Latest laptops boost mobile connectivity
The Centrino platform includes a PentiumM processor, chipset and WiFi wireless card and manufactures build laptops around these, says Danie Steyn, business development manager at Intel.
“The combination of these three components provides better performance and increased battery life for the best possible wireless experience.”
Steyn says the latest advance in this technology resulted in the release of the Centrino-Duo in January, which provides two processors in one package, is smaller and faster, and consumes less battery power than Intel’s previous mobile platform.
He says in recent tests the Intel Centrino Duo performed up to 70% faster and consumed 28% less battery power compared with the previous generation Pentium laptops, and the components take up 30% less space.
Centrino laptop models support the 802.11 wireless standard, which provides speeds of up to 54mbps shared by the number of users connecting to a single wireless local area network (LAN) access point in an office environment or at a WiFi hotspot. The next version of Centrino, to be released next January, will incorporate the 802.11n wireless standard, which operates at 300mbps, says Steyn.
Manufacturers are also starting to integrate EDGE and 3G capabilities into their laptop models and provide a slot for a SIM so that users can connect to these services without having to purchase a separate data card.
Steyn says during the second half of this year users will be able to purchase data cards that support the new WiMAX wireless standard, which provides speeds of multiple megabits per second over distances of 50km.
“At the beginning of 2008, Intel will be incorporating dual WiFi and WiMAX capabilities in a single chip so that users can roam between the two technologies.”
He says this will do for WiMAX what the earlier versions of Centrino have done to stimulate the take-up of WiFi.
In the future, personal digital assistants (PDAs) and cellphone handsets will incorporate WiMAX capabilities to support fast data connectivity and allow users to have voice calls forwarded to them over the internet,” Steyn says.
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