Faster P4 Laptop vs Lower Ghz Dual Core Laptop

[Kaos Kid]

I've been keeping an eye on CL and other places for awhile now looking for a good cheap used laptop for my little girl. What I've been seeing is either high Ghz P4s or lower Ghz dual-cores. I've seen a used Sony with 3.2Ghz HT P4 for sale in my general price range, and I've seen 1.6Ghz-1.8Ghz dual cores for a bit more. Since this is for an 11 year-old just starting middle school, do you think the 3.2Ghz P4 is adequate, or should I just hold out for a used dual-core with less Ghz? This will just sit on her desk plugged in all the time, not taken out of the house. It will be on WIFI. My quandary is I need to stay in the $150 or less range. Thanks for your input.

[smack323]

I would say the core2 will be better even with a high clock speed. Keep in mind you will most like have faster rated RAM with the core2 also.

[Tator Tot]

A Core 2 Duo @ 2Ghz out performs a 3.4Ghz P4 in most applications.

[Kaos Kid]

Thanks guys, that is what I thought but I still wanted to run it by here and get some opinions first. I've never had a laptop so am a bit in the dark about mobile stuff. I had been thinking about a mini, but since she was used to playing web games, coaster tycoon 3, etc. on a 17 inch monitor I am afraid going down to a 10-inch screen would not be to her liking. Looks like I need to keep saving up to afford the used dual-cores in a 12-15inch size.

[Tator Tot]

What's the price you're looking at?

Core i5 430M - 15.6" MSI Laptop ~$500 (Shipped)

[Kaos Kid]

What's the price you're looking at?

Core i5 430M - 15.6" MSI Laptop ~$500 (Shipped)

Waaaay to much for an 11yo That is why I've been looking on CL for one, something in the $150 range is my target, but I may have to sell off some stuff to raise that limit a little. Thanks for the thought though...

[Tator Tot]

Oops, sorry, missed that.

Dell D610's usually go that cheap on Ebay with a Core Duo, 2GB of RAM, and a Intel GMA 510

[Kaos Kid]

Well, I currently have found 2 laptops in my area that seem to satisfy what I am looking for and in my price range. What do you think of these two?

1.) Compaq Presario

specs
amd athlon 64 x2 2ghz (probably a Turion TL-60)
2gigs of ddr2 ram
windows 7 ultimate
180gig harddrive
dvd burner
15 inch lcd widescreen

has adobe photoshop and illustrator, fallout 3 and nv and a few other games can keep or delete

2) Toshiba Satellite

specs
• 15.4-inch LCD screen
• 2.0 GHz Intel Pentium T4200 processor
• 250 GB hard drive
• 2 GB RAM (4 GB maximum)
• Dual-layer DVD±R drive
• 54g Wi-Fi (802.11b/g)
• Intel GMA 4500M graphics (up to 830 MB shared)
• Windows Vista Home Premium (32-bit)

Notes: The added software in the Compaq is not a factor since I don't have need of it and would probably do a wipe/reinstall of the O/S anyway. If it has the Win7 COA with it then it could be a better buy since I could reinstall Win7 at any time. If it is pirated I will definitely wipe it and reinstall (probably WinXP since my little girl is familiar with that one). The Toshiba sounds a bit better on paper both performance-wise and feature -wise, but could be up to 40 miles or so from my home which could make it a PITA to see in a working environment--adding my time and gas expense to the price, along with bad news if it is a scam for some reason. The Compaq should be within 5-10 miles of my home based on the city listed in the title of the CL ad. The seller of the Toshiba states that the latch that holds the laptop closed is non-functional but doesn't affect the performance or usability in any other way.

Pluses and minuses for each? Either one upgradeable bsides memory? Whaddya think?

[Tator Tot]

The GMA 4500 will limit you and HD Video Youtube/Hulu may stutter with it (Due to no GPU offloading) but it should run cooler and the T4200 will be faster than a TL-60.

[skier]

I would get the satellite, not a fan of compaq or AMD laptops... also the 4500 is a newer int. GPU, my 2008 HP pavillion with a core2 has a GMA 3000, and my Latitude D620 has a 945 chipset- oldschool laptop thats indestructible, but idles at 80C and any load at all thermal throttles it at 100c

satellite's also have nice built in speakers, as far as laptops go

[Kaos Kid]

Yeah, I'm starting to see more laptops in the sub-$200 range on my local craigslist so fairly soon I will probably pull the trigger. I just found a 3.06Ghz HT processor for my old shuttle mini-itx w/ i845 chipset (my original plan was to give her that for under her desk with an lcd for her desktop, but I'm afraid even an LCD with a keyboard will clutter it up too much) so I figure I can sell that now and so defray the costs of the laptop for her.

