New to this. Buying my first notebook -- an HP Pavilion. A choice between two identical models, except for the following: 1)1.7GHz Centrino with 2MB L2 cache 2)1.6GHz Celeron with 1MB L2 cache I save $200 by selecting the Celeron model. Considering that I'm not a gamer, are there still significant advantages to selecting the Centrino model? Thanks for cluing me in. Gord

Centrino is not a processor. It's basically Microsoft's way of saying that it's a Pentium M with some wireless networking of some sort. I'm not sure. Performance wise, everyday tasks will be slightly faster with the Centrino, but if you want a laptop to do some light surfing, word processing and/or DVD watching, then go for the Celeron and save some money. I have a Celeron 1.4 Gateway and it definitely gets the job done. I watch movies all the time on it skip-free! Make sure that the Celeron model has some form of WiFi if you plan on wireless networking, though. I wish my lawn was emo so it would cut itself.

Actually, it's Intel's way of saying it's a Pentium M with wireless networking & accompanying chipset. If you're not a gamer, pick the Celeron. Really, in P6 style chips such as the PIII and Pentium M (The Celeron M is just a cut down version of the P-M) cache doesn't matter nearly as much as it does on a Netburst style chip such as the P4. 1MB of L2 on the Celeron M is enough. In fact, a Celeron M and Pentium M are almost the same performance-wise; it's usually cheaper parts on the laptop that seem to make Celeron M models slower, such as slower RAM and integrated graphics. Since you're not gaming though, this won't matter.

It wouldn't matter if you are gaming or not when it comes to Centrino or Celeron M. If you don't have a decent graphics engine in there and you are willing to spend at least 1500 on a laptop for that reason they it's pretty useless in terms of games. ATI x200 or 945g graphics engine in a laptop isn't going to cut it if you want a gaming laptop. AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400+ OC 2.7ghz 2GB Dual Channel DDR 3200 Nvidia 7800GT SATA II 2x 200gig 7200rpm 16mb cache RAID-0 Gigabyte Nforce 4 SLI

All -- Much appreciated, thanks.

It's basically Microsoft's way of saying that it's a Pentium M with some wireless networking of some sort. My mistake... I meant Intel I wish my lawn was emo so it would cut itself.