FEATURE
Intel's Centrino 2: The second coming
Related Articles
Latest Features
Chipset
Changes to the chipset include support for additional technologies such as dual-channel DDR3 RAM and improved power management. Intel claims its Rapid Memory Power Management system will improve battery life, and DDR3 uses lower voltages which should also help.
Early feedback from vendors suggest they haven’t seen any major battery life difference for Centrino 2 models compared to Centrino models of a similar specification. Expect to see the disparity solved when the first review models arrive.
Gigabit Ethernet is supported now, as is DisplayPort – yet to make a major impact, but Intel is predicting laptop screens will move to DisplayPort in the future. Blu-ray playback is supported in hardware, and there’s also support for USB/eSATA combo ports, though we didn’t see any on models at the Centrino 2 launch.
Graphics
For starters, the new mobile graphics includes new graphics chipsets: GM45 for integrated graphics and PM45 for discrete GPUs. While we haven’t tested these chipsets, Intel has reportedly designed them to be 70-200% faster than the Santa Rosa ‘Bearlake’ graphics chipsets, incorporating faster 533MHz clockspeeds, more shader processing, SSE4 and HD video support.
GM47 and PM47 follow later this year, and will increase the graphics clockspeed to 640MHZ.
There’s also integrated graphics, which works in s similar way to Nvidia’s Hybrid SLI – the graphics can switch from discrete GPU to integrated graphics to conserve power or provide performance, as needed. We saw one switchable graphics laptop from Lenovo; a software dialogue box switches between the discrete GPU and integrated graphics on the front of the laptop.
HP, interestingly, has opted for discrete graphics across its initial Centrino 2 product range, rather than integrated graphics.
Wi-Fi
Centrino 2 adds faster Wi-Fi through a new Wi-Fi module, codenamed Shiloh, which provides 802/11 draft-n for speeds up to 300Mb/s (450MB/s after an update later this year). While this addition is great if you have a draft-n network, it’s certainly not an essential upgrade yet, especially when public Wi-Fi is mostly 802.11b/g.
Centrino 2 also brings integrated WiMAX to laptops. The WiMAX/Wi-Fi combination adapter, known as Echo Peak, won’t find its way into Australian laptops soon – of the 11 manufacturers we spoke to, only Fujitsu will include WiMAX, and even then, only on business models.
The WiMAX spectrum used here is not the same as used overseas, and dual spectrum WiMAX adapters aren’t yet available (though they will be next year). A laptop with WiMAX is only worth consideration if you frequently travel internationally.
Gradual change
As soon as Intel launched Centrino 2, there were already thirty laptops ready with the new platform.
Centrino 2 provides a good deal of flexibiity for OEMS, and given what we’ve seen already from vendors such as Acer, Asus, Sony, Optima, HP, Lenovo and NEC we expect diverse pricing and more differentiation. Centrino 2 also supports the small package size Core Duo CPU used by the MacBook Air and Lenovo X300, offering more scope for even thinner, ligher laptops.
But even at launch we heard about expected updates to the Wi-Fi module and integrated graphics, as well as quad core models, due in only a few months. It’s likely that the incremental improvements will continue, and although Centrino 2 will rapidly replace Centrino in all but the cheapest entry-level notebooks, it’s not the spectacular change we might have hoped for.
All the changes are welcome, but you don’t need to bin your current laptop for Centrino 2. It’ll be the only game in town by the time you buy your next laptop, and that’s plenty soon enough to upgrade.
 |
| Hp has opted for discrete GPU's on its entire Centrino 2 based laptop range |