News Bits: Intel Leap Ahead, VAIO SZ and VAIO FE, Alienware 3400, CES 2006

Intel Leap Ahead $2.5 Billion Marketing Blitz to be Unveiled January 5th at CES Las Vegas

On January 5th at the CES in Las Vegas Intel will be unleashing its biggest ever marketing campaign for which $2.5 Billion marketing and advertising blitz. This is the first time in about 3 decades that Intel has significantly revamped its official corporate logo and marks a shift in the company's focus from being a pure processor manufacturing company to a "platform experience" company. Of course, at the center of the various platforms Intel wants to promote is their processors.

The Pentium naming and Intel Inside branding will slowly be phased out. In addition, the drop down "e" in the Intel logo will be brought level with the rest of the lettering. The Centrino branding will be kept to indicate notebooks that have both an Intel processor and Intel wireless card. The "Core" branding will be used to indicate a laptop that has a new Intel dual-core processor and "Solo" will be used to indicate a laptop has a new Intel single-core processor.

More: http://yahoo.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_02/b3966001.htm

For coverage of Intel releases and announcements at CES 2006 stay tuned to NotebookReview.com for pictures from the exhibit floor as we shall be there!

Sony VAIO SZ, VAIO FE Intel Dual Core Notebooks

Online European stores have jumped the gun in listing new VAIO notebooks that contain the new Intel Core Duo and Core Solo notebooks. The VAIO SZ appears to be a 13.3" notebooks, that could well be the update to the VAIO S series. The VAIO FE appears to be a 15.4" notebook with the Intel Core Duo processor that will replace the FS series. The product model numbers may vary between the U.S. and Europe, but often Sony keeps model numbers the same. We expect Sony will announce these notebooks officially on January 5th at CES. Stay tuned to NotebookReview.com for new Sony VAIO and othernotebook announcements this week!

Sony VAIO SZ1M Specs

• Intel CORE T2300 (1.66GHz Dual Core)
• 80GB Hard Drive
• 512MB RAM
• 13.3"XBrite Screen
• DVD-RW Optical Drive
• Windows XP Home
• About $1,616 starting
• Product Link: European Online store listing VAIO SZ

Sony VAIO FE11S

• Intel Dual Core T2400
• 1024MB RAM
• 160GB HD Hard Drive (2 x 80GB)
• GeForce 7400128MB Graphics Card
• Multi DVD-Burner
• W-LAN / Bluetooth
• XBrite 15.4" screen
• Windows Media Center Edition 2005
• About $2,069 starting
• Product Link: European Online store listing VAIO FE

Alienware Sentia 3400Widescreen 14" Notebook Released

Alienware has released a new 14-inch widescreen portable notebook, the Sentia 3400. The Sentia 3400 has a glossy WXGA screen, weighs 4.5 pounds, claims 3.5 hours of battery life, Intel Pentium M processor, a built-in 1.3 megapixel digital camera, gigabit Ethernet, 1394 (FireWire), four USB 2.0 ports, S/PDIF out, a 4-in-1 memory card reader, and a VGA port.

The Sentia 3400 notebook comes with Windows XP Media Center. This notebook actually sounds a lot like the Dell XPS M140 specs wise. Unfortunately,the 3400does not come with a graphics card, just integrated. There seems to be a lot of demand for 14" notebooks with a graphics card, but manufacturers just keep cranking out these widescreen "media" laptops with just integrated graphics.

More: Alienware Sentia 3400 product page

Consumer Electronics Show2006 Las Vegas

The Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2006 is taking place in Las Vegas starting January 5th. Bill Gates will be giving the key note as has become customary, and many manufacturers will be announcing new and upcoming products for 2006. Intel will be making a big splash with its new dual-core processor announcements, and notebook vendors will piggy backing on the Intel announcement and hype to announce their own new laptops. Stay tuned to NotebookReview.com for coverage, pics and all the latest from the show!

More: http://www.cesweb.org/default_flash.asp

Acer C200 Notebook Tablet PC Convertible First Look Review

Acer C200 Tablet PCNotebook Convertible(view larger image)

At TabletPCReviewSpot.com Barry has posted his first thoughts review on the new Acer C200 sliding convertible style Tablet PC.

More: http://www.tabletpcreviewspot.com/default.asp?newsID=358

Nokia Web Tablet Review

Nokia Web Tablet (view larger image)

What's a Web Tablet? It's not a PDA, not a phone and not a Tablet PC -- but it is a great tool from Nokia for getting on the web while on the go. Read more about this interesting device at our sister site TabletPCReviewSpot.com

More: http://www.tabletpcreviewspot.com/default.asp?newsID=358

 

What do you suppose a dual layer Hard Drive is? Typo?

Hermit

 

Wow - Intel's going for the conservative look from now on, I guess . That's also very interesting - a dual-layer HD. Recently, I've been hearing about HD manufactures like Hitachi and Toshiba experimenting with this new technology.

 

definitely a typo , it's 2 x 80GB hard drives used to get to 160GB, edited to that in original post.

 

Intel's logos and new slogan are so generic in my opinion...if one of those comes on my next notebook, I'm ripping it to shreds.

Leap Ahead sounds like some sort of community program.

That Acer TabletPC looks very attractive, and small. Cheers to them for innovative thinking.

 

More than a little underwelmed myself. But, if Yonah is anywhere near as good as the early reports, I can forgive a lot of bad marketing slogans.

Hermit

 

Looks like Intel wants an image change. A lot of companies that do this seem to muck things up. Must be new management or something. It's all about the money I'm sure.

 

The new Sony SZ looks like a nice little notebook. Here is the official press release and nice hi-rez pics:


http://news.sel.sony.com/pressrelease/6393

 

not bad looking! looks like a bigger FJ series!

 

Actually, it's more like an FJ Jr. It's smaller (with its 13.3" screen), slimmer and much lighter than the current FJ.

 

woops you're right! i mis read it as the 15.4 model

 

I've seen the first Centrino Core Duo ad on msn.com. A day early... That proves that Intel is leaping ahead.

 

Intels new logo "Leap Ahead." But will they really do it? What I think of when i think of leap ahead is Intel is planning on passing up AMD. Although Itel CPU's dominate the CPU market, Amd has been recently booming. Intel is making great nobook CPU's but there desktop CPU's are far behind the new AMD X2 CPU's. Will intel really "LEAP AHEAD?"