Tony & Intel Investors - Pentium II (Deschutes) Notebook At Comdex
Very powerful notebook PCs will be coming next year - using Intel's Deschutes. Some are being shown now at Comdex.
Paul
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news.com
Umax readies Pentium II
notebook
By Jim Davis
November 18, 1997, 6:30 p.m. PT
LAS VEGAS--Umax is quietly displaying a
"thin-and-wide" notebook prototype of the
VisualNote 500 series with a 266-MHz
Pentium II processor and Windows 98,
neither of which are officially shipping yet.
Umax, best known in the United States for its
scanners and Macintosh computers, has long
made notebooks for other companies but
only just released its first branded notebook
in Taiwan. The company has a splashy
Comdex booth full of NFL cheerleaders, but
consumers may get a bigger thrill from
chance to look over a notebook with Intel's
mobile Pentium II processor, often called by
the code name Deschutes.
Currently, the Pentium II is only available in
desktop and server computers, where energy
consumption and heat dissipation are of little
concern. A number of the newest notebooks
have 200- and 233-MHz Pentium MMX
processors, which are based on Intel's aging
desktop processor line.
Notebook vendors have plenty of concerns
about placing the faster processor in
upcoming designs, most notably how to deal
with the heat generated by the chip. Another
concern is managing power consumption so
that batteries aren't drained too quickly.
Intel is currently trying to lower the Pentium II's
power consumption before the scheduled
release of the chip's notebook version in the
first half of next year. Intel CEO Andy Grove
has shown the Pentium II running on a
ThinkPad, but no company has yet released
a Pentium II notebook or shown full-scale
demos of such products.
Company executives claim that Umax's new
notebooks won't have any heat problems with
233- and 266-MHz versions of the mobile
Pentium II.
Especially surprising is the notebook's
design--the overall package is about 1.5
inches thick and weighs under 6.5 pounds, in
spite of the fact that it comes with a 14.1-inch
display. So-called thin-and-wide notebooks
are increasingly popular as mobile
professionals try and excise some weight
and bulk from their luggage, but some
vendors have privately worried that notebook
cases might not withstand the heat from the
Pentium II.
Other features of the notebook include a
4.3GB hard disk drive, 32MB of memory,
modular drive bays that can accept a second
battery, and TV-out port for presenting
information on an external screen.
Executives said the notebook should be
available in the United States by April of
1998, which is after the expected official
availability of the mobile Pentium from Intel.
Intel could not be reached for comment.
In the meanwhile, the company is offering its
larger corporate account customers in
America a new notebook called the
VisualNote Slim with either a 166-MHz or
233-MHz Pentium MMX, 13.3-inch display,
3.2GB hard drive, and 32MB of memory. The
notebook is approximately 1.5 inches thick
and weighs 5.5 pounds. No information on
pricing was given, and information on volume
shipments wasn't available. |
