notebook? Dell will likely incorporate Santa Rosa fairly quickly, but it will still be a while before the platform itself is released. And Dell will also probably charge a premium for a while as well.

I haven't heard any announcements yet, but I am going on what I've seen Dell do in the past.

 

I don't 'need' it right away in many ways, to be honest. I just want it now. It runs the net, and allows me to instant message just fine. And it plays my music and stuff. However, it's old now, and is stuck on Windows 2000. The touchpad is wonky, and my cursor behaves erratically as a result. The 8GB hard drive is more is less full, so storage is a problem. I'll soon be getting an Xbox 360, and won't be able to stream media from my current laptop. The battery is crap and the power cord is failing. Also, it can't run Football Manager 2007, and iTunes appears to have crapped out on it. But all-in-all, I'd say it's really more of a want than a genuine *need*, if you consider food, clothes and shelter to be a need, and so on, so forth.

How long would I be waiting for Santa Rose to be incorporated into budget consumer lines, and how much of a price premium would I be looking at, given my budget as stated in my first post?

 

As always with computers, it's technically worth it to hold off as long as you can. If you need a notebook tomorrow, then it doesn't matter if a 8 times faster system is released next month. And if you can wait four months, then it doesn't really matter whether you can get a 10% or 500% better system by waiting. You still gain by waiting.

But be careful playing the waiting game. You can always wait "just two months" for the next big thing. And when it comes out, the next next big thing is just around the corner, so you have to wait another two months...

So the only thing that is "worth it" is to set a deadline for yourself, decide *when* you want the computer, and buy the best you can get at that point in time.

As for Santa Rosa itself, well, it's nothing special. Don't expect magic or miracles. The only reason I can see to wait is if you *desperately* need a DX10-compatible integrated gpu. But very few people have that need (Not least because it won't be fast enough to really show off DX10 games). For everyone else, well, there's just nothing really essential about it. Couple of improvements here and there (at least on paper), but nothing that makes other notebooks look like last century technology.

 

I believe it's going to be a late Q1 or early Q2 release of the platform. Dell is generally very quick to release new technology in their offerings--so they may have something available at launch or shortly thereafter. But chances are they'll charge an extra $100-200 or so as a "performance upgrade" or something like that.

I am speculating, so keep that in mind.

 

Right. It's just that I hear the same thing about the Xbox 360, and it too incorporating a new Intel chip or something. 65mm or something to that effect. It's true that the waiting game can often be a futile one. There'll always be a newer model. Last Christmas, I went and bought an iPod video, knowing full well there'd be a better one within a year. And whaddya know? There was! But I'm happy with my current iPod, and haven't even considered exchanging it for a 'better' model, so maybe there's a lesson in that somewhere?

 

like Jalf said, it is always worth to wait, even if you're just gonna buy a 667 mhz core 2 duo after santa rosa is out because of the price going down.

But if you just can't stand your old laptop I don't see any reason on buying a new laptop. Another way you could do is wait and only shop for a good sale and you still have a good buy. Laptop sales are often, unlike ipods.

 

It's nm (nanometer), but yeah. And the only difference you, as the consumer, will see is that it runs a bit cooler. The main difference is that it's cheaper to manufacture, but it still performs exactly the same and has the exact same capabilities.

But yeah, as you said yourself, buy something you're happy with. Do any of Santa Rosa's features sound like stuff you *really* need? Otherwise, it may not be worth waiting.

 

Regards the cooler chip, what impact will that have on fan noise? Both in laptops, and the 360.

 

In the 360, *probably* less noise... Probably. Nothing certain though. As I said, the main effect is to make it cheaper for MS to produce. And if they find it's cheaper to stick with the current cooling system, they might do that.

In laptops, it's different though. First, all important CPU's are 65nm there already, and second, they can change the specs and performance as well, so in PC's (and laptops), it's not true that the only difference between 90 and 65nm is how hot it gets.

 

Interesting. I love the Xbox 360, but it kind of bugs me how loud it is. When it isn't playing an Xbox 360 game, it's fine. Browse around the dashboard or play an original Xbox game, and it's no louder than most other games consoles or modern PC's. But my God! Pop in a 360 disk, and the thing suddenly makes a racket!

 

Incidentally, is it the fans or the DVD drive that contribute most to the 360's noise? If it's the DVD drive, will a cooler chip really have any potential significant affect on nosie levels?

 

I'd guess it's the fans. Noise from DVD drives is usually easy to recognize (partly because it spins up and down from time to time, and besides, DVD drives make the same noise whether they're stuck into a 360 or a PC or anything else. There's no reason why the 360's drive should be particularly noisy.)

by the way, I'm sure it could be modded to reduce the noise. I don't see why it shouldn't be possible to replace the fan yourself, or maybe move the components around a bit to improve the airflow. Could be a fun experiement, although it'd definitely break the warranty...

 

I wouldn't even attempt to go near the things innards. I know very little about computer builds, and I wouldn't even attempt trying!