News Bits: 3G Centrino?, Intel Merom Pricing and Release Dates, Laptop Batteries Investigated in Plane Fire

Next-gen Centrino could have 3G connectivity

Intel's next-generation Centrino platform, codenamed 'Santa Rosa', could have 3G mobile phone network connectivity alongside the standard WiFi according to leaked roadmaps.

A posting on HKEPC (Chinese language) says the Santa Rosa platform includes 'Windigo', the first wireless WWAN (wireless wide-area network) for Centrino. There was no further information in the roadmaps besides the Q2 2007 introduction time frame.

Whether Windigo will be optional or a key part of the Centrino platform not known.

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Intel Merom slated for release end of July

According to Chinese-language Commercial Times, Intel will launch the Core 2 Duo "Merom" processor by the end of July. Despite the early launch, shipments of the processor will start in mid-August, following the original schedule.

Processor	Clock	FSB	Cache	Price
C2D T7600	2.33GHz	667MHz	4MB	$637
C2D T7400	2.16GHz	667MHz	4MB	$423
C2D T7200	2.00GHz	667MHz	4MB	$294
C2D 5600	1.83GHz	667MHz	2MB	$240
C2D 5500	1.66GHz	667MHz	2MB	$209

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Flash drives could replace hard drives in notebooks

Although flash memory is quite expensive and it lacks capacity, analyst Frank Dickson believes that flash drives, or solid state disks, could "dethrone the hard drive as the top laptop storage choice within 10 years."

Flash will be introduced to notebooks with Windows Vista, and Microsoft has already made it a requirement that notebooks that come preinstalled with windows Vista Premium use a hybrid hard drive, or a hard drive that has a flash memory bank.

But, beware of the pricetag - Samsung is planning to release a 32GB drive, and PQI said it would be selling a 64GB drive - for $2,000.

Dickson believes that the flash drive market share in notebooks could reach 50% by 2013.

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Second-tier notebook manufacturer clevo to expand in China

The second-tier Taiwan-based notebook manufacturer Clevo plans to invest $767 million USD into expanding its Buynow IT chain stores in China over the next five years. It plans to have 25 chain stores at the end of this year, up from the 10 right now.

Clevo recently suffered a hit to its stocks due to weak notebook sales. Their notebook shipments this year should remain near the same as last year, about 500,000 units.

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NTSB investigating laptop batteries as cause of UPS plane fire

Could laptops have been the cause of a plane catching fire? The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is investigating exactly that - more specifically, the batteries. A UPS cargo plane caught on fire last February, and was forced to make an emergency landing at Philadelphia International Airport. The plane was destroyed, along with most of the packages inside.

The cause of the fire is not yet determined, but it is known that lithium batteries and a flammable liquid were in the cargo hold. The investigation is expected to take several months to complete. According to FAA official William Wilkening, there have been sixty incidents since 1991 involving batteries catching on fire, most of which were lithium or lithium-ion. Harry Webster of the FAA Technical Center said lithium-ion batteries could vent flammable liquid and "pose a risk to the cargo compartment."

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Microsoft Virtual PC Now Free for Windows XP

News has spread all over the web - Microsoft Virtual PC for Windows is now free. Virtual PC allows users to run multiple PC-based operating systems all on the same computer. The free/current version is Virtual PC 2004. The next version (Virtual PC 2007) will be bundled with the Windows Vista Operating System. For further information and to obtain your free copy of Microsoft Virtual PC go here...

Interesting Links

Dell: We're not overclocking the XPS 700

[URL=http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2006/07/17/macbook_frys_egg/]How to fry an egg....on an Apple MacBook[/URL] [p][/p]

 

Note: pricing on those chips are unit price calculated when purchased in batches of 1,000 such as manufacturers buy them -- not how much it'll cost you as an individual consumer (it'll be more).

I don't remember seeing anything about that plane fire at the time -- scary.

 

so it seems to me since the core 2 duo chips are coming out in laptops mid augest, the best time to buy core duo laptops would be early augest?

 

.. and dell is rumoured to announce a 14" XPS real soon. Coincidence?

 

Well, if you want a Core 2 Duo, then you'll have to wait to September.

 

well i mean for people (like me) who just want a core duo, it may be best to buy one late july or early augest...as most companies would try to rid them to make space for the core 2 duo, which is slated for mid-augest.

 

The Core Duo will still be offered in notebooks after the Core 2 is introduced. I don't think there are going to be big close out sales on the Core Duos . . the manufacturers will simply merge to the Core 2 over time. They aren't in a rush to adopt it; I don't think they like the fact that Intel pushed the release date up to July/August, rather than having it at the end of the year as originally planned.

 

ahh ic. So i guess there won't be any significant price drops from now until september.

 

Great news about Merom. I guess I will be waiting until september or maybe a month or so after that when prices drop a little bit. Man the C2D T7200 2ghz CPU thats a good deal!

 

Oh oh...laptops starting fires. (takes the laptop off lap) There...now I feel much safer.

BTW how do you land a plane that is on fire. LOL
Tim

 

I'm so excited thank you so much for updating us!!

 

w00t, T7200 here i come. haha. might as well upgrade the RAM too. thanks for the info

 

Thanks for the update. I am looking forward to seeing the merom systems coming out in August...

 

do you guys think its worth waiting for merom when im starting college august 18? plus the laptop prices will be really high, and im wondering how much difference a core 2 duo processor will make versus just a core duo. also, by september, would any high end GPU's be available in 15.4" laptops? im leaning to just buying a core duo.

 

oh, one more newbie question, i can always upgrade to core 2 duo from a core duo right? Then it might be cheaper to just get a core duo and upgrade the processor in a year or so when i need extra power.

 

If you can wait, then do so, otherwise, it probably won't make much of a difference. I honestly wouldn't expect to see any Merom-based notebooks until September at the earliest.

This is a possibility and not necessairly a bad idea. Do keep in mind that you need a BIOS upgrade to be able to change the CPU . . it is not known which laptops will have this BIOS upgrade available.

 

Sorry man.. it's far too late. Tsk..tsk..tsk. Bye bye teh babies.

 

intestings news if true for those waiting on merom...

http://images.anandtech.com/jcampion/article.aspx?newsid=3421