How is the ATI RADEON® XPRESS 200M Graphics Card?
Are they good for gameing? Playable on BF2 or Fear?
Thanks

I prefer the HP. The wife has one from her work and it looks way too cool.

Nice summary. Thanks OP!

EVO1 said:How is the ATI RADEON® XPRESS 200M Graphics Card?
Are they good for gameing? Playable on BF2 or Fear?
Thanks
The Xpress 200M is an integrated graphics part, so you can't expect it to play the latest games, much less more cutting edge games in the future, very well. That said, when it comes IGPs, the 200M is as good as it gets, and it does support DX9. That means that if you crank the resolutions and detail levels down, most current games should be playable (though an intense game like FEAR may be too much for it, regardless) if you don't consider playable to be consistently 60+ FPS.

Hope that helps.

If it's not too much trouble, could some of you guys scan the weekly ads? ;
Also, is the Circuit City laptop 450 AFTER a rebate?

Which would be the easiest to get? Ie where will the lines be shortest? Last year the lines at my Bestbuy formed around 1am. Is the line at WalMart less?

maasenstodt said:
This is simply incorrect. Spend some time with a Sempron laptop and a Celeron M laptop and, all other things being equal, the Sempron outperforms the Celeron M, puts out less heat, and uses less power. What's more, you're not entirely correct when it comes to the Athlon 64 vs. Pentium M, either. The Pentium M does hold the power saving title, but performance-wise the Athlon 64 is at the top of the heap, even without taking value into consideration.

For more information on these matters, check out NotebookReview.com, and this thread in particular.

As far as the overclocking comments go, a person would have to be nuts to OC one of these Celeron M notebooks. First, it voids the warranty. Second, these notebooks are simply not equipped to deal with the heat produced by overclocking, and good aftermarket cooling solutions are tough to find. Third, on a chip that already runs fairly hot due to the fact that the Pentium M's power saving technologies have been stripped from it, the chances of frying an egg on such a laptop would seem excellent.

As I look at it, the Celeron notebooks offered here have the advantages of faster and perhaps bigger hard drives, and perhaps more memory. The Sempron laptop has a superior processor and battery life. If somebody is trying to decide between these units, I see the breakdown like this:


Your post reeks of inexperience and false info.

1. The Sempron is NOT superior. Go do some benchmarks and read some tech articles and come back. Benchmarks dont lie!

2. Todays Celeron M and Pentium M CPUs use the EXACT same Dothan core. In the final stages of manufacturing intel disables 1/2 the L2 cache and speed step. The circuitry is there it’s just disabled and they're not just "Old 1mb variants of Penium Ms" as you claim. (did you make that up yourself? lol) Due to the improved Dothan core todays Celeron M cpus are FASTER then the old Banias 1mb Pentium Ms.

3. The one who posted that thread at notebookreview.com is WRONG. Why? He thinks reality is what he believes it is and Ill prove him wrong right now. Look at the performance review he gives the Celeron M and Pentium M. What he doesn’t know is that the performance of the Celeron M and Pentium M is nearly IDENTICAL because both chips use the EXACT same core. The Celeron M simply has 1/2 the L2 cache disable which does NOT affect performance because you still have a whopping 1mb! Yes, I have done plenty of my own benchmarks with Celeron M and Pentium M laptops. I have owned quite a few of them. There‘re benchmarks online that will prove this as well. I find it laughable how you came to a conclusion of how a sempron laptop is faster than a celeron M unit by "spending some time with it" Seems pretty clear you've never spent time with any of them. Like I said, Go look at some benchmarks before posting false info.

4. Another example of your inexperience and lack of knowledge in this subject is when you claim Celeron M CPUs run hot? This clearly shows you have NEVER used a laptop equipped with one. They do not run hot. The CPU coolers inside are TINY and fans rarely turn on because they simply run cool even without speedstep! At max load they only dissipate 21 watts which is NOTHING for a CPU! The mobile Sempron uses 24 watts at max load! 4 watts MORE than the celeron M. Where do you get your info from??? Do you just make up these ideas on your own or something? Come on now, reality check time....

5. 99.999% of people are not going to be taking apart their laptop to upgrade the CPU and hard drive. LOL!

The WalMart laptop is a great deal and as I said before some may prefer it over the Circuit City model and the sempron is a great CPU as well, just dont crap on an equaly as good CPU which the Cleron M is. The TruBrite screen, larger slightly faster hard drve, double the RAM, and the chance to get it for $380 makes the CC laptop IMO a better overall deal despite the lower capacity battery. Like I said, some people may (along with me) may find that the WalMart laptop looks better and that maybe enough for them to decided to get the HP. Or they may be AMD fanboys like yourself but as far as what you get for your money the CC laptop wins. Even more so if the $15/month AOL deal goes through which I think will.

I can go on and on but, well, Im hungry, im going to get something to eat...

I'm interested in the WalMart laptop..the only thing that I'm scared of is that in Miami almost every WalMart I go to when I go to the computer sections they never have any laptops in stock, always have 1 or 2 display models, etc. I'm worried if I camp out @ WalMart it will be a waste of time and they wont even have any in stock. Or for BF is each WalMart gonna have a # of these laptops? Also, what time is WalMart opening on BF?

Configure and Buy it at HPShopping.com for example. The BF deals are OK only. But they are not 64bit CPU and the res. is just standard 1024 X 768.

How do you think the one from Costco BF compares?
Costco HP Pavilion Notebook ZV6201CL $799.99