If budgets are tighter, then AMD’s low cost solutions are worth a look though, while if it’s a desktop replacement machine you’re looking for PC764, then one laden with an Athlon 64 or Pentium 4 will neatly do the job.

A machine that’s never going to do more than a bit of office work and Web surfing is never going to require cutting edge specifications, and that’s why budget portables tend to come with 256MB of RAM. Normally when it comes to a desktop machine we’d recommend no less than 512MB and ideally 1GB, yet in the portable environment, providing you’re not one of those people who insists on having dozens of windows open at once, 256MB will get you by HP 510 battery. If the budget stretches, however, 512MB will give you a noticeable performance increase. Is it worth going up to 1GB? Not especially, unless you’re looking to use the machine for gaming or heavy multimedia work.

For the processor that best balances performance and battery life though, you need to turn to Intel’s Centrino technology or a later equivalent. Centrino is actually a combination of technologies including chipset, a wireless, Aspire 3000 battery adapter and a processor. Processors included in Centrino models are either Intel Celeron-M or Pentium-M units, with the former being cheaper at a cost to performance.

We’ll start with AMD. At the time of writing it has a mobile-optimised processor called the AMD Athlon XP-M, and it’s a comparably cheap solution. In terms of raw performance, it doesn’t hold up too well against Intel’s portable processors Toshiba pa3107u 1brs, but it will happily process basic office tasks without breaking a sweat. AMD also has the useful Mobile Athlon 4, which again targets budget laptops, and again lags slightly behind the Intel competition.

Intel, meanwhile, has plenty up its sleeve. The Pentium 4-M, for instance, is a fast processor, albeit one that doesn’t necessarily maximise battery life. You can also find machines with a desktop Pentium 4 processor inside, but these generate masses of heat and eat battery life faster than anything else (although some machines also feature desktop AMD Athlon 64 chips that have a similar effect). That makes them suitable only for desktop replacement laptops Sony PCGA-BP2V, rather than a machine you’d take out and about with you.

So which should you plump for? If you’re looking for your laptop to be truly portable VGP-BPS8, then a Centrino-based processor is the best bet, although you will pay a financial premium for the pleasure. These processors will also, incidentally, handle games a lot better than you may expect.

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