Laptops - how much practical difference does processor speed make?

[RustyBear]

I want a new smaller laptop, so I can MN on the sofa & not have to sit at the desk with my clunky Compaq.
I like the look of this - I saw 2 versions at John Lewis this afternoon, the 13V with 2.4 GHz & the 15Q with 1.66Ghz (both Core 2 Duo)
The faster one was £250 more.
Given that I mostly use the laptop for Mumsnet internet, Office applications & photo editing (probably not video editing)plus playing Shockwave/flash type puzzle games like the ones on the MN games link, would 1.6 Ghz be enough - or will I find it frustratingly slow? The desktop I'm using at the moment is a 2.4 GHz Athlon 4 3800+ , but I'm not sure how that compares with the Core 2 Duo processors.

Can anybody out there help?

no direct comparison with your current machine - I am guessing both would be quicker.

You probably would notice no difference for Office etc - but might do with the games ( I don't play games on mine so can't really comment how much the processor speed effects it - would probably vary from game to game).

Did they have the same amount of memory ? I would be tempted to go for the slower processor with more memory if that is an option.

Both have 2Gb RAM & as far as I can see everything else seems the same.

Thanks.

Any other thoughts from our resident computer experts?

Just don't load Vista, it is sllllooooowwwww.

I've found vista is OK if you've got enough RAM - these laptops have 2Gb which should be OK.
The desktop I'm on at the moment had Vista with 512Mb of Ram (which was why we got it so cheap!) - it wasn't so much slow as glacial -we put in another 2GB & it's fine now.
I've heard Vista does have issues with some programs, but not anything I've needed to run so far...

If you're playing with photos, grab the faster processor..