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General discussion

SONY B Series

Jan 18, 2005 11:03AM PST

Hello there,

I'm planning to buy a portable business laptop. My configuration would look something like this:

Pentium M 725 or 735 (2 MB Cache)
~14" display (SXGA+)
1GB RAM
60GB HDD
CD-RW/DVD Combo
~5 lbs

I'm not able to decide what I should buy. Many say that IBM T-series laptops are the best, but this configuration comes to more than $3000. I've been looking at the SONY B100 laptop and this configuration, with a 2-year accidental damage protection warranty (I had to opt for this because of the extremely bad reviews I read about their customer service) comes to about $2500. I like the design and the SONY screens(although I'm not sure about this laptop since it does not have XBRITE), but I'm still a bit confused if I should go for this. Are there any other laptops in this price range with the same configuration? The weight is very important to me since I travel a lot. would 64MB of shared video memory perform much different than 64MB of dedicated memory given that I have 1GB of RAM? Any comments will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

Discussion is locked

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Sonoma Pentium M is here -- don't buy old standard now
Jan 19, 2005 7:48AM PST

First of all, no integrated RAM (no matter how much shared RAM it is using) will be equivalent to dedicated RAM period -- even 32mb Dedicated RAM is preferable to 128mb shared video. Your cpu can be slowed down or halted at times by using shared video on part of your system RAM -- and increasing your RAM from 512mb to 1gb won't eliminate that factor either.

The most important thing for you to realize now is that the new Intel Sonoma Centrino (3rd revision) has been released today 1/19/05 -- the Pentium M Dothan chips will be similar but will now be coded 720, 730, instead of the previous 715, 725, etc.

The new integrated Intel video is supposed to be improved, the RAM speed is faster, the bus is faster, there is a new chipset and an improved wi-fi minipci card to minimize interference.

So, wait for the new models to come out -- don't buy an existing model unless you are extremely price sensitive or get a great closeout price

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Thanks
Jan 19, 2005 8:35AM PST

Thanks a lot! I'm in a bit of a hurry but guess I'll wait for some more time before I buy my lappy!

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Dell Inspirion 6000 out right now if you want one quick
Jan 19, 2005 9:36AM PST

The Dell Inspirion 6000 has already been released and it will be pricey as it is out first but it is out so if you like that notebook buy it.

Here are the updated Sonoma Specs that will be on the new notebooks from all manufacturers -- of course you still have to decide if you want dedicated video or the improved integrated video but most notebooks under 5.5 pounds only have integrated video ......

http://www.cnet.com/4520-6022_1-5621629-1.html?tag=cnetfd.sd

(click link for article and photo of Dell 6000)