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Between portability and mobility

Posted on: Wednesday, 6 August 2003, 06:00 CDT

INTEL is making a distinction between portability and mobility with the introduction of its latest processors, skewed for different segments of the notebook market.

Notebook users who want desktop-like features with high performance for multimedia or gaming applications and are plug-to- plug users who do not find battery life, system size, and wireless ability critical are those categorised in the portability market.

They typically want bigger screens with higher processor speeds, says Kok Hon Loong, business solutions manager, Intel Electronics (M) Sdn Bhd.

For users constantly on the move who value wireless local area network (WLAN) connectivity, sleek, light systems and extended battery life make up the mobility market.

Intel Centrino mobile technology caters to the mobility segment by delivering outstanding mobile performance, integrated wireless capability, by enabling extended battery life in a variety of sleek form factors.

The Intel Pentium M processor, Intel 855 Chipset family and Intel Pro/Wireless 2100 Network Connection gives seamless connectivity for those constantly on the move.

The launch of the processor for portability is seen by Gartner as a move by Intel to counter vendors using desktop processors in the notebook form factor. "Currently, there is still a price delta between a notebook that uses the CPU meant for a desktop and using the Mobile Intel Pentium 4 processor. Intel has to convince buyers as well as end users that Mobile Intel Pentium 4 will provide them better stability and reliability than using desktop processors," says Lilian Tay, principal analyst, Gartner, hardware platforms.

Kok says Intel sees the trend of consumers making the distinction between portability and mobility is taking place not just here in Malaysia, but also globally. "In the portability segment, the larger notebooks are expected to be sold primarily in the consumer and transactional retail space, and users of these systems tend to be first- time notebook buyers who will primarily use these systems in the home or office," he adds.

He says that these systems are larger, heavier systems that provide near-desktop performance in a notebook form factor and take advantage of processor-intensive applications such as video encoding, digital media and gaming. These users are only occasionally mobile, mainly moving from plug to plug, and for them, wireless, battery life and form factor are not important.

For the portability market, Intel has introduced Mobile Intel Pentium 4 processor with the speeds 3.06 gigahertz, 2.8GHz, 2.66GHz and 2.4GHz.

The processor's power-saving features and ability to soon support Hyper- Threading technology in notebooks set it apart from desktop processors, says Kok.

Hyper-Threading allows multi-threaded software applications to execute threads in parallel rather than splitting instructions into multiple streams. This technology makes more efficient use of processor resources.

Mobile Intel Pentium 4 Processor M with 2.6GHz was another new product launched. Other products unveiled were the Intel Celeron processor 2.4GHz, 2.3GHz and 2.2GHz and the Mobile Intel Celeron processor 2.4GHz.

Intel has introduced the Intel Centrino mobile technology to the mobility market. Also introduced were the Intel Pentium M processor 1.7GHz which is the standard, low-voltage Intel Pentium M processor 1.2GHz and ultra low voltage Intel Pentium M processor 1GHz which will benefit the tablet or slate-form notebook PCs.

"Looking at the fourth quarter of 2002, Intel estimates that there will be a decrease in the uptake of transportable notebooks, from 11 per cent this year to six per cent in 2007, and a decrease in the uptake of the full-sized notebooks from 42 per cent this year to 30 per cent in 2007.

"Intel sees an increase in the thin and light, convertable notebook PCs from 37 per cent thsi year to 51 per cent in 2007 and an increase in the uptake of slate notebooks from one per cent in 2003 to three per cent in 2007," says Kok.

Greater wireless adoption has fuelled notebook growth, and according to market research firm IDC, 2002-2007 notebook compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) is approximately 13 per cent.

According to Gartner, 3.5 million notebook units were shipped to the Asia-Pacific region in 2002, and the analyst group forecasts a 29 per cent growth for this year.

Public wireless local area network (WLAN) hot spots growth is also on the rise, with the figure already at about 25,000 worldwide. Intel has verified the compatibility of Intel Centrino mobile technology with over 14,000 hotspots globally, and is aiming to have at least 25,000 such verified sites worldwide.

DEEP IMPACT IBM Malaysia's personal computing country manager Bernard Chiang thinks the new Intel products will impact the market in a big way.

"Intel Centrino mobile technology has been designed specifically for the mobile world. From IBM's perspective, our ThinkVantage Technologies and ThinkVantage Design features make ThinkPad notebooks an ideal fit for Intel Centrino mobile technology," he adds.

IBM has come out with products that make that distinction between mobility and portability.

"As far as mobility goes, the IBM ThinkPad X31 notebook is only approximately one-inch thin and weighs a mere 3.6 pounds. However, size doesn't matter as it boasts the longest system battery life in the industry, at six hours," says Chiang.

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