1. I'm looking for a laptop in the near future, but want something that's light. I heard that Centrino chipped laptops are pretty reliable. Would just like to hear you guys opinions on how it compares to the power of the P4 and is it just as good? Or should I wait a little longer for the new chips to be released? Or should I just not bother with Centrino @ all?

2. Just looking for ways to decrease the wires in my room. One area in particular i see people going in is getting the wireless hub router for the internet. i have a regular hub now and would like to know what you guys suggest.

Any info would be very helpful to me. Thank You
:gabby:

the Centrino is, in fact, a Pentium-M available in 1.3, 1.4, 1.5, 1.6 and 1.7GHz speeds.

It has 1Mb of on-die L2 cache.

this new processor, the Pentium-M was built from the ground up, it is a completely new design for intel.

the name 'Centrino' doesn't just apply to the processor, but it applies to the technology as a whole, which includes: The Pentium-M Processor, intel 855 chipset, and the intel/Pro wireless network connection. Those three components designed into the laptop define it as a centrino, not the processor alone.

It uses FAR less power for the Pentium-M than any previous intel has. In fact, the cpu can consume as little as 1.1V. That's why the battery life is so good.

As for performance, the Centrino 1.4Ghz isn't just about clock speed.

Frequency doesn't matter so much, as long as the chip design includes big caches and highly accurate branch prediction. The Centrino processor has met or exceeded expectations here, making notebooks based on the Mobile Pentium 4 completely unappealing for almost all practical purposes. In tests, Centrino—which is actually based on a modified Pentium III core and Pentium 4-like bus—outperformed the higher-frequency, power-hogging Pentium 4 devices hands down.

For example, in tests conducted by PC Magazine Labs, Centrino- configured notebooks were typically more than 25 percent faster than Pentium 4-based devices. This is mostly due to the fact that Centrino includes a whopping 1MB of Level 2 cache, which is double that of the Pentium 4-M. Part of the Centrino design includes ways of fluctuating the cache speed and power usage so performance does not erode battery life.

To get to grips with the speed ratings become a marketing director at AMD for a min, for example the AMD 2500+ has a clock speed of 2.0Ghz (or somthig simular), but is rated at a speed of 2500+, they do that so when they sell their PC people dont just go for the faster clock speed i.e a P4, a centrion 1.6 would be rated against a P4 in a simular way

Not a clew about wireless, but the Centrino has it built in :)

HTH

One more thing AMD is about to released thier own version of a Centrino like technologh, not sure how good it will be but it will be slightly cheaper, not woth waiting though IMO

much appreciated, thanks for the info