dv2000 turion vs centrino: which is better?

I'm considering buying a dv2000, but the only thing that's holding me back right now is the price difference and performance between the turion X2 and centrino core duo version of the notebook.

Would I be missing on a lot of great features if I go along with a turion X2?

 

performance wise, no.

you might notice that you will have anywhere from 15-30 minutes less battery life with the turions.

 

i dissagree, the intel core duo's out perform the turion x2's. so performance wise, there will be a significant difference.

 

I concur. I've seen a number of benchmarks now, where the x2 is slower than a plain core duo. Core duo 2 is around the corner as well.
AMD has fallen behind, they really really have.

 

No, not necessarily...
http://www.tomshardware.com/2006/08/22/amd_dual_core_laptops_have_arrived/page12.html

 

Oops, I stand corrected. Looks like on these benchmarks the AMD Turion X2 comes out ahead of the Intel Core Duo at equal clock frequencies.

One thing though with these benchmarks: check out the "Multitasking I WinRAR + LAME" benchmark on page 14. It's really clear that the benchmark program in this case chooses to use 1 thread instead of 2, resulting in a less than twice worse performance of x2 over the duo, which is silly. No one in their right mind would *ever* accept a benchmark result where *any* recent chip is twice as fast or slow as another with an equal number of cores.

 

Something's very fishy with the "PI" benchmark.

Look at this:

http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=3091

The X2 almost twice as slow as a Core Duo - on anything? I'm not buying this.
I bet this PI benchmark program chooses to run on 1 core because it *thinks* it's running on one core instead of 2.

Someone should *really* get to the bottom of this. There are some *extremely* strange inconsistencies with the performance comparisons of an x2 and a core duo !

 

Wow. I appreciate the quick responses. Thanks. I think I will put battery life first. And based on what I've read, the Turion X2, in comparison to the Core Duo, has really poor battery life. I read you only get 2 hours for watching movies. I read this on one of the NBR reviews ( http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=3032&review=HP+dv2000z)

I guess I might as well ask this here. I'm also considering the v3000. Aside from price, is there any substantial difference with the dv2000?

Here are the links on the notebooks I'm eyeing:

dv2000: http://www.bestbuy.ca/catalog/proddetail.asp?logon=&langid=EN&sku_id=0926INGFS10076798&catid=20354
v3000: http://www.bestbuy.ca/catalog/proddetail.asp?logon=&langid=EN&sku_id=0926INGFS10077400&catid=20354

I'm leaning more towards the Compaq, simply because of the price. An additional 20GB storage for $100 is not really worth it for me. Although the remote control is nice, but considering my situation I'm really on a tight budget.

If this helps anyone with making a suggestion, I'll be using the notebook primarily for school work. So MS Word, PowerPoint, Excel, surfing the web, listening to music and watching movies for entertainment, and maybe some video editing in the summer. However, I'll mostly be using the notebook for school oriented tasks.

Anyway, I'm rambling on. To summarize, I'm sticking to a Core Duo chip. Should I go with the v3000 or dv2000 version? How is the quality of HP/Compaq notebooks? Are there major differences between the two? Is one more durable than the other? Should I consider buying Best Buy's Protection Plan when I buy them? Sorry if I'm sounding like a total noob.

 

How about the page 19 of this article?

 

Did you ever consider BestBuy (CA)'s $999 17" Turion 64 laptop?

Only a grand, and with a hunking large 17" screen !

btw, doesn't either bestbuy or the equivalent futuresnob, have a $999 Acer with the amd x2 with an actual 15.4" screen? Should that not be considered? Have you seen how many models Acer has out there? Acer's *huge*.

 

Beware of the keyboard and touchpad problems. Check out the reports that are found right on this website. Also search the internet for keyboard problems dv8000. HP's tech support "Too Bad" attitude hit me so hard, I'm recommending not going near an HP.

 

I wouldnt make generalizations about HP support. They have been pretty good to me and I have even be able to return a laptop even after the 21 day return period had experied. Dont know why they havent done anything abou the dv8000 keyboard. Rest of HP models do not have such issues.

