Quick off the blocks
Today is officially launch day for Intel’s long awaited next generation mobile platform – Centrino 2. UK PC retailer and system builder Novatech has been quick to jump on the bandwagon, apparently in preference to AMD’s new mobile platform – Puma.
“Centrino 2 is a big step forward in terms of ‘visual computing’ – i.e encoding and decoding video,” said Kriss Pomroy, commercial director at Novatech. “It is five to six times faster than the Santa Rosa refresh.”
On the graphics front, Pomroy is a fan of NVIDIA’s 9600M GT mobile GPU. “The biggest breakthrough in Centrino 2 is the support they’ve built in for the 9600M GT,” he said.
This combination doesn’t seem to be great news for AMD. We asked Pomroy how Centrino 2 compares to Puma. “In a performance test my money would go with the Intel/NVIDIA solution over the AMD one,” he said, and this is sure to reflect itself in Novatech’s product range.
Novatech hasn’t been slow to come out with Centrino 2 products. Its first is the x50MV, which comes in vanilla and Pro flavours. Both have a 15.4-inch screen and NVIDIA 9600M GT 512MB graphics, but the vanilla one has a P8400 CPU, 2GB memory and a 160GB HDD for £699 ex VAT, while the Pro has a P9500 processor, 4GB memory and a 200GB HDD for £829 ex VAT.
It has also produced a desktop PC using mobile parts. The Solo is a 19-inch monitor with the PC built into it. The USP appears to be a power usage of around half of a regular desktop. This means that the name has a double meaning: not only does Solo refer to it being an all-in-one, it also refers to the power usage being “so low”. Geddit?
Press release: Novatech first to offer Centrino 2 stock at launch
Related Reading: Intel's Centrino 2 is alive and gunning for AMD's Puma
