X-bit labs

April 2004 Hardware News Overview (page 10)

Category: Editorial

by Andy Yaschenko

[ 04/21/2004 | 09:34 AM ]

Notebooks

The Centrino spring is unfolding. Although there has been some time since the announcement of a new processor for this platform, the manufacturers are quite happy with the existing ones to go on throwing out new models, although those look ever more similar to the previous ones. The tablet Portege M205 from Toshiba differs from its original version of half a year ago only in the new 60GB HDD and support of the 802.11g protocol. The corporative models from iRU (Stilo 3414 and 3514) and HP (Compaq nx5000) appeared: the latter is a boring, but cheap Centrino-based notebook, while the first two are smarter with their integrated web-cams and unusual color schemes.

The next month this calm market will be blasted up with the announcement of the Dothan core that will transform into the Pentium M 715-755 (1.5-2.0GHz frequencies) and Celeron M 370 (1.5GHz). The last processor will only appear in the Q3, rather than in May. Then, Yohan/Napa and then Merom/Santa Rosa will get closer. The last combination seems fantastic, of course: a multi-core architecture, up to 4MB of L2 cache, various technologies, including the 64-bit addressing of course, PC2-6400 memory, PCI Express x16, DirectX 9-compatible graphics core and wireless network like 802.11n. Today, not every server can boast such a processor and such memory!

So far, if you want to have a non-compromise notebook at any cost, without looking at its weight and heat generation, you’ll probably have to use an analog of an ordinary desktop CPU or even the desktop processors itself. For example, that’s what Dell did in its Inspirion 9100 where an ordinary Pentium 2.8GHz (Prescott core) is the central processor. The device works for 1.5 hours on its batteries and weighs 4.1kg. This is a classical replacement of the desktop PC as all its mobility permits just moving it from one desk to another.

Of course, there are less extreme variants from the same field like the Inspirion 1150 on the Mobile Pentium 4 or Celeron that weighs 3.5kg or the HP Compaq nx9110 on the Mobile Pentium 4 weighing just 2.6kg (although the screen diagonal is 15” like in all models of that class). Well, HP also offers the Compaq nx9105, the full analog, but on the Mobile Athlon XP-M. That processor is alive and developing: the Athlon XP-M 2100+ has been released for sub-notebooks. Cheap sub-notebooks, considering the price of the CPU - $97.

Meanwhile, the 64-bit processors from AMD are in vogue today, even if those 64 bits are not very necessary for anyone. Anyway, the DTR Athlon 64 3400+ processor appeared in March – it belongs to the same league as the 2.8GHz Prescott, even higher-performing…and hotter.

But if there’s supply, there must be demand. As a result, two new models on the Athlon 64 were announced in this month only by the same HP: Pavilion vz5000z and Presario R3000Z. They are of the same desktop-replacement kind. The perspectives of mobile AMD CPUs are bright due to the attention of Asian brands like ASUS and Acer who like the price/performance ratio of those processors.

Again, CeBIT has brought some news to the notebook market, too. Exhibitions are not only about today’s products, but also about upcoming technologies. Thus, the Hanover show was remarkable for the demonstration of fuel elements that are going to permit the notebook to work with a cheap easily-replaceable cartridge for about 10 hours. Another interesting technology is ExpressCard based on the PCI Express interface – it is in fact a new generation of expansion cards for notebooks, after PCMCIA cards. Express cards have a smaller size and work faster. That’s exactly what we need from new technologies!