 

no, you do not sound like a noob, jus someone that needs to be informed...(just like me!)

if you are moving around alot, taking your laptop with you, be sure to get a 12 cell battery. and as a student just using word and light photoshop, you mind as well get the turion x2, since you probably dont need all the power of the core duo. (<<< it hurts me to say that (intel fan)) but if there isnt a very big lrice difference, then go for the core duo for sure.

sorry, but i cannot help you with the difference of the v3000 and dv2000, though i know that the dv1000t or dv1000 are pretty good, and light, that is if you are looking for yet another choice

and no, i do not think you should get the best buy protection plan, its not worth it, instead get a better warrenty with Hp.

thats my opinion only, see what others have to say

cheers,

P.S. there was a fix found for the dv8000 keyboard issue, and here is the link to the thread: which i will find because im not on m own computer user account....

 

ok, there it is, read through the whole thing....i think its answer is on page 30 something...sorry, cant remember.

cheers,

 

Yup. I've seen Futureshop's selection and I saw how many Acer laptops they have. But I've heard many of the horror stories about Acer from my friend's cousin who owned one. His broke down within a year. So I'm not going for Acer at all despite their very cheap prices

17" screen is nice, but I need a very light like a 14" to carry around for school. Plus I'm not considering AMD anymore. I'm narrowing my options to Intel Core Duos.

ex-wife: Thanks for the advice. I was looking at the dv1000, but the BB near me doesn't carry much selection of dv1000 that I want, which is very frustrating.

Right now, my plan is to get the V3020CA from BB very soon, maybe tomorrow. I'm hoping they have an open box that doesn't have any defects so I can use a $100 off coupon I found from BB's website. Plus a $25 off coupon from my last BB statement.

 

All right. I've taken the plunge and bought the V3000 from my local Best Buy. I'm using it now as I type. The specific designation of my notebook is the V3020CA. Here are the specs:

- Intel Centrino Core Duo T2050 (1.6 Ghz w/ 533 Mhz FSB)
- 100 GB hard drive @ 5400 rpm
- 1GB RAM
- LightScribe Super Multi 8X DVD Writer w/ Double Layer Support
- Intel PRO/Wireless 3945ABG Network Connection

That's pretty much the gist of it. The price? Well, the sale price is $1199.99 Canadian at Best Buy. Including taxes, my total came up to $1355.99 Canadian. However, I also had $25 off coupon, which will come up on my statement. I used my BB card, so I don't have to pay for 3 months.

Silly salesperson. His first suggestion to me when I said I want the V3020CA was "I highly recommend you get our Performance Service Warranty Plan." I was like, "Okay. I see." After a few seconds pause, I went on and said, "No, thanks. I fix my own computers anyways, so I don't really need the Plan." The guy had no response, but "okay," as if trying to make me feel stupid. He eventually asked if I'm sure with not getting the Service Warranty Plan after ringing me up.

To be fair, he was just doing his job. Luckily for me, I'm smart enough not to fall into pressure like that. My logic was, why would I buy something that requires an extended warranty? This would mean I'm buying a lemon of a product and that would be stupidity on my part.

Anyway, I'm having fun using this notebook so far. It's running very smoothly, with very little or no noise from the HD or fan. This will most likely be my notebook until I finish university in 1 or 2 years. Thanks to all those who responded to my threads and posts here on NBR, since it really helped and educated me in choosing the right laptop to buy.

 

LOL my Acer WITH celeron M power does super pi 2 million in 2 mins 23 seconds I closed some processes and got 2 mins 18 seconds I guess the lowly celeron of mine kicks the amds butt. long live intel! (dont tell the pc iam typing on this as it is a athlon)

 

SuperPI reacts very well to the large L2 caches Intel uses to compensate for their lack of an integrated memory controller and HyperTransport. Since SuperPI fits in the Celeron's L2 cache it isn't impacted by the Celeron's slow version of Intel's outdated frontside bus. On just about anything larger than a trivial app like SuperPI you'd be better off with a Sempron than a Celeron by a large margin.