Hi. I would like some advice on which processor to purchase in a notebook(laptop). My son is going to college soon and I want to buy him a laptop. I do not understand the pro/cons of the following: Centrino, Intel Pent4, and AMD;and which would be the best. Reading the reviews - of course everyone says theirs is the best - has not helped much. Constraints: single parent (cost is important), teenage boy (probably will not use just for school but movies, games, surfing also). Plan on getting 1Gb mem, +- 100 Gb hard drive in the box. Looking at HP, Toshiba. Any suggestions/advice/opinions would be greatly appreciated. Thx in advance!!!

It is a nice gesture to be buying your son a laptop, and even better that you are interested in getting him one that is worth the money spent on it.
Toshiba and HP are both decent companies, offering good customer service and bundels of software for any new/used products.
100GB harddrive, and 1GB ram is definatly a good start, no processor can perform at it's best without the right accessories backing it up.

Comments about processors:
-as unlikely as it is.. Pentium is in a lawsuit right now, over their P3 and P4 processors, and could potentially lose their righ to these products, or have to pay some large sum of money to keep them.
It is not a large deal as they are still one of the most popular and there will continue to be updates and hardware for these processors (and related) for years, even if it becomes an individual project.
(I myself have run a desktop and a laptop with a P3 with little or no complaints. The P4 is a much superior chip to the P3)

AMD is what my desktop is currently running. Do not be confused by the numbering system, AMD's ranking (eg 3000+) is to show it's rating againts Intel. This means that although the actual reading may not be 3.0GHz, it runs equivalent to an Intel 3.0GHz processor. They are reliable and much cheaper. With overclocking a little easier (not recomended in a laptop)
They are supposed to have a slower multi-tasking capability but i am yet to see it as i am currently running more than 20 processes including a movie

A Side note, be sure that the video card, or video capability is atleast 128mb or better, i believe 256mb will be the standard in a matter of months, if it isn't already. This will keep his laptop from lagging while watching movies or playing games

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I myself bought a laptop for my wife, and computer savvy.. I recommend the athlon cpu 3200+. and getting the 256ram video card. also get the brightview screen, he will love it!.when buying any comp. make sure u get a good motherboard!!!..u want to be able to keep up with tomorrows technology.. and i also agree buying an HP or Toshiba. and do youself a big favor, STAY AWAY FROM DELL..!!

Basics. The speed of the CPU is measured in Gigahertz. The higher the Ghrz the faster the Processor runs. Look for at least 1000 mb cache.
Go to Newegg.com or geeks .com they are usually cheaper there.
It's like buying a car. Everyone has a preference about the make but in general they are all the same. I personally like Intel but that's just my preference. What's important is speed both in the CPU and Video ram.
Hope this helps.