Dude! AMD slaptops!
Tier one PC manufacturer Dell has begun listing AMD-based notebooks on its website. The Inspiron 1501 slaptops appear to line up roughly with the Intel-based Inspiron E1504 Dual Core models.
Users have a choice of AMD mobile chip ranging from Sempron up to dual-core Turion X2. From therein, it's swings and roundabouts between the AMD and Intel ranges. For example, speccing out two similar systems (taking graphics capabilities, approximate CPU speed/cores, hard disk, OS and so on into consideration), gives a ~$30 price advantage to the Intel Core 2 Duo based system.
Still, Dell isn't trying to hide the fact that it's selling AMD-powered notebooks, with a rather visible banner on their Home & Office notebooks page. One up for consumer choice, then.
It'll be interesting to see what supplies of AMD's mobile processors are like in a month or so. Perhaps they'll have run dry like their CPUs did, or maybe Intel's strong notebook branding will prevent that from happening. Or, maybe AMD can meet demand. Guess we'll have to wait and see.
