A Laptop using a Via 1.5 M CPU

acharris · 4 May 2006 at 23:51

Hi all, I was in a high street retailer which sells DVD, games, music and various other household items and I saw a Laptop with a 1.5 - M CPU made by Via. Since when has via been producing CPU's to use in systems, as I Thought they only did chipset these days.

Do anyone know if they are any good though, as it was only £399, and probably on par with a Celeron - M.

Anthony

paul@ · 5 May 2006 at 00:31

VIA 1.5 M is like having a 850Mhz Pentium III, we use them at work, they are budget crap.

I would aim for a celeron M but I would personally avoid this and buy a Intel centrino or AMD turion based laptop.

WJA96 · 5 May 2006 at 07:30

The big benefit on these chips is the battery life. If they haven't crippled the machine with a crappy battery, you should get 6-8 hours out of one of these. Performance will not be fantastic, but good enough for Office applications.

I do know some poeple who have bought laptops as gaming machines, but generally I would have thought that most laptops are used for web browsing, office apps and watching DVDs at the Airport. In that case, you might be very happy with a Via chipped laptop.

Six6siX · 5 May 2006 at 10:45

WJA96 said:
The big benefit on these chips is the battery life. If they haven't crippled the machine with a crappy battery, you should get 6-8 hours out of one of these. Performance will not be fantastic, but good enough for Office applications.

Problem is, at that sort of price, it won't be a decent battery. I think I know the machine you are referring to and it doesn't have particulary good battery life - even on basic tasks. I'd say definately < 2.5 hours.

For the same sort of money you can easily get a Celeron M based system - possibly even a Centrino at a push (maybe a bit more expensive ~£50 more) - both of which will be a lot better - even for basic things like office / internet.

acharris · 5 May 2006 at 12:43

Thanks for the replies, I am not looking at one, I was just curious as to what they were like, and also if someone ask me advice on them, I could steering them in the right direction.

I own a Dell Latitude D505 centrino Pentium M 1.5 ghz processor, and am quite happy with it for what I want it for and the price I had it for at the time.

Anthony