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Intel IT

Intel Sonoma UK Launch Party 135

Posted by samzenpus from the check-them-out dept.
Benny writes "Intel held it's UK Sonoma lauch party last night and TrustedReviews have some pictures up of the machines on display including new models from HP, Dell, Samsung, Sony and Asus to mention a few."
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Intel Sonoma UK Launch Party More

Intel Sonoma UK Launch Party

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  • That's Great But... (Score:5, Funny)

    by X43B ( 577258 ) on Thursday January 27, 2005 @01:09AM (#11489559) Journal
    Does it run Linux?

    This time it is actually appropriate. :)

    • Re:That's Great But... (Score:3, Informative)

      by rf0 ( 159958 )
      Actually yes it can /. story [slashdot.org] Rus

    • My take on Linux hardware support. (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      The Intel 915 should be a pretty nice Linux chipset.

      Intel (and Via) is actually ver nice to Linux developers when compared to other companies such as Nvidia or ATI.

      Both Intel and Via supply data and help out at least nominally with creating free software drivers for their hardware.

      With the 915 they supplied documentation to the DRI 3d drivers guys well in advance to the chipsets release. It should be quite nice by now.

      With the sound you probably will be able to run it with Alsa, too. Although its likely

  • Sonoma party (Score:2, Funny)

    by Dr.Zap ( 141528 )
    Man, ought to have the party in Sonoma!

    http://www.sonoma.com/ [sonoma.com]

    • Yes its the Festival of the Olive [sonomavalley.com] out there at the mo.

  • Dell was showing off two new Latitude models, one standard size and one thin and light.
    So this means the standard is NOT thin and NOT light? Hmmm.... My Standard PowerBook is not only thin AND light but prolly faster than these laptops. And yeah, I thought this design style faded during the 90's. But hey, at least you can say these companies are NOT copying Apple......

    • Re:I love this quote.... (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Just another Mac zealot yacking about his "superior choice" with nothing to back it at all.
      • Hmm. A Mac Zealot? Maybe, but my Powerbook dual boots OSX and Linux. I was pointing out the horible design of the cases as compared to something that someone actually spent time to design. This is just another case of envy by others I guess... LOL
        • No, it's pretty much just off-topic trolling on your part. I'm a fan of macs as well, but I don't walk into a PC discussion and start shit. Zealots are a very strong dissuader from getting people to try new things, be it Firefox, Thunderbird, Macs, or Linux.
        • I was pointing out the horible design of the cases as compared to something that someone actually spent time to design.

          WTF? Didn't you see that sweet little iBook ripoff from Asus? Jonathon Ives put a lot of time and effort into that design.
    • I'd prefer bulky and capable of running most apps (see: games) over metrosexually slick any day. However, for much less than the cost of a powerbook, I could still pick up a slick and functional AMD64 laptop from such vendors as ibuypower.com, and have the best of all worlds (form, function, and cash to spare).
      • if "most apps" to you means "games", then I can safely conclude you are 12 and could afford none of the above anyway.
        • Seriously, how many computationally expensive apps does the average user use? From my experience, the average user uses word, outlook express, and IE. And maybe Excel. Now for a gamer, there would be quite a few more programs than that. HL, HL2, BF, UT, for example, they would make up just as many programs as most people use.
      • I can run any of the apps I need. With the fact that I can dual boot both MacOSX and Linux (Gentoo) I have access to more apps than I could ever want. Except for games.... which is prolly the only thing you ever run on your system when you get home from school..... Though, the best games usually make their way around to the Mac eventually, but by then I can buy them for $19 or less instead of $50 plus....thus showing why you need cash to spare....
        • Hell, when I bought my iBook I thought "eh, it's probably better, there are no games for mac".

          A month later I've got Warcraft 3, Starcraft, Diablo, and World of Warcraft (as of today). Looks like all of the games I would play work just as well on the mac (if not smoother, and while using less ram). Oh, and there's Nethack for when I'm sitting through boring lectures and want to amuse my girlfriend.
        • wow, games = schoolkid, eh? last i checked, i graduated from high school many years ago and play games as a way to burn off stress from the "real world". and everquest 2 doesn't run on a mac at all, and probably would never run as well as it does on my AMD64 laptop, purchased from the site you claim i can't afford.
      • I'd prefer bulky and capable of running most apps (see: games) over metrosexually slick any day

        You're going to catch a lot of flack for that, but I'm with ya :) People love to complain about gamers being immature. Its sour grapes from Apple fanboys as they hardly have any games -- yet their definition of mature is hauling a powerbook to starbucks, paying a lot of money for terrible coffee, and pretending to work while chatting on IM.

