Looking for a quiet laptop for daily use. At the moment I use iBook G4 12" 1.25GHz with 768MB RAM but it can't cope with the load. The source of the load is mostly heavy AJAX on gmail, google docs and the likes. I'm running Debian Linux and that's what's going to run on the new box too so I would prefer more conservative video chipset.

The noise that I get at the moment is only the HDD which is very annoying because it spins up and down. I think more RAM would be a big help. CPU fan is on in Jul/Aug only.

For the new laptop I was also considering a 32/64GB SSD, I use 30GB atm and that's enough for me. I guess I would have to buy that later and sell my HDD though since I couldn't find a way to choose it as an add on, they only have these for the more expensive models and I'm shooting for under 800 euro for a HDD model. Would pay more for a SSD though.

According to these reviews the Dell would be a better choice, I don't care about DVD noise as I won't use it often:

www dot notebookcheck dot net slash Review-Dell-Latitude-E5500-Notebook.13837.0.html

www dot notebookcheck dot net slash Review-Lenovo-ThinkPad-SL510-Notebook.24037.0.html

although the fact that the noise from the Dell varies most worries me a bit. Not completely sure but I'd think more consistent noise levels across the test would be better.

Another option I was considering is Toshiba Tecra A11 but I think it might be noisier than these 2.

I can also choose between different CPUs, I'll most likely order directly since stores in Ireland either don't have much choice or sell old configurations.

Is this a good giude at the heat and thus noise I can expect:

en dot wikipedia dot org slash wiki/List_of_CPU_power_dissipation#Core_2

so I should just look for lower thermal design power? My choice of CPUs is T6570, T6670, P8700, T9600, P9700. So all of the T's are 35W and the P8700 is 25W and P9700 is 28W.

Would that mean P8700 is my best choice? Any other laptop in that range that I should consider but I missed somehow or maybe downgrade to a Celeron?

PS. I apologize for the crappy looking links, seems that I can't post links yet.

Well I got the iBook in 2005, so it's almost 5 years old. I am very happy with it but it's just old and can't cope with my current needs. Yes, ideally I would get something with a SSD since these should be a lot quieter than any HDD.

I've only got a Lenovo SL300, so I can't really say anything specific on SL510, but I guess they're fairly similar. On the SL300 the fan is pretty loud on the default settings, but it can be controlled using software. In Linux there's loads of software for the Thinkpad line of laptops, but since the SL-series actually are Ideapad firmware, I have to use the module lenovo-sl-laptop, which gives you complete control on the fan on an SL-series laptop. For Windows I think you can use tp-fancontrol, but I'm not guaranteeing it. This works great, and the the default settings can be set to a setting where the hdd becomes the noisiest part, and the temperatures don't rise more than 2-3 degrees on my system.
As for the hdd noise, you won't get around it without switching to an SSD, but the noise of the hdd idling is really not that bad on my laptop, and I'm pretty sensitive when it comes to computer noise.

I just ordered a ThinkPad SL510 and will be swapping out the hard drive it ships with to the Intel X25-V SSD. This system will be replacing an old R50p. I love ThinkPads.

When buying any brand of notebook, just make sure you get a Dual Core CPU and install an SDD drive and it will run fast.