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
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.

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