Intel seeks lift from Centrino follow-on

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hard drive or a bigger screen for a better price. Enter Sonoma.

With Sonoma, Intel is boosting the clock speed to 2.13GHz from 2GHz, and is speeding the bus from 400MHz to 533MHz. The chip also comes with technology for intercepting many viruses, a first for Intel notebook chips. Overall, the new chip gives about a 12 percent performance boost over existing Centrino notebooks and a 25 percent boost over the first Centrino notebooks at the same levels of power consumption, Eden said.

Additional features such as array microphones will also make these notebooks more amenable to VoIP.

The first systems out of the gate from major manufacturers will sell for a premium, falling into the $1,300 to $1,500 range, somewhat more expensive than today's Centrino systems, which start at about $1,000 to $1,200 when sold direct, and around $1,300 to $1,400 at retail. Over time, prices on Sonoma systems are expected to come down, making them more enticing to consumers.

So far, "I haven't seen a lot of Centrino notebooks that bust the $1,300 (notebook) average selling price," said Steve Baker, an analyst with The NPD Group, which tracks retail sales in the United States.

During December, preliminary numbers from NPD show that Centrino and Pentium M processor notebooks represented just short of 22 percent of notebooks sold at retail in the United States (a strong position compared with a year ago), but less than Celeron M systems, which were about 27 percent of sales, and Pentium 4 systems, which were almost 26 percent of sales. AMD processor notebooks, including those based on the Athlon XP, Athlon 64 and Sempron, made up nearly 20 percent of sales.

"If they want to have more (Centrino unit sales) volume, yes--prices will have to come down," Baker said. "Without question there's a huge amount of value below the average price line" of about $1,300.

Dell's latest Inspiron 6000, announced Wednesday, starts at about $1,300 with a Pentium M and 15.4-inch screen. With a tri-band Intel wireless module, 512MB of RAM, a 60GB hard drive and a CD burner, it costs about $1,600. Toshiba is also offering several models, including the Satellite S45-S331, which starts at about $1,500 with a Pentium M and a 15.4-inch screen.

While most new Centrino systems announced Wednesday start at about $1,300 to $1,500, Toshiba also unveiled a new business-oriented Tecra A3 model that starts at about $1,100. The all-in-one machine, which packs a fixed CD burner drive, pairs a Pentium M with a 15-inch screen, 256MB of RAM, a 40GB hard drive and a Wi-Fi 802.11b/g module from Intel. The company also unveiled a Tecra A4 model that comes with a 15.4-inch wide-screen display and similar processor, memory and hard drive specifications for a starting price of about $1,300. Both machines use built-in graphics supplied with Intel's mobile 915 chipset, the company said in a statement.

IBM has also added the new chips to its ThinkPad line. It will offer a ThinkPad T43 model, which incorporates the chips along with IBM tools such as Rescue and Recovery 2.0 for recovering from viruses or retrieving lost data. The T43, which IBM says will begin shipping next month, offers a range of Pentium M processors, Intel wireless modules and hard drives up to 80GB for a price starting at $1,499, the company said in a statement.

Gateway's first Intel Mobile Express 915-based notebook will arrive for businesses in February, the company said. It did not offer any details on the machine. Hewlett-Packard is also expected to come out with machines based on the new chips at a later date.

Higher prices or not, Intel believes the notebook market is moving toward Centrino. Executives at the company have said that consumers, many of whom are second- or third-time PC owners, as shown by NPD data that reveals notebook buyers average 2.7 computers per household, are growing more sophisticated when it comes to choosing notebook models.

Thus, the chipmaker believes people who purchased inexpensive but hefty desktop replacements in the last few years will opt for lighter weight and longer battery life the next time around.

Many PC executives agree.

"Our customers are definitely cognizant of the benefits of mobility," said Gretchen Miller, director of product marketing for the Inspiron line at Dell. "There is a greater range of choices available today than ever before. Customers can choose from the (Dell Inspiron) 700M, something that's basically a replacement for a portable DVD player with computer capabilities, on up to full desktop replacement notebooks."

However, weight and design are becoming more and more important to customers, she said.

At some point the notebook phenomenon will run out of steam and growth rates will slow, Baker said.

But "if the goal is to make PC household penetration and ownership look a lot more like television ownership--there are one or two communal products in the house and everybody else gets one for themselves--if that's the case, then there remains a pretty big opportunity for people to add more PCs to their home," he said. "If that's what they're really doing, there isn't any question the best product for that is the notebook, along with the Mac Mini."