INTEL CLASSMATE GOES ON SALE AS MDG FLIP IN CANADA

Intel’s Classmate PC has gone on sale in Canada as MDG Flip. The machine now retails for CDN $599.99 on the Sears.ca website. The Classmate PC has been re-branded several times but there has never really been any change in the specs.

Like other Classmate models, the MDG Flip too is powered by an Intel Atom N270 processor with 1GB of DDR2 RAM and a 60GB SATA hard disk drive. The connectivity options include WiFi 802.11b/g/n and Bluetooth.

As the name itself indicates the Classmate line of laptops are aimed at students. They sport a ruggedized design for added durability. And the tablet features come really handy when you have to take some notes in the class.

INTEL TO SELL THREE NEW 32NM CHIPS IN 2010

Intel says that it will start selling its new dual-core Arrandale chips from the first half of next year. These chips are aimed at middle and high end ultrathin notebooks.

The new 32nm chips that are currently being built are the 1.2Ghz Core i7-640UM, the 1.06GHz Core i7-620UM, and the 1.06GHz Core i5-620UM. The chips will be sold in thousand-unit trays for $305, $278, and $241 respectively. The ultra-thin notebooks using these chips are expected to be priced between $600 and $800. The target price for netbooks will remain at $500.

INTEL TO SUSPEND THE SALE OF Z-SERIES ATOM PROCESSORS TO NETBOOK MAKERS

Intel may suspend the sale of Atom Z processors to netbook makers. Does this mean that Intel intends to stop the production of Z-series processors at all? Well, not really. The Z-series processors are used outside the netbook market too and Intel intends to keep it the same way at least for the time being.

The Intel Z-series processors run on the Menlow platform and Intel plans to continue this platform alongside the new Moorestown platform. The reason behind this decision is that Moorestown won’t initially support Windows products. The Windows-based ultra mobile market is growing rapidly and Intel wants to have an offering for this segment. It is, however, possible for the PineTrail platform to replace the Menlow platform as both are close in architecture, power requirements and size. In that case, PineTrail and not Menlow could be the platform used in Windows-based ultra mobile devices. Windows-capable Moorestown processors are also expected to arrive in 2010.

So will Intel do away with the Menlow platform? Well, it is still too early to predict but one can’t rule out the possibility either.

INTEL ATOM PINE TRAIL MOTHERBOARDS START HITTING SHELVES

Intel hasn’t officially launched its next-generation Pine Trail Atom processors, but unofficial sources claim that Intel Essential Series ITX motherboards with two Pine Trail processors – the Atom D510 and D410 – have started hitting shelves.

The Atom D510MO motherboard has a dual core 1.67GHz Intel Atom D510 CPU with 2x512kb of cache and a 13W TDP. It has Intel GMA 3150 graphics built onto the same chip. The Atom D410PT board uses a single core 1.66 GHz Intel Atom D410 processor.

Both motherboards are passively cooled so there won’t be any fans. The motherboards also feature Ethernet, VGA ports, 3 external and 4 internal USB ports and 2 SATA II connections. While the D510MO has 5.1 channel audio and Gigabit Ethernet, the D410PT has 10/100MB LAN. It doesn’t seem to have 5.1 channel audio.

INTEL MAY LAUNCH ATOM N450 ON JANUARY 3

Intel has been working on its low-power Atom processors based on the Pine Trail platform for a while. Unofficial sources claim that the company may soon launch the first Intel Atom Pine Trail chip - the 1.66GHz Intel Atom N450 - on January 3rd.

The Atom N450 will have memory and graphics functions incorporated into the single chip. The result will be a power efficient processor that consumes less power than the Atom N270/N280 processors available today. The Atom N450 may also use a graphics core called GMA 3150. The GMA 3150 is expected to offer better graphics performance than the GMA 950 graphics used in most netbooks. That said, you will still not be able to play high end games. The strength of GMA 3150 is in power conservation and not in powering demanding graphical applications.

INTEL SHOWS OFF LARRABEE GRAPHICS CARD FOR THE FIRST TIME

Intel has unveiled its Larrabee graphics chip. This is Intel’s first discrete graphics card in several years. It is built to compete with Nvidia and ATI GPUs.

