Intel Australia today showcased its new notebook platform for the local press indicating it intends to shift more than 70 percent of the market to its new Core Duo platform within 12 months.
Intel National Marketing Manager, Kate Burleigh, outlined how the company is ‘re-invigorating’ its brand, with a new logo, tagline and platform name for its mobility range.
The logo gets a work over with two slashes replacing one, while tagline “inside” is taken outside and becomes ‘Leap Ahead’.
The dual core processors will be indicated by the Core Duo brand across all platforms with the notebook chipset upgraded from Centrino to Centrino Duo.
Although most of the mobility announcement was ald news after making headlines at this year’s CES show in
Intel was joined by a dozen or so partners all with plans to release Centrino Duo notebooks this quarter. While most system builders were promising stock in late February, at least one admitted that was an “optimistic” estimate and early March seems more likely for volume shipments.
SmartOffice Reseller will detail the specifications for as many of the announced products in a later posting, but most builders were showcasing a range of 13-15 inch widescreen devices boasting 512MB RAM, 60-100GB SATA HDD, 945Gm chipsets, DVD dual combo drives and plentiful I/O port options.
Due to the low power usage and subsequent heat reductions many of the new models are slim, light and have impressive battery life.
Typical models weigh in at around 2-2.5kg and with a six cell battery deliver up to six hours from a single charge. However, some standouts included the Lenovo T60 14.1 inch (4:3 ratio) which feels almost weightless at 1.2kg. However, for you $3,499 RRP the sub-notebook comes equipped only with a CDRW/DVD ROM drive.
Apart from the 40 or so percent power improvement quoted by Intel and borne out by the system builders, the new dual core processors offer a significant improvement in processing power. Quoted by intel at 70% better than the existing Pentium M series, the company offered a benchmarking demo using real world applications.
The results made a compelling argument for an upgrade. In a two notebook shootout: one a late 2005 notebook versus a new Optima Core Duo Cenotris DW sub-notebook (12-inch) the new technology significantly outperformed the legacy system in both multi-media and business productivity scenarios – the multi-tasking capabilities of the dual core processor significantly helped out the latter when two processor intensive tasks were imposed on the systems.