difference in processors

[slick1]

Hi all,

I was wondering what the difference between a

Pentium Cetrino to a Pentium M and a Pentium 4.

I am about to buy a new laptop and these are my options but not sure what the differences are. I also notice that the centrino processor speed seems to be a bit slower but the external bus speed is quicker.

Can somebody please clear this tangle up for me?

Thanks
Slick1

[curtybob]

I know this is a little late, but ti was a good question, and maybe it will still help you, or someone else.

Centrino is not a processor. It is actually a package, that uses the Pentium -M, and intel's chipset ( I think it's the 855 chipset), and intel's 802.11 wireless chipset. So in short, the processor in the Centrino package is the Pentium -M. This is an awesome processor. It runs at a low clock speed, which equals to less heat, less battery drain, and you would think this would cost you alot of performance. But they put an ungodly amount of L2 cache (I think it's like a full MB on processors under 1.7 ghz, and 2 MB on everything faster).
The P4 is your standard brute force processor, that is at a disadvantage in a laptop. I think the P4's place is in a nice big box under your your desk, where it doesnt have to worry about battery life or shoddy cooling.

[Play_The_0dds]

late or not,it is the best description i have ever seen for this,...intel might sell more if they described it as well.