New laptop, How powerful a processor should I get?

[SmacK]

Hi guys,
I'm just about to buy a laptop for "school" (from dell, inspiron 600m) but I'm concerned with whether or not it'll have enough power to run games smoothly. Right now it's got a Gig of RAM and 64Mb ATI Radeon 9000 graphics card. The standard CPU is the Pentium M 1.60Ghz processor and I was wondering if you guys think that's enough processing power, it costs $200 to upgrade to 1.80Ghz and another $200 if I want to go up to 2Ghz, though I'd rather not spend an extra $400 unless I have to, so what do you think?

Thanks,

Sean

[hockey man]

First of welcom to the pcguide. It probably would be good to at least go to the 1.8 gig cpu. Now, most people here are not dell fans. I have one because I got it cheep and it fills my needs. However, if you plan on gaming there are probably better options for your money. Others here would be extremely more qualified than I to point you in the right direction for laptops. So I would post your budget and wait for some expert advise from the folks here.

[SmacK]

Thanks for the welcome,

My budget is roughly $2500 Can so $2000 US, what do you guys suggest for laptops?

Sean

[PrntRhd]

Toshiba P35-S605 is a P4 in your price range, a better quality PC in my opinion than that Dell.
Acer has many Centrino's in your price range, they provide a really good bang for the buck. http://shopper-search.cnet.com/search?q=Travelmate&tag=top&submit.x=20&submit.y=11
What else are you going to be using the notebook for?

[rond36]

You may want to check out this HP (http://www.pcmall.com/pcmall/shop/detail~dpno~189258.asp). 3.6GHz P4, 1GB of RAM, and 100GB HDD with a 17" WSXGA wide screen display for $2149 US.