Laptop replacement

[dave1]

Hi all. I'm looking to replace my desktop with a laptop of similar performance. Heres my specs and test results

Windows XP Home 32 bit SP3
Gigabyte GA-M55PLUS-S3G Motherboard
AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 6000+
2048 MB Ram DDR2 400 MHz
NVIDIA GeForce 6100 256 MB Integrated graphics
standard hard drive (not sata)

Passmark rating: 446.3
CPU Mark: 1582.6
2D Graphics: 417.6
3D Graphics: 47.1
Memory: 549.9
Disk: 343.3

I dont do gaming or any 3d stuff. Any suggestions on a minimum spec laptop to give me at least the same performance as this, I'm on a tight budget. Thanks for any advice.

[David (PassMark)]

Have a look at the i3 and i5 mobile chips. e.g.
Intel Core i3 330M @ 2.13GHz
Intel Core i5 430M @ 2.27GHz

But it is often a slow hard drive that makes a laptop feel slow.

[wonderwrench]

If you live in the US you can get an MSI A6200-206US, i3 350m, 4 gigs of ram, 320 gig drive for $500 at Office Depot. I just got one for my wife. I was looking in the $400 range but when I found the MSI A6200 the extra $100 was worth it. Other laptops with the same specs cost much more. Seems very well made, full keyboard etc. etc.

[wonderwrench]

Here is a screen shot of the PT results.

[wonderwrench]

More info here.

[dave1]

thanks passmark & wonderwrench for the replies. And thanks for posting your results wonderwrench, useful info.
Looks like the i3 is the way to go. I dont live in the US, but looking at your machine spec is useful for what to look out for.
How will the drop in 2D performance affect me, is this a factor in playing HD video and user interface response?

[wonderwrench]

The drop seen between your XP box and the MSI laptop is the result of moving from XP to windows 7 not the hardware differences. See this link. I have tested the laptop driving a 40 inch HDTV at 1920x1080 and video playback is flawless. Better than both of my desktop PC's. One using a Q6600 and a 8800GT and the other using a Athlon II 240 and a HD 5670. I'm very impressed with the i3. It will even game as long as your not expecting to run high settings. As far as user interface response goes windows 7 has far more eye candy so XP would most likely look faster. That being said I would never go back to XP as it just feels old compared to Vista/7.

You did not say where your from but I'd still give the MSI A6200 series laptops a look see. Outside the US they are called CR620 series. I looked at a ton of laptops and most look and feel cheap compared the the MSI ones. Toshiba and Acer seemed better than most also. I was only looking for lower end stuff so this may not hold true if your looking to spend twice as much or more.