        I have a 3.2ghz notebook with a 17" screen, Its wicked fast for the

        • >...yet their definition of mature is hauling a powerbook to starbucks, paying a lot of money for terrible coffee, and pretending to work while chatting on IM...

          how much does OS X cost compared to Windows?
          how good is Windows code compared to OS X?

          you do proper work on your laptop? sounds like what you consider work is bascially just text editing.

          my iBook is 12" screen and 2.2kg in mass, so it can go everywhere with me. that's what a laptop is for.

          I don't know what kind of things you program that need
      • I do not use a powerbook but frankly the idea that a notebook has to run "Games" is frankly strange. Notebooks do not keep up with the latest and greatest in video cards. It will never be as good as a desktop for gaming. I admit that I have to use a big honking notebook to run Solidworks but I still would rather use my 20" monitor and nivida card on my desktop at work.
        I would love a light long life notebook. I mean who the hell wants to haul a big honking notebook with them if they do not need it?

    • Re:I love this quote.... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 27, 2005 @01:43AM (#11489744)
      You obviously know nothing about the laptop market. There's many different kinds of laptop categories, ranging from ultraportables to desktop replacements. There is no "standard" size as laptops are concerned. It all depends on your needs.

      • Read their quote dude. I didn't write it. I know their are many types and styles. but Dell is not known for having powerful AND light laptops or light AND capable laptops... I thought their quote was fitting for them.

    • Re:I love this quote.... (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      > My Standard PowerBook is not only thin AND light

      and also cost way more than ~$1000

      > prolly faster than these laptops

      Dream on. These chips run with the G5 (and actually fit in a light form factor).
    • PC's aren't like that.

      When I bought my Dell they said "Do you want the Standard one, or one that doesn't sterilise you by burning your crotch"

      Dumb question really, what's more important to a geek - the theoretical possibility of kids in the distant future, or kick ass frame rates in Doom 3 now.

    • Yawn (Score:2)

      by ad0gg ( 594412 )
      Apple powerbooks can no way compete against the speed, and lightness of PCs. Come back when you apple has a laptop with a 14" screen or larger thats under 5 pounds like the IBM T Series, dell D600 or other brands. Apple's only sub 5 pound laptop has a pitful 12" screen but apple has always been behind the times, i'm still waiting for a g5 laptop.
    • Why is it that a Mac troll gets modded informative?
      There is no information in this post, just noise. If you wanted to make a case, you should at least show some specs proving the points you made.
      There is a lot more choice in the PC world of laptops. Everything from tiny handheld PCs to sub-notebooks, to mid range, to desktop replacements that are as fast as a high end desktop PC (and are heavy). Small screens, big screens, widescreens whatever you like.
      The price is also relative to the size and components u

  • Um... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Ctrl+Alt+De1337 ( 837964 )
    Is this just like the computer industry's equivalent to the auto industry's international car shows? Because this doesn't seem all that much like news to me, just a bunch of random laptops. Still pictures really don't show off processor capability, so what's the point? And couldn't they have wiped the fingerprints off of the screens of the ones at the bottom of page 2? Maybe it's just because I live in SEC country, but I first read it as Intel having a University of Kentucky Sonoma launch party, which made

  • Great, but what is it? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by edisk1353 ( 321151 ) on Thursday January 27, 2005 @01:46AM (#11489761)
    This is all well and good, but fundamentally, what is the difference between Sonoma and older versions of the Centrino chipset? It seems to me that Sonoma hasn't had much of a buzz up to now, and all this article says about it is that it's a"new Centrino platform". If this is just more of the same, I'm not interested . . . but if there's a real difference, could someone point to what that might be?

    • Re:Great, but what is it? (Score:5, Informative)

      by cheezedawg ( 413482 ) on Thursday January 27, 2005 @02:02AM (#11489828) Journal
      Sonoma is based on the 915 chipset (Alviso/ICH6). The biggest difference is, of course, PCI Express. There is support for a x16 PCI Express graphics on Alviso, and support for a couple of x1 PCI Express devices on the ICH. This is a major architectural overhaul that more than doubles the bandwidth between the MCH and the ICH. New to Sonoma, the chipset also includes support for:
      - 533MHz FSB
      - SATA
      - DDR2 memory
      - Next generation integrated graphics that doesn't suck
      - Hi-def audio (Azalia)
      - New power management features
      • - DDR2 memory
        - Next generation integrated graphics that doesn't suck

        I think it's also important to note that the DDR2 533/400-MHz memory controller is dual-channel and the integrated graphics shares memory with the CPU.

