Intel’s 2010 notebook platform sidelines ‘Centrino’ brand

Seven years after the Centrino platform mades its debut – and changed not only the shape of mobile computing but arguably Intel’s entire approach to processor design – the notebook brand is being all but retired.

As part of Intel’s attempt to minimise customer confusion and sweep away brand overload, retailers and buyers have seen the last of the Centrino logo – including its Centrino Duo, Centrino 2 and Centrino Pro offshoots.

Laptops built on Intel’s 2010 mobile chips will trumpet the processor rather than the platform, which Intel boffins refer to under its codename of Calpella.

Most Calpella notebooks will be built on 32nm dual core Westmere-class silicon, although some high-performance laptops will have a quad-core 45nm Nehalem Core i7 powerplant.

The Centrino brand isn’t being being entirely put out to pasture, however. In a nod to its hotspot-friendly heritage Centrino replaces ‘WiFi Link’ as Intel’s house brand for wireless.

This kicks off with 2010’s Centrino N series of radio modules. The Centrino Advanced-N 6200 has two aerials each for transmit and receive (2x2), with the Advanced-N 6300 sporting a superior 3x3 spec for higher throughput, greater signal soak and extended range. Intel has also retained the 1x2 WiFi Link 5100 as the el cheapo Centrino 1000.

All three will appear on notebooks in the Australian market. We’re unlikely to see the Centrino Advanced-N + WiMAX 6250, which as the name indicated adds WiMAX wireless broadband into the mix.

The new Centrino wireless chips also introduce the 2.0 edition of the MyWiFi technology for easy wireless connection between notebooks and devices such as printers, cameras and smartphones.

More intriguing is Intel’s boast that the Centrino wireless chips can reduce their radio power and thus draw less voltage in a ‘connected but idle’ mode – such as when the user is reading a Web page rather than clicking links and downloading page content.

Even when you’re connected to the Internet there are long periods of time without any actual activity, and Intel’s claim is that winding back the radio’s power during these idle periods is similar to the way today’s processors drop into any number of low-power states between keystrokes or CPU activity.

The result is said to be a welcome boost to battery life. We’ll sit down with Intel execs later this week and bring you back some more details.