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• Turning the Knob on Bandwidth The current wireless card going into Centrino notebooks is the WiFi Link 4965AGN PCIe — by all standards, a solid representation of the latest networking technology. The benefits of 802.11n are still in draft form; the task group has approved draft 4.0 and is now working on draft 5.0, so who knows when we’ll see a concrete standard. Nevertheless, Intel is revamping its entire lineup of wireless notebook adapters for Centrino 2 with four new models. The WiFi Link 5100 and WiFi Link 5300 should be available within the next month, while the WiMAX/WiFi Link 5150 and WiMAX/WiFi Link 5350 will go on sale later this year. The difference between the first two and second pair is, of course, WiMAX support. When we asked Intel about the readiness of WiMAX infrastructure to give the 5x50 cards some value, its response was: “WiMAX provides much wider Internet and phone voice coverage, and unlike Wi-Fi, has the ability to unwire entire cities or communities, [ensuring connectivity] even when on the move. Intel is working with service providers around the world to deploy WiMAX networks, with initial U.S. network availability starting later this year from Sprint XOHM and Clearwire.” In other words, even if Centrino 2 were immediately available with WiMAX hardware, it’d idle until the wireless networks came online in your area. What, then, is there left to add to the Wi-Fi-only cards that’ll make notebook vendors want to spend as much as $30 on them? Well, according to Intel, the new wireless offerings are going to zero in on three things. First, there should be a big step up in performance. The entry-level WiFi Link 5100 is expected to receive files at up to 300 Mb/s using a 2x1 MIMO configuration. The higher-end WiFi Link 5300 gets a claimed 450 Mb/s using a 3x3 antenna setup. Incidentally, the 4965AGN should also deliver up to 300 Mb/s, putting the 5100 on par. We’re going to assume that Intel is employing the same technology that Marvell uses to get 450 Mb/s out of three sub-streams with its TopDog 11n-450. It isn’t clear whether or not you’d need a router built on a particular draft of the 802.11n specification to take advantage of the faster data rate, though. Intel is also shooting for power savings with the new 5000-series WiFi Link cards. It cites consumption numbers at idle, associated with a network, at less than 25 mW. It also claims to offer significant reductions in power consumption and increases in power efficiency, but fails to provide the data to support those percentage increases. Finally, the new WiFi Link cards include support for Active Management Technology 4.0, helping tie Centrino 2 into Intel’s more enterprise-oriented vision. A notebook boasting Centrino 2 with vPro technology includes the Core 2 Duo chip with Virtualization Technology, a Mobile 45 Express Chipset with the ICH9M-Enhanced controller (a $5 BOM increase), the 82567LM Gigabit chip with AMT 4.0 support, one of the new WiFi Link cards with AMT 4.0 support and a Trusted Platform Module v1.2. With all of those pieces in place, IT administrators can manage wireless clients, even if they’re powered off. We’ve seen this functionality for a while now on wired systems, but it’s brand new in the notebook space. With that said, only the enterprise folks will really care about its implementation. Intel hasn’t yet started talking about pricing on the 5x50 cards with WiMAX support, but we can’t help but think that they’re the biggest piece of this Centrino 2 story. All of the other components really just represent incremental improvements, but WiMAX is completely new. If you’re going to spend a grand on a notebook that won’t be replaced for another couple of years, it really makes sense to wait and see how the metropolitan networking technology unfolds in the next six months.

