Introduction
HP01
The second half of 2009 is panning out in such a way that consumer
notebooks can be sub-divided into four main categories.
The nascent phenomenon that is the 'netbook' - a small, cheap computer,
usually powered by Intel's Atom chip, shipping with 10in screens, and
weighing around 1kg - make up the majority of the sub-£300
space.
Then there's the regular notebook, weighing in at 2kg-3.5kg and
shipping with either Intel Core 2 Duo/Celeron or AMD's mobile Athlon
chips. The range is vast and varied, and many of the more-expensive
models now etail with Blu-ray drives and discrete graphics cards. One
can expect to pay anything between £300 and £1,000
for what
passes as a regular notebook.
Higher still, desktop-replacement notebooks eschew most notions of
portability and aim to provide considerable power on every front. These
are the machines that push the performance envelope, and a bespoke
gaming notebook can cost £2,000-plus, bringing the
workstation
market very much into play.
There's a fourth segment that both Intel and AMD want to exploit.
Ostensibly sitting in-between a netbook and regular notebook - not
necessarily in price - we're going to see a large number of laptops
that provide more processing power than netbooks and a thinner, lighter
form-factor than regular notebooks. Intel's bringing its CULV (consumer
ultra-low voltage) platform to bear for this hybrid laptop, and we're
seeing models popping up from the likes of Acer and MSI right now.
AMD, on the other hand, already has a platform in place that exploits
the niche between netbook and notebook. Currently an exclusive with
Hewlett Packard - albeit with BenQ now retailing a Sempron/690E laptop - the AMD Neo/ATI-powered HP Pavilion dv2 fits in the
'Yukon' platform. Has HP and AMD got it right? Let's find out.
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