i3 i5 laptops for mum

[Largo]

Hi chaps, just a quick question,
Im heading to the shops to buy my mum a new laptop, her old one, which is a celeron on vista and terrible.
Now I always have a little devil on my shoulder going "i3 what what, that wont do, buy i5 and know itll be speedy for years to come"..
Is that justified? I'm sure for my mums work/email/iplayer i3 with good memory would suffice?

Budget is a big thing for everyone at the moment, so I don't want to over spend if I don't have to. Any opinions welcomed thanks


*edit* ah ha, ive realised my confusion, there seems to be 2 different i3 ones on sale, i3-2330M and i3-380m so i assume theres some performance difference there

[NW2013]

The one with three digits after it is a first generation chip whereas the one with four is a second generation "Sandy Bridge" chip. Checking out http://www.notebookcheck.net/Mobile-...st.2436.0.html suggests there isn't much in it between the two. I'd probably go for the newer of the two myself if there's not much in it cost wise but that's just personal preference.

Actually my own mam bought a new laptop recently and that has a first generation core i3 and she's very happy with the performance but she was coming from a desktop with a single core Athlon processor!

[Largo]

Cool thanks stu