• Four Wide Screen 19" Monitors Compared

  Wide-format displays first appeared on portable computers, and they quickly became the standard in the world of mobile computing. Today offering a laptop or notebook with a 4:3 display is considered positively reactionary, as a good number of manufacturers have learned to their dismay. Wide-format displays for desktop computers are becoming the rule for 20" panels. They've become trend items and everybody is singing their praises: Their format is better suited to human vision, which is more peripheral than vertical. The 16:10 format fits well with movies. The higher resolution is a joy with office applications, and especially with Excel, where the number of columns it can display expands utility. The same goes for word processing, since it's now possible to display two text documents side by side. In short, there's no obstacle to pushing the 16:10 display format anywhere and everywhere; in the minds of marketers, at least. Still, there are some limits here. First of all, while the format itself is ideal for video, few panels are really suited to the task. The video noise induced by the technology they use is a major stumbling block for wide monitors. Then, the response of 20" wide-format panels is not as good overall as that of standard 19" LCD displays. Up to now no 16:10 monitor was able to rival the ViewSonic VX922 for low latency. That's the reason why few gamers have moved from standard to wide displays. Finally, the price of wide-screen 20" monitors is still higher than for 5:4 displays. All these phenomena, taken together, explain why wide-screen 20" monitors have been less than successful up to now. But monitor makers haven't given up, and while the situation hasn't changed much where 20" displays are concerned, the counterattack is coming from 19" and 22" wide models. And the surprise is that these wide models are significantly less expensive than standard-format monitors. The 19" models are particularly impressive for their low price. You can find wide-screen 19" monitors for less than $200! You have to admit it's tempting. So what's the secret of the highly aggressive price point? The answer has more to do with the LCD panel fabrication process than with any reduction in the quality of the displays - all the better for us. First of all, a 19" wide-screen display has only 14% more viewing area than a standard-format 17", whereas the visual impression for the user is out of all proportion with the difference. That's essentially due to the way we perceive space. Our highly lateral vision is much more at home with wide horizontal surfaces. The result is that 19" wide displays are a genuine improvement in comfort for an additional cost that's very acceptable for the manufacturer. Then, you have to keep in mind that LCDs are manufactured using a process that's very similar to the one used for semiconductors. Glass substrates are printed using lithography, depositing the TFT transistors onto the glass. It's easy to see that the more displays that can be made from a sheet of substrate, the lower the unit price will be, since the cost of the sheet of substrate is divided by the number of displays. And that's just where wide 19" displays have an advantage. On a fifth-generation substrate, measuring 1100 mm x 1300 mm, the AU Optronics, Samsung and Innolux fabs can make nine 19" monitors in 5:4 format or twelve wide-format monitors with the same 19" diagonal. That's why 19" wide panels are less expensive than standard 19"ers. The manufacturer ChiMei is breaking all the records in this area. One of their 1300 mm x 1500 mm substrate sheets can produce 15 wide 19" LCD panels. Sixth- and seventh-generation substrates are bigger and bigger yet and confirm the trend. So get used to the idea that if you're looking for a low-cost monitor, you'll have to move to 16:10 format. But "low-cost" doesn't have to mean low quality - the quality of the 19" wide displays I tested was quite satisfactory overall. That doesn't mean that you can ignore the wide variations in performance in the panels I tested in this roundup. Latency, for example, was highly variable, depending on whether the manufacturer uses Overdrive technology or not. And needless to say, the performance differences aren't visible at all in the specifications the manufacturers dish out! But lucky for you, I'm here to test the latency and all other important parameters of each LCD monitor. So you'll be able to make your choice with your eyes open.

• Centrino 2 Exposed: A Name Deserved?

  Living in a MacBook Air World Intel isn’t used to playing second-fiddle on the mobility circuit. Back in 2003, Centrino was the bee’s knees of notebook computing, combining the Pentium M processor (Banias), Intel’s 855-series chipset (sporting DDR-266 memory) and the PRO/Wireless 2100B wireless card (limited to 802.11b speeds of 11 Mb/s). But while the hardware inside its platforms has evolved steadily, an Intel whitebook laptop is still, for the most part, the same as it ever was. Battery-life, weight and screen size — it’s more of the same, and road warriors just don’t seem to be as fixated on the Centrino message. Of course, Centrino doesn’t look any sexier next to Apple’s MacBook Air, which incorporates a 1.6 GHz Core 2 Duo CPU, an 80 GB hard drive, wireless draft-n support and Intel’s GMA X3100 integrated graphics core. Those specifications aren’t even very impressive compared to the existing “Santa Rosa” Centrino platform. But because Apple is able to finesse that hardware into a package less than an inch thick, its MacBook Air is more of an attention-getter. Apple’s success is hardly bad news to Intel, which supplies much of the notebook’s internals. However, with a price tag starting at $1,800, the ultra-portable Air is hardly what we’d call a back-to-school special. The door is wide open for Intel’s partners to both outperform the Mac and add a lot more value. Don’t forget about AMD, either. The newly-christened platform proponent launched its latest mobile initiative called “Puma” at this year’s Computex in Taipei, Taiwan. Comprised of a mobile processor design dubbed “Griffin,” the RS780M chipset, the same integrated graphics core found in AMD’s 780G desktop core logic and wireless networking controllers from any of a handful of IHV partners, Puma’s imitation of Centrino should be sincerely flattering for Intel. Although AMD faces an uphill battle trying to usurp such an established mobile brand, Puma has strengths where Intel continues to demonstrate weakness. For instance, the RS780M chipset with its Radeon HD 3200-class graphics should be a vastly superior performer versus Intel’s GMA X3100, which incidentally only recently started supporting DirectX 10 software through a driver update. Moreover, the ability to switch between discrete graphics and integrated graphics could prove to be a major boon in optimizing battery life. Not So Fast Intel isn’t going to let Puma steal its thunder, though. Nor will a lack of innovation allow Intel’s own branded platform to be eclipsed by the MacBook Air. Rather, the company is putting finishing touches on the first true sequel to its Centrino initiative (never mind the fact that this is a fifth-generation revision) aptly named Centrino 2. Given the subtle changes made to each iteration of Centrino up until now, we hope that Centrino 2 is more Star Wars Episode V and less Jurassic Park: The Lost World (what a horrible sequel that was).