Larrabee is expected to become commercially available sometime next year. Initially it will be aimed at the gaming market. The chip was demonstrated on stage during Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco. The demonstration involved running the game ‘Enemy Territory: Quake Wars’. The research scientists associated with the chip claimed that ‘it allows a user to simulate the interaction of lights and action and make it more accurate’. Larrabee also takes fewer lines of code to render the images.

Larrabee uses the ray-tracing technique to render images. Most processors currently available in the market use vector processing technique which isn’t very good at rendering lifelike images.

INTEL DEBUTS ITS CORE i7 PROCESSORS

Intel unveiled 3 of its Core i7 processors at the Intel Development Forum. The new chips are based on the recent Nehalem architecture. They are designed for use in laptops.

The three quad-core 45nm chips are the Core i7-720QM, the Core i7-820QM and the Intel Core i7 Extreme i7-920XM. While the 720QM has a clock speed of 1.6GHz with 6MB of cache, the 820QM clocks in at 1.73GHz and 8MB cache. The 920XM is the fastest among the three processors with a clock speed of 2.0GHz. It is designed for high performance gaming.

The chips possess Hyper-Threading capabilities and support DDR3 1333MHz memory. They also offer Intel Turbo Boost technology which is expected to improve the CPU clock speed.

Asus, Toshiba, Dell and HP are among the manufacturers expected to release laptops featuring Core i7 chips.

INTEL MAKING CHIPS FOR MID SEGMENT

Intel is entering the smartphone and mobile internet device (MID) market with its Moorestown Atom chips. The Moorestown is a power efficient Atom processor variant due to be released by 2010. It is built for use in high-end smartphones, MIDs and tablets.

It is safe to state that Intel’s Atom chips are the standard processors for netbooks. But Intel has until now not been able to enter the smartphone or MID market, simply because its processors are too power hungry to become usable on these devices. Now Intel is hoping to change the situation with Moorestown.

Meanwhile Apple is also working on building chips for future iPhones, iPods and tablets. So will Intel have to compete with Apple in future? It is very much likely.

INTEL TO ADD DUAL-CORE PROCESSORS TO THE CULV PLATFORM

Intel plans to add more dual-core processors into its Consumer Ultra Low Voltage (CULV) platform. Notebook makers often term devices running on these processors as ‘ultra thin’.

Sources claim that Intel will replace the Core 2 Solo SU3000 with the Core 2 Duo SU7000; Pentium SU2000 with Core 2 Duo SU4000 and single-core Celeron with dual-core Celeron SU3000.

The single-core Celeron 700 will be retained for use in entry-level notebooks. Similarly, the SU9000 will continue to be used in high-end notebooks. Intel also plans to release its netbook-specific Pine Trail-M platform in December, but products based on these processors are unlikely to hit the market until the first quarter of 2010.

JOLICLOUD'S LATEST VERSION TO SUPPORT INTEL US15W

The next version of Jolicloud, a Linux based operating system, will support the Intel GMA500 integrated graphics. Until now, it was not possible to run Jolicloud on netbooks powered by Intel’s Poulsbo (US15W) chipset because it lacked the driver support for the integrated GMA500 graphics.

As the latest version of Jolicloud has driver support for the GMA500 graphics, it can be used on the Dell Mini 10, Asus Eee PC 1101HA& T91 and Acer Aspire751 netbooks. Jolicloud has also announced the list of applications that can be run on its latest platform. One of those applications will be the one-click install of Spotify.

AFTER INTEL, AMD SLASHES PRICES

AMD has slashed prices of their new Phenom II X4 940 and X4 920 series of processors. The price of the Phenom II X4 940 CPU has been reduced from $275 to $235.This line of processors directly competes with the Intel Core 2 Quad Q9400, which is priced at $213.

The price of the Phenom II X4 920 CPU which competes with the Intel Core 2 Quad Q8300 has been reduced from $235 to $195. AMD’s quad-core processors deliver more or less the same performance as Intel’s quad-core processors. Recently Intel had lowered the prices of their processors.

INTEL TO DISCONTINUE Z-SERIES ATOM PROCESSORS FOR NETBOOKS

According to media reports, Intel has stopped accepting orders for its Z-series Atom processors. Originally meant for use in the Mobile Internet Devices (MID), the Z-series processors are now commonly used in netbooks like Eee PC T91, Sony VAIO P and Dell Mini 12.

