The Technicist

HP dv4t shows up on HP's website!

The hotly anticipated HP Pavilion dv4t has shown up on HP's website here, though it is not immediately obvious where to find it on the HP Shopping site. The 14.1" dv4t replaces the venerable dv2000 line of notebooks, with the dv2500 and dv2700 updates along the way for the Santa Rosa platform and Penryn line of processors respectively.

The dv4t shares its style with the dv5z notebook released by HP earlier this month, and features some nice options that were not available in the dv2x00 line. While there is still no higher resolution than the standard 1280 x 800 WXGA available (other competing 14" notebooks like the Dell Inspiron 1420 have 1440x900 WXGA+ screens optional), there is an optional LED backlit panel option for a steep $200, and the completely flat Infinity glass-paneled screen as a $50 add-on. It features, as expected, the Intel Montevina platform, featuring Penryn-based processors ranging from the 2.0GHz P7350 to the 2.8GHz T9600 and the Intel PRO 5100 wireless card. The choices in graphics are the Intel GMA X4500 IGP or the Nvidia 9200M GS dedicated graphics card (+ $100). This is somewhat dissapointing, as the 9200M is expected to provide similar performance to the 8400M GS found in the previous dv2500t and dv2700t, and with Nvidia's recent struggles with both Windows Vista drivers and failure of mobile graphics cards, whether it is advisable to go with an Nvidia card at this time is very questionable. I would have liked to see a more powerful midrange graphics card like the ATI HD 3450 (available in the dv5z and rumoured to be optional in the dv5t as well) instead of the low-end Nvidia part. Rounding out the dv4t are optional Verizon mobile broadband, Bluetooth, a fingerprint reader, an available Bluray ROM drive for $199, a 6 cell battery (higher capacity 6 cell with 20% more battery life is a $29 option), and everyone's favorite Windows Vista operating system in either Home Premium (32 or 64bit), Business (32bit), or Ultimate (64bit) flavours.

Dimensionally, the dv4t remains very similar to the dv2700 that it replaces. The footprint stays nearly identical, with the same width and length increasing by .12". The thinnest point of the notebook goes from 1.05" in the dv2700t to 1.34" in the dv4t; however, the thickest point remains almost unchanged at 1.57" (vs 1.54" in the dv2700t), so it just is a much flatter notebook that doesn't slope down as much as the dv2000 did. Port-wise, the dv4t is much better than its predecessor, with 3 dedicated USB ports, an eSATA port (which doubles as a 4th USB port), and an HDMI port. However, it looses the IEEE 1394 port, though that is worth giving up for the additional USBs you gain, not to mention the eSATA port (for comparison, the dv2700t had 2 USB, one IEE1394, and a VGA).

Overall, the dv4t looks like a very worthy successor to the much loved dv2000 series of notebooks. It starts at $999, and should be shipping in early August.

Intel Montevina - and so the flood begins

Intel's new Montevina platform debuts today, and with it, the flood of notebooks based on the Montevina platform is starting to hit its flow. Whats new? As of right now, these:

• Lenovo ThinkPad: X200, SL300/400/500, R400/500, T400/500, W500
• Lenovo IdeaPad: U330, Y430/530/730
• Fujitsu Notebooks: E8420, S6250, S7220, A6210
• Fujitsu Tablets: T5010, T1010
• Sony: Z series, FW series, SR series, BZ series
• Toshiba: Satellite Pro S300, Tecra M10 and A10 - have previously announced the Qosmio F50, G50, and X305
• Asus: F8Va, M70Vm, M50Vm
• Samsung: Q210/310, R460/510/560/710, P210/460/461/510/560
• HP: EliteBook 6930p, Pavilion dv4t, Pavilion dv5t
• HP Compaq: 6530b, 6730b, 6830p, 2730p Tablet PC
• Acer: TravelMate 6293, 5730, 7730, 6593, and 6493
• Medion: Akoya S5610
• Sager: NP5796, NP2096, NP7680, NP7660, NP7220, NP8660, NP6790, available for order here

It is certain that Dell and the other big boys will debut their Montevina based notebooks in the coming days and weeks to keep current with the newest technologies. Most of these notebooks should be shipping by August, and a WiMax enabled version of the Montevina platform is expected to ship sometime in September, as the WiMax wireless card ran into some problems with the FCC, and Intel decided to ship Montevina without the WiMax at launch.