I do have a question about durability. Since this is for an 11-yo, she will still play some online kids games. Are laptop keyboards as durable as standalone keyboards? Are they easy to fix cheaply? I'd hate to spend bucks for even a used laptop and have it break on her and so be out of a computer until I can fix it. I guess I should have been asking about durability as much as specs. I have seen a few toshibas but most of what is available is either lenovo thinkpads, compaqs, HPs (yeah same as compaq for the most part) or older Dells (600-630s) but the Dells seem to mainly be around the 1.7Ghz Pentium M single core range if I am not mistaken. What are your thoughts on all-around durability? Even though the chosen purchase won't leave the house, there will still be kids banging on it. Its hard to figure out a good compromise on cost/performance/durability...

[skier]

my older sister beat the crap out of the D620 at college (i traded her my new HP because i didnt have a use for it and shortly after the screen on it had severe problems, yet to replace it) but it still totally works, minus one USB port. which is a 1.66 dual which is more than fast enough for everything I do on a laptop and it boots surprisingly fast with 3GB RAM.

but keyboards dont take much to break so check out how expensive replacement keyboards are for a model laptop you are looking at first. IMO latitude's are the most rugged laptop Dell has ever made, though they ran hot as hell (of two people i know with an inspirion, the keyboard's Q doesnt work on ones, and the mouse always stops working on the others)

keep in mind a low end laptop is a low end laptop is a low end laptop. dont look too much into processor or RAM speeds, but more into RAM amount, Hard drive capacity and condition

also the D620 runs cooler with 2 cores enabled and no throttling, than it does at one core and throttling between 900-1666MHz (throttling based on util. not temp that is)

[Kaos Kid]

Hmmmmm

I like the idea of the Dells being rugged since this will be a kids laptop (although at 11yo she is pretty mature and very careful of her possessions she has a younger brother and a couple of friends that may have access at times unfortunately). I am looking at CL right now and this Dell Latty 830 just came up. It is a little higher than I wanted to pay but if it would be a good fit for her I may have to bite the bullet. They are asking $200, it has the lesser graphics than the other I was looking at in my OP but otherwise looks like it should be on the short list. It is only about a 20 mile drive from me so it is reasonable to get to as well. She only does some online game stuff on websites and right now has been playing with Railroad Tycoon 3 on her brothers computer so I'm not sure if the lesser graphics should be an issue or not. All in all it looks fairly solid, although the drive is small it should have plenty of memory so I don't see having to upgrade it anytime soon.

Specifications
Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo T7250 2.0GHz
Screen: 15.4" widescreen display
Memory: 2GB
OS: Windows Vista Business
Hard Drive: 80GB
Optical Drive: DVD+/-RW
Graphics: Intel GMA X3100
802.11g wifi
Lithium Ion Battery
Power supply

Ports
4 USB 2.0 ports
1 1394 Firewire port
SmarCard Type 1/2 slot
ExpressCard54 slot
VGA port
S-video TV out port
RJ-45 LAN ethernet jack
RJ-11 Modem jack
Headphone and microphone jack

[skier]

All in all it looks fairly solid, although the drive is small it should have plenty of memory so I don't see having to upgrade it anytime soon.

looks pretty good, I used my latitude for classes mainly last year and put a bunch of music on it, only has a 40GB hard drive and now has 1GB RAM..

[Kaos Kid]

So you think the price is reasonable at $200, since this is probably at least 3yo or more? I know absolutely nothing about laptops or their value other than what I have seen on CL, and I can't tell whether any of the new low-end stuff I see new for under $300 is any better than something used like this or not. I am a believer in biting the bullet when I have to, but I learned from overpaying for my first Dell back in 2000 that 2nd or even 3rd gen computer hardware is often better from a price vs performance standpoint. This ad is still up this morning and is only a few days old so I don't know whether the seller will entertain offers but I am willing to make a reasonable offer that is midway between my desired price and their asking price, unless you feel that $200 is a steal then I will probably go for their asking price. With all the used lappies for sale right now on CL I don't want to pay more than I absolutely have to.

Thanks, as always, for the advice.


PS I initiated contact with the seller by email and asked a few questions about it, hopefully I will hear back since a few I have asked about never replied back to me, but my spam folder got hit a few times so I figured they were just phishing. Wish me luck!

[skier]

200 isn't too too bad given the specs and reliability- I dont think i'll ever part with my D620 because it makes a decent netflix box(keep in mind it was used year-round for 5 years so far- my hp's screen didn't make it past 2yrs and it didn't even have a single scratch anywhere on it for the first year and a half while i had it, to give an idea how well my older sister takes care of laptops(she had the Latitude for 3yrs i've had it for 2)..)

if you cant follow any of that:
Latitude: beat to hell for 3yrs, still used for a couple more and counting
HP Pavillion: Beat to hell for a half year resulting in broken monitor, sitting in my room waiting for funds to get fixed

will upload a vid tomorrow or friday of the HPs issues, next to the wear the latitude has gone through

[Kaos Kid]

Well, shucks. its been 24 hours since my email to the seller of the Dell 830 Lappy and no response. Either he didn't like the questions I asked about it or its already sold but the ad not taken down. Looks like I have to keep searching. Darn, I thought I had a live one there.