If you aren't into photo editing or ripping music, and your laptop is less than two years old, your machine may not strike you as too slow. But demands on your system are rising, with pictures in e-mail, video on Web sites, and programs that monitor the state of your PC. Intel has no choice but to make faster hardware. The company recognized several years ago that its strategy of boosting performance by making mobile chips run .faster was taking too great a toll on battery life. The answer, first offered in 2003, was the Pentium M (branded as Centrino when coupled with an Intel Wi-Fi network adapter). The Pentium M had a slower clock speed, or megahertz rating, than the chip it replaced. But it greatly enhanced performance in other ways, such as fetching instructions and data more efficiently.
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