Notebook News: Intel Pentium M 705, Apple Notebooks Sales, Dell & HP Recycling Program

Intel now Shipping lowend Pentium M 705 processor that runs at 1.5GHz

In a never ending quest to confuse the general public Intel has released yet another Pentium M chip.  But here's the kicker; it's new but it is based on the old Banias generation chipset and not the new Dothan.  Furthermore, the Pentium M 705 runs at 1.5GHz, which is slower than any recently released chip by Intel.  And just to top this all off, the M 705 has only 1MB of cache memory on board, and not the 2MB of cache the Pentium M 715 1.5GHz processor has.

So what the heck is Intel doing taking a step back in its evolution of chip releases?  Basically they're making this chip to make HP and Dell happy.  As the Banias generation of chips gets phased out there's a bit of a hole in that there's no lowend Pentium M chip that conforms to the new numbering convention Intel has for its chips (Intel has stopped promoting processor speed but is instead using the chip number, such as Pentium M 705, 715, 735 and so on to indicate the performance).  So HP and Dell still want to make notebooks with cheaper 1.5GHz Pentium M processors, but they want to move away from the old Banias chips that don't have the new Intel chip numbering convention applied.  So Intel decided to tweak the old Pentium M 1.5GHz, making minor architectural changes, and then slapping the "Intel Pentium M 705" moniker onto it.

Confused?  I thought so, that's really the aim of the chip makers and notebook manufacturers.  Just remember, when looking at Pentium M chips from now on a higher number means the chip is faster, just ignore the processor speed.  Although that's easier said than done when we're all so used to MHz and GHz measurements of chip speed.

Excellent Apple PowerBook and iBook Notebook Sales Boost Q3 Revenue

People love Apple for three things these days:  the iPod, iBook and PowerBook.  The iBook and PowerBook are of course Apple's entrants into the hot notebook market.  Apple reported today that record notebook shipments helped to provide a profitable Q3.  The sales of the PowerBook were up a whopping 37% and sales of the iBook up a very healthy 25% compared to last years numbers.  The PowerBook accounted for 21.5% of Apple's revenue and the iBook contributed to 13.6% of the revenue.  The iPod provided 12.3% of Apple's revenue, so as popular as the iPod is, it still couldn't match dollar sales of the more expensive notebook products that Apple sells.

Free Notebook Computer Recycling by Dell and HP

Dell Inc. and Hewlett-Packard Co. announced free, temporary programs Tuesday to encourage U.S. consumers to recycle toxin-filled computers and electronics.  In what Dell called a first-of-its-kind program, consumers who buy a new Dimension desktop or Inspiron notebook computer can recycle their old computers free.

The offer, which begins for U.S. consumers next week, expands on a free recycling program the company has had for printers since March 2003.

Rival Hewlett-Packard, meanwhile, has teamed up with retailer Office Depot to offer free recycling for computers, digital cameras, fax machines, cellular phones and other electronics.

Though limited to one computer system or other electronic device per customer per day, consumers can drop off electronics at any of the more than 850 Office Depot stores between Sunday and Labor Day.

AMD and Intel Stocks Punished Even After Record Revenue Quarters

Intel and AMD recently published their quarterly earnings from their sales quarter just ended.  Both companies had record sales revenue, but the fact that Intel indicated that its inventory of chips was increasing was a huge red flag to investors worried about a tech slowdown.  When inventories increase it means that manufacturers are overproducing and have overestimated demand for their product.  This is bad news as it is expensive to have inventory and it also serves to indicate the market is softer than Intel guessed.

AMD did not indicate it was having quite the same inventory problems as Intel, they in fact noted that strong sales of their notebook mobile line of processors helped to boost sales:, according to an AMD press release: "Demand for AMD64 processors accelerated significantly during the quarter. Increased AMD Opteron processor sales were largely due to growing enterprise demand and increased shipments to tier-one customers. Additionally, consumer sales of notebook PCs powered by Mobile AMD Athlon 64 processors increased considerably. "