        Since the CPU has the same bandwidth as a single channel of DDR2 533, the benefits of dual-channel memory are really seen when combined with integrated graphics. Also, sharing memory using PCI Express is probably a huge improvement over AGP 8x.

  • Sonoma = California Wine Country (Score:5, Interesting)

    by xxxJonBoyxxx ( 565205 ) on Thursday January 27, 2005 @01:58AM (#11489805)
    Sonoma = California Wine Country

    I guess it's a step up from the "Mad Dog" release of 2002. (Or the "Weasel Dust" release of 1999.)

  • How PC mfgrs design equipment (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 27, 2005 @02:14AM (#11489868)
    1. take the basic case form from 1993, be it laptop or desktop
    2. add many small pieces of another shade of grey plastic
    3. add many buttons and ports in places that scream "well, the motherboard guys told us that it was *impossible* to put them anywhere else!"
    4. complicate simple design features with additional plastic bezels and bezel-bezels.
    5. Add LEDs to describe various pieces of information that are either unnecessary or made redundant by the OS.
    6. add obligatory windows, intel and graphics card stickers in a conspicous place
    7. poke speaker and vent holes everywhere, and call it a day.

  • New Tagline... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Viceice ( 462967 ) on Thursday January 27, 2005 @02:19AM (#11489896)
    Sonoma, soon to cause insomnia.

  • Ugly, ugly, ugly (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Eminence ( 225397 ) <akbrandtNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Thursday January 27, 2005 @03:06AM (#11490092) Homepage
    How is it so that manufacturers of Intel based notebooks can't come up with a design that would be beautiful? Why can't they produce something that would be not only useful but also nice to look at and touch? I read the article (RTFA) and it is full of pictures of ugly designs. They all look either dumb and boring, yet another set of black-greyish boxen or there is some effort to make them look "cool" but in the style of cheap boomboxes for 15 year olds. By my tastes only the new Samsungs X50 & X25 show at least some genuine effort towards design, though I won't call them beautiful.

    This is amazing. All these are products of different companies, bigger and smaller, from different countries and yet none of them really stands out from the crowd. Doesn't HP or Acer or anything have a design department? Or maybe it's a mindset of these companies that doesn't value the aesthetic perception?

    • Re:Ugly, ugly, ugly (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Monkelectric ( 546685 ) <slashdot AT monkelectric DOT com> on Thursday January 27, 2005 @03:57AM (#11490280)
      Pack mentality. Seriously. American corporations are afraid to deviate from what they think will be accepted by even a little. If you dont believe me, think about the bland *horrible* shit for fast food we cram in our faces every day.

      Burger King, Mc Donalds, Carls, Wendys, and 1000 other chains find some slightly different configuration of the SAME food elements, over and over, and over. Meat, bun, lettuce, fries, coke. These guys must come into work every morning and say "jesus h christ how are we gonna get people to buy the same old shit and get excited about it?"

      And the answer is their job is easy -- because we as consumers don't demand any creativity. We sit through the same tired special effects extravaganzas at the movies and we are convinced we enjoy it. Disney and Pixar make the same buddy movies over and over and over, and we applaud! Taco Bell crams rice beans and hot sauce into a different sized tortilla and we "run for the border."

      So theres your answer my friend, why make something outstanding when good enough is above average? Sony has this HORRIBLE cream and flourescent orange colored electronics line that looks like its right out of The 5th Elements, its god damned ugly but at least they're trying.

    • I know they don't use Intel but have you heard of a company named Apple?

      They make some really nice notebooks and even use things like slot load drives which are A#1 cool.
    • I dont know, one of the Asus ones looked ok. Fine, it was the only white one and looked a lot like an iBook with a built in camera...... mmmmmm.. iBook..
    • How is it so that manufacturers of Intel based notebooks can't come up with a design that would be beautiful?

      Because many of them have outsourced their laptop manufacturing to Taiwanese/Korean companies, and just slap their brand on it [gen-x-pc.com].

      So no, aside from minor cosmetic changes, they just take sell someone else's product. The laptop mfr has an incentive to keep the laptop generic, so they can sell it to several companies.

