Centrino's German launch

INTEL HAS officially launched its Centrino processor here @ CeBit in Germany with much trumpeting of wirelessly enabling users. Asked if this spelt the death of previous offerings - such as the P4M - Mike Splinter, director of Intel's sales and marketing group, claimed that they certainly weren't dead. Although like other Intel products they will eventually be phased out.

We weren't particularly impressed by the demos, though. On stage there were a number of Centrino enabled laptops on show including a Fujitsu Siemens S series Lifebook, IBM T40 and X31 Thinkpads plus an Acer Travelmate C110. The most curious admission came when Intel was forced to admit that the demo machines were running at 1.6 GHz and therefore that megahertz weren't everything!

Besides claiming that battery life will be wonderful with the new machines, Intel attempted several demos of wireless access to the Internet. Curiously the demo which eventually worked - a video Netmeeting session with a young lady @ London's Paddington station highlighted a major sticking point with the audience. Currently Wi-Fi roaming is non-existent and the service being used at Paddington is offered by Megabeam - a company not even mentioned as being an Intel partner.

Another slide showed hot spots covering the centre of Hamburg - Which is exactly where the INQ is staying and we couldn't find one last night.

Splinter admitted the current Centrino machines support only 802.11b (11 Mbit/s) and that 802.11a (100 Mbit/s) would be offered by Q3 2003. 802.11a's rival - 802.11g - might be supported when the standard is finished, Splinter said. Other Centrino claims the Inq found hard to believe is that its onboard 1Mb cache drastically reduces power consumption and that its heat pipe (heat sink?) is much smaller and lighter than a P4M's. Didn't look half size and one third weight to us. µ