Laptops. Are specs going backwards ?

[s2budd]

Hello

I have a four year old Dell 5150 laptop which has a 3.06 Ghz CPU, 2GB RAM and 100 GB hard disk. I have been looking about for a new one because the five year maintenance runs out next year and I have found the specifications of the current laptops to be worse at about 1.6 - 2 GHz CPU's, 1GB memory and 80GB hard disk.

Are laptop specs going backwards or am I just not looking hard enough?

[mcquiggd]

Processor architectures have changed.

I have a Pentium 4 running at 3.6 Ghz, and it is considerably outperformed by an Intel Core Duo even if I underclock the later to 1.6Ghz.

[Fleetwood]

I have just bought a Dell for 700 euros. Sorted

[cojak]

Do let us know how you put the fire out without ruining the suit of the chap next to you...

Dell Fire Safety tips

[s2budd]

I see. Cheers.

[TheMonkey]

I just bought a Core 2 Duo box (2GHz) - well a Mac one. Scares the crap out of me how fast it is (compared to older machine compiling a huge chunk of C!). I reckon each core is around the same speed as a 3.06GHz P4.

[cojak]

I've decided to get a Mac for my next laptop... Let's see how it goes...

Can anyone recommend a Mac retailer, btw?

[TheMonkey]

I've decided to get a Mac for my next laptop... Let's see how it goes...

Can anyone recommend a Mac retailer, btw?

Go to Apple Store or John Lewis. JL will give you a free 2 year warranty versus the standard Apple 1 year.

[OrangeHopper]

All my stuff has come from MacWarehouse.

[bogeyman]

I just bought a Core 2 Duo box (2GHz) - well a Mac one. Scares the crap out of me how fast it is (compared to older machine compiling a huge chunk of C!). I reckon each core is around the same speed as a 3.06GHz P4.

Huge chunks of C ?

Who, exactly, has trouble compiling 'huge chunks' of C any more?

Even a modest Intel or AMD processor, with a stingy amount of memory, would absolutelty piss through any amount of ANSI C code using a modern C compiler (from GNU, MS, Borland etc.).

What C compiler are you using that gives you this impression?

Now C++ is a different story, but compiling ANSI C should be as simple as.