I have a work laptop with a Intel Pentium M 753 1.2 GHz, 1GB DDR II SDRAM, http://www.tabletpcreview.com/default.asp?newsID=639. It cannot run 2 of our diagnostic programs at the same time. One of the programs is poorly written. I've been offered a new laptop with an I5 processor, 2.66 GHz/3.20 GHz Turbo Boost, http://www.toshibadirect.com/td/b2c/pdet.to?poid=497521#. Both laptops would run Windows XP.

Now I KNOW I5 is the latest and greatest, but how do I determine if the new laptop can handle both programs? The I5 has a little over double the cpu rating of the Pentium M.There are no guarantees any CPU can run a poorly written app efficiently...

However if you do need to run both leave the poor app running on the old laptop and do your real work on the i5...

But you may be suprised...they may both run fine on the new rig.I'm trying to avoid carrying two laptops. I found out that Best Buy allows a 14 day no RESTOCKING fee return policy. I can test the programs on a similar spec'ed computer.I believe the I5 is a multi-core machine, so it should be able to handle concurrent applications faster then a Pentium M. (Although if the Pentium M is multi-cored I guess that makes that MOOT)