I think Centrino is the overall processor/chipset mobile solution, with the built-in wireless and everything (someone correct me if I'm wrong). The Pentium M is the processor.james wrote:So exactly what is the state of Intel mobile chips? Is the Centrino as good as the hype?
If so, would that be a good candidate for next year's ibooks? Centrino Widescreen ibooks for $700 by Spring 06? I think that sounds reasonable. I would buy one.
As for the hype, I'd say it's deserved. The chip isn't the performance monster some have made it out to be -- I work IT support at a small but expanding company and I do all the procurement, and we buy the latest and greatest high-end Toshiba laptops, and my PowerBook easily keeps up with them (though that may be partially due to all the crap Toshiba loads onto their notebooks, including their incredibly inefficient power management tools).
But it's not the performance of the chip itself as much as it is the relative power consumption and heat considering the amount of performance it provides. "Performance per watt," as Steve Jobs put it in his keynote. Intel sunk a lot of R&D into this, probably because they saw the writing on the wall -- laptops have been the only expanding market in PC sales for years now. So they deserve all the accolades they're getting, certainly. And since Intel obviously has a roadmap for the chip (in drastic contrast to IBM), I think it has a very bright future -- and that's exactly what Apple wants.
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