    • Don't blame Intel; they voted for Kodos.

  • Lack of scroll wheels? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by jettoblack ( 683831 ) on Thursday January 27, 2005 @03:17AM (#11490127)
    Anyone else notice that NONE of these laptops had visible scroll wheels or 3rd mouse buttons? I consider those to be absolutely essential, and it boggles my mind that so few laptops include them, even when you pretty much can't buy a new mouse without one.

    • Re:Lack of scroll wheels? (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Scroll wheels are built into the touchpad. When you hold the right-hand side of the touchpad, you are basically clicking the universal scroll. Move your finger up, it scrolls up, move it down, it scrolls down. Basic feature in Windows, and I presume Apples.

      Not so much in Linux, unfortunately.
    • "My" thinkpad uses the touchpad as the "mouse wheel" ... vertical AND horizontal. Lotsa fun! I rarely use the middle button that's provided. Not sure about with Linux, but (Windoze)...

      Just drag your finger along the right hand side for scroll up/down or along the bottom for left/right. Speed of drag affects speed of scroll, and if you lose contact while you're moving your finger, it stays scrolling at that speed.

      If you're in a touchpad only situation, no problem. If not, it can cause confusion - sa

    • Not really a scroll "wheel," but this H.P. model [trustedreviews.com] and this Toshiba model [trustedreviews.com] have what you can call scroll pads. On the H.P. unit, it's the bunch of horizontal lines running up and down along the right side of the trackpad. The Toshiba model actually has both an up-down and a right-to-left scroll pad (represented by the dotted lines). And finally, this Acer unit [trustedreviews.com] has a 4-way scroll button. It's that little concaved square button between the left and right mouse buttons.
    • Synaptic's software for their touchpads is awesome. I don't need any mouse buttons at all with it, never mind a middle one.

      First of all, for scrolling, you define the width and height, of the vertical and horizontal scrolling area respectively, to your taste, and you simply lift your finger, put it at the right side and move it up and down to scroll the document, or at the bottom and move it left and right for horizontal scrolling.

      Tapping is a mouse click, as you allready now, but lifting your finger and
  • I'm happy with my T40 at the moment, but if an upgrade is coming soon, I have to wonder which of the Great Satans I will have to choose from, now that IBM won't be making ThinkPads anymore. Just on looks alone, and with my own highly subjective analysis, I'd give these models the "sex appeal" award:

    994-dell2.jpg [trustedreviews.com]
    994-hp.jpg [trustedreviews.com]
    994-samsungx25profile.jpg [trustedreviews.com]

    iBook-a-like award goes to (BTW, nothing wrong with that, I think this looks interesting):
    994-sonyvaiof_1.jpg [trustedreviews.com]

    The Samsung model sounds interesting, in tha
  • I would think that some of these manufacturers could spend an extra $100-$200 and add a digitizer and Windows Tablet PC Edition to their models of notebook/laptop computer.

    I have sworn off buying a laptop until a TabletPC comes out that has the features and price that I'm looking for. The most appealing thing about a TabletPC is that they can actually fit opened on a coach class airline if the person in front of you is reclining without breaking the screen, or making it really hard to read...

    I can't be th
  • Oh man nothing like showing off the differences between consumer and business models by this: http://www.trustedreviews.com/article.aspx?head=8 0 &page=2225 [trustedreviews.com]. (scroll down towards last two pics about Toshiba)

    For those who are too lazy: consumer model [trustedreviews.com] and business model [trustedreviews.com].

  • The spelling! It hurts! (Score:5, Informative)

    by oberondarksoul ( 723118 ) on Thursday January 27, 2005 @03:44AM (#11490232) Homepage

    "Intel held it's UK..."

    How many times? It's means it is, its is possessive. Unless you meant "Intel held it is UK...", you've used the wrong one.

    • Okay, Benny, I'm only going to sing this one more time:

      Ohhhhhhh, if you want it to be possessive, it's just "ITS."
      But, if it's supposed to be a contraction then it's "I-T-apostrophe-S,"

      Scalawag.

      89! [homestarrunner.com]
    • It's been such a long time that people have been getting this wrong that I'm losing hope.

      NB "it's" can mean "it has", as in my previous sentence. I wouldn't be surprised if there were yet other valid alternatives.
      • There's only one solution, and that's not to use contractions. I know the difference, but I constantly find "it's" