Pentium or Centrino?

I'm pretty much a rookie in the laptop world, forgive me if I sound silly asking about this.

I'm buying a laptop for college and I've discovered some great deals on eBay (from reputable buyers and such). The only thing I'm wondering is about the pentium...processor type.

Some say Intel Pentium M, Centrino, and just say Intel Pentium M. Would anyone mind explaining the difference and reccomending whether I'd need the extra Centrino oomph? I'll mainly be using it for Word, surfing the web (with some low-demand flash games..) and a bit of Paint Shop Pro.

Again, sorry if this sounds rather naive...I actually just had to get my brother to explain hard drive and memory and all that to me...

 

Hey we all gota start somewhere right!

Pentium M is the name of Intels previous generation processor for laptops. It has been replaced by Intels Core series processor.

The Core Duo has two cores (sort of like 2 brains) so it is very good for when you have lots of programs open at the same time as one core is always free. Running lots of programs on a single core processor e.g. Core Solo, can lead to lag as the processor shares it time between all open programs.

Centrino is the name Intel gives to a "package" that includes an Intel processor, Intel motherboard and Intel wireless card combination. A laptop must have all of there before it can be branded a "Centrino" laptop. Non-centrino laptops dont have this. You dont lose functionality its more of a name you lose.

For your needs a Pentium M shoulld be fine. Core Duo prices are fairly similar and so I would recommend you get a Core Duo if you can.

Hope that helps.

 

yes, Pentium is the name given to ONLY the CPU (Central Processing Unit).

Centrino is what we call a "mobile platform", consisting of an Intel CPU, Chipset and an Intel Wireless Networking Card.

The adavantage of a Centrino laptop is the fact that you get extended battery life. But there is not really any performance difference between a centrino and a plain pentium notebook.

You might have heard a thing called Intel Centrino Duo. It is the same as the normal centrino, but has a dual core CPU which is basically, in effect, having two CPUs on the same computer, but the motherboard sees the processor as one instead of two.

The advantage of this is that you can simultaneously run two or more applications that are intensive. I recommend getting a Centrino Duo or Core Duo laptop.