Intel plans to completely stop the supply of Z-series chips to netbook manufacturers by the end of this year. The chipmaker will still fulfill orders already placed by Acer, Asustek and MSI. Meanwhile, Intel’s new generation of Atom chips are scheduled for release later this year. These new chips are part of the Pine Trail platform.

TOSHIBA AND INTEL IN UNOFFICIAL RACE FOR 0.01NM CHIPS

This does concern notebooks and netbooks so bear with us. You might recall that Intel has been working on a 45nm chip codenamed Havendale to release into machines later this year. The new chips would be a step closer to its dreams of a 32nm system.

INTEL MOBLIN NETBOOK LINUX OS TO CARRY 2-SECOND BOOT TIME

For those of us who are Window's loyalists, we know how it is to wait an entire day for our machines to boot. Intel is aware of that also and have decided to give those interested in purchasing their Moblin OS a two-second boot time.

ACER INTEL CULV PLATFORM LAPTOPS COMING SOON?

If you've been keeping up with the news about Intel's ultra low CULV platform then you shouldn't be surprised to hear that some companies are planning to use it in forthcoming notebooks.

INTEL GETS CROWN FOR BIGGEST CHIP MANUFACTURER

Well this was not a surprise at all. Intel has just been crowned the king of the chip manufacturing world by iSuppli. What is a little more disheartening is the fact that AMD has slipped out of the top ten position because of its decline of 7.8% sales back in 2008. Right now it holds onto the 12'th position.

INTEL SIMD TO BOOS GRAPHICS OF MID

Seems like everyone is catching on that graphics are essential to performance, even if its a stupid MID. That said, Intel is saying that they will be releasing an SMID (single instruction multiple data) module that promises to boost the performance of MID graphic wise as well as power wise.

INTEL POUNDS NVIDIA ABOUT ION

You're well aware that NVIDIA and Intel are not the best of friends. Your probably more aware that Ion from NVIDIA plans to boost graphic performance in nettops and netbooks which include full HD playback.

EUROCOM D900F PHANTOM i7 - WORLDS FIRST NOTEBOOK WITH INTEL CORE i7 PROCESSOR

Eurocom has announced a new notebook that will be powered by the Intel quad-core Core i7 processor. The Core i7 processor has so far been designed only to be used in desktops. Eurocom has been fiddling with this chip to fit it into a laptop and it seems that they have succeeded in their endeavor and come up with the world's first laptop to sport the Core i7.

This power house has more eye popping features to back up the Core i7 processor with Intel's X58 chipset , Nvidia's GeForce G280, 9800GTX or Quadro FX3700 graphics with 1 GB video memory, 8GB DDR3 RAM and up to 1.5TB of storage. The 17-inch Eurocom D900F will also have WiFi 802.11 a/b/g/n, Express Card slot, 4 USB 2.0, HDMI and an assortment of other ports. It also has optional internal Bluetooth, Blu-ray drive and TV tuner. Though the life of its battery has not been mentioned, the Eurocom D900F packs a 12 cell battery. With all these specs crammed in, the Phantom weighs a whopping 11.9 pounds, but it has to be mentioned here that this will be the lightest laptop so far to house a Core i7.

Moreover the Eurocom D900F with its Core i7 running at speeds from 2.66GHz to 3.2GHz, will most likely be the fastest laptop on the planet. The Core i7 is based on the Nethalem architecture which is an improved version of the Core 2 architecture. Intel has also announced that it will release Nethalem chips that are compatible for laptops later this year.

Though there is no word on the pricing of the Phantom i7, Eurocom has set the release date to 1st of May.

INTEL CLAIMS NO PROBLEMS WITH THEIR SSD

Appearantly Intel was not happy by the findings of PC PERspective's test results yesterday and has no claimed that there is nothing wrong with their SSD's. Further more Intel claims that:

the synthetic workloads they use to stress the drive are not reflective of real world use," . the benchmarks they used to evaluate performance do not represent what a PC user experiences.

We're not 100% sure why Intel is so angry but we would think that it has something to do with the fact that the drives are overpriced and that according to many the technology is still experimental. Either way we're betting that the pandering will go on until Intel finally decides to cave in and release a firm ware update to the drives.

What do you think?