Wife has 3000 C200 - Wants X301

[ComputerMinder]

Hi

My wife currently have
Lenovo 3000 C200 (Model:8922-4LG)
Intel Core 2 Duo T5500 1.66Mhz
2GB Ram
7200 RPM drive

She wants a new computer and have her eyes set on the X301 (without the SSD)
The model comes with Intel Core 2 Duo SU9400 1.40Mhz. Though I am still not sure if she'll get the 1.20Mhz version (see my other thread).

She is asking if the new X301 will actually be slower than her current computer. She's running a virtual machine inside all the time so speed is important and the cpu does work quite a bit due to the VMware machine.

Set will the X301/X300 be slower than her curreny computer having Intel Core 2 Duo T5500 1.66Mhz ? Process speed wise.

[bluewale]

X301 with 1.4GHz CPU is definitely slower than the 1.6GHz CPU in your wife's current laptop, but not a big difference. If you configure it with 4GB memory, windows XP 64-bit, and a SSD drive, your new X301 should be as fast as the current C200 for routine work. 4GB memory will give VMWare enough room to flex its muscle. Vista 64-bit may slow down things a bit if you do not opitmize it. I recommend SSD because the hard drive available to X301 is 5400RPM, slower than your wife's current 7200RPM.

Just curiously, what OS and applications do you run in VMWare?

[ComputerMinder]

thanks for the input.

Whe will run Vista 32 bit. XP 64 or Vista 64 is out of the question for us due to some compatibility.

The VM is running an XP for browsing since it works through different wireless connection than the outside machine does.

[Marin85]

The VM is running an XP for browsing since it works through different wireless connection than the outside machine does.

You use VM only for browsing the web?... It´s indeed much safer! If I´m not sure about some piece of software if causes any problems or even is malicious, it always run it in a VM, so even if it is infected in some way, only the VM will be infected (unless the malware is designed specifically for VMs...).

Marin

[sportfreak]

It´s indeed much safer

how is it much safer..arent both of them using the internet from the same network card!? can u elucidate a bit marin!? i m quite lost at tht point@@@

[Marin85]

how is it much safer..arent both of them using the internet from the same network card!? can u elucidate a bit marin!? i m quite lost at tht point@@@

Well, if you happen to catch malware or a virus, it will stay in the virtual machine (provided it´s not designed specifically for VM, which would then be bad luck...). The new Intel VT makes using VMs much safer (I had very good link to this, I´ll try to find it again...) in the following ways:
1. reduce the risk for attacking hardware components (like overflowing RAM or cpu) and
2. reduce the risk that the host gets infected if the VM gets infected, which is anyways lower by the nature of virtualization than if you browse from your main system.
So, if you don´t store important data on your VM (resp. have backups of these data), the chance to damage your main system or for your privacy to be compromised is significantly reduced. You can always delete the VM and create a new clean one.

Marin

EDIT: a few things...