We've previously reported that worldwide laptop shipments will surpass desktops' in as little as two years' time. Looking at what current laptops offer - right from < 1kg sub-notebooks through to 7kg desktop-replacement monsters with dual-GPU graphics - it's not difficult to see why mobile usage has become so popular - there's something for practically everyone.
What's common between the majority of shipping notebooks are the underlying processors. Intel has the lion's share through a mixture of excellent technology, in-yer-face marketing that's helped by a huge budget, clever platform design that ties constituent parts together under the Centrino banner, and widespread uptake from practically all manufacturers. AMD grabs a significantly smaller chunk, and the rest are left to fight it out for the scraps.
We've also previously mentioned that whilst Intel is enjoying mobile technology leadership right now with its Core microarchitecture-derived CPUs, AMD's Turion 64 X2 processors have always been a good fit for manufacturers looking for decent performance at a lower price-point. That's why the world's five leading laptop manufacturers have AMD-based SKUs in their line-ups, often only differentiated from the Intel counterparts by the use of different CPUs (obviously) and mainboards.
The trouble that faces AMD is how to fight against the industry leader that a) has a competitive product b) has amalgamated it in to a certifiable platform, further increasing revenue and c) can write multi-million-dollar marketing and R+D cheques at a moment's notice.
HEXUS hopped along to an AMD notebook event that was designed to show that, unlike its competitor, just how open and collaborative the company is. We were shown notebooks from Toshiba, Acer, ASUS, HP, and MSI - and all featured AMD's Turion 64 X2 processors, mainboards predominantly powered by ATI graphics (although Acer managed to sneak in an NVIDIA-based DTR), with 802.11n (draft) WiFi provided by the likes of Atheros, Marvell, and Broadcom.
The mantra of the day centred around the fact that such an open collaboration has lead to components that are 'designed to work better together', with 'superior technologies, better performance, and greater value'.
I'm not sure that I buy in to this 'we're all friends' philosophy. Trouble is, Centrino may be a somewhat closed platform, sure, yet it works and works well, delivering a tried-and-tested solution that's regularly updated, rather than a bunch of components that co-exist together. Don't get me wrong, AMD and its partners manufacture excellent products, but the game is such that being excellent is not enough to for it to significantly erode Intel's market share. What AMD needs to do is, somehow, be better than Intel in the mobile space, and that, folks, is absolutely no gimme.
HEXUS will be testing two otherwise identical laptops that differ in the processor and mainboard used. We'll evaluate if AMD's claims hold true. In the meantime, take a look at a couple of new-ish laptops featuring Turion 64 X2 technology.
The mid-sized Toshiba A210-11p features an AMD Turion 64 X2 TL-56 processor, 2GiB RAM, Mobility Radeon HD 2600 graphics card, 200GB hard drive, 802.11b/g WiFi, and 15.4in WXGA (1,280x800) screen, all for £569.99. Santa's going to be busy this year.
The MSI PR210 has been out a short while and features the same processor, a smaller but higher-resolution 12.1 WSXGA screen, Radeon Xpress 1270 chipset with integrated graphics, 1GiB RAM, 120GB hard drive, and weighs in at around 2kg, including optical drive. Current pricing gravitates towards £650.
HDMI is always nice.
Which is the odd one out?
Now for a bit of fun.We lined the laptops up and introduced an interloper. Can you guess which one it is? A special prize for anyone that can identify the model number.