Also later this year, Intel is expected to release the first quad core processor for notebooks specifically, with the Core 2 Extreme QX9300, packing 4 cores each at 2.53GHz and the usual Extreme Edition goodies like an unlocked clock multiplier. It will presumably only be fitted into the extreme gaming notebooks fitting of the Extreme Edition name, since those are the only notebooks with a thermal envelope large enough to encompass a quad core processor. Interestingly, the TDP of the QX9300 is only expected to be 45W, which is 1W more than the 44W TDP of the X9100 dual core Extreme Edition mobile CPU, which is clocked at 3.06GHz.

Noteworthy enough to merit mention as of right now - the Lenovo ThinkPad X200 is absolutely amazing. It weighs under 3lbs to start, but pop for the 9 cell battery (4 cell is standard), which brings the weight to 3.6lbs. Its worth every ounce, as it reaches nearly 10 hours of battery life on a single charge, as per Notebook Review's review of the notebook. Thats with a 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo processor and a speedy 7200RPM hard drive too, so its not a stripped out, SSD equipped ultraportable like you might be expecting. Even better, the X200 starts at $1199. Order yours on August 5th.

Another notebook thats quite interesting is the Sager NP8660. It is a 15.4" that offers either an Nvidia 9800M GT/GTS or ATI Mobility HD 3870 dedicated GPU, with 512MB of VRAM in all three graphics cards. Those are all high end gaming graphics card, roughly on equal to the 9600GT or HD3850 desktop GPUs. For comparison, most of the other 17" gaming notebooks feature the same cards, but in much larger and heavier form factors.

I am quite liking this crop of notebooks, much more compelling than the Santa Rosa generation of notebooks, where everything was decent, but nothing really stood out.

Fujitsu T5010 Tablet PC - Montevina based?

So, this one is old news, right? Leaked earlier this week by Virginia Tech's bookstore, the T5010 is a new 13.3" Tablet and is presumably replacing the now aging T4220 as the fully fledged flagship Fujitsu tablet PC. (whoa, alliteration, and I wasn't even trying) Now, the specs are mostly set in stone, but it seems that there is some confusion about the processors being used in it.

Processor Model: Future Intel based mobile platform.   
Processor Speed: 45nm Intel Core 2 processor    
Memory: 2GB DDR3 1066MHz (2x1GB)    
Screen: 13.3" WXGA LED Backlit Active Digitizer Display    
Video: Intel next-gen integrated graphics    
Hard Drive: 120GB 5400rpm    
Optical Drive: DVD +/- RW Double Layer    
Wireless: Atheros 802.11 a/g/n    
Bluetooth: 2.1+EDR    
Camera: Yes    
Fingerprint Reader: Yes
Ports: USB x3, VGA out, LAN, Modem, Microphone In, Headphone Out
Battery: 6 Cell Lithium Ion    
Weight: 4.4lbs.    
Physical: (WxDxH) 12.5"x9.6"x1.4"    
Operating System: Windows XP Professional Tablet Edition

Based on what we know of Intel's mobile processor line, and what we know of the preceding T4220 tablet, we can say with fair certainty that this will use the next generation Intel T-series standard mobile processors (unlike the smaller T2010, which uses ultra low voltage U series processors). Due to the fact it uses a future Intel mobile platform, and will be out by the Fall of this year, its a relatively sure guess that the T5010 will be based on the upcoming Intel Montevina mobile platform.

Montevina, which is to be released on July 14, is the fifth generation of the venerable Centrino mobile platform, and is the first to bear the Centrino 2 label. The processors being used in Montevina are the same Penryn chips being used in current notebooks; however, clock speeds will rise (Centrino 2 notebooks are expected to have processors running in the range of 2.26GHz at the lower end to 3.06GHz in the highest performing chips) along with an increase in RAM speeds, due to the faster 1066MHz FSB. Montevina also brings about the use of DDR3 memory, a second generation of Intel's TurboMemory technology, integrated WiMAX wireless technology, and the new GMA X4500 integrated graphics chip in the GM45 chipset, which will presumably be the one used in the T5010. X4500 features support for DirectX 10, Shader Model 4.0, DisplayPort, HDCP, Intel Clear Video technology, and increased gaming performance, now to the tune of roughly 1000 points in the 3DMark06 benchmark - a very good score for an IGP.

I believe this should eliminate much of the vaguery involved in the processor and graphics of the new Fujitsu T5010, which I must say is a very enticing prospect as far as tablet PCs go, though the price would make me take a second look at something a bit cheaper and almost as good, like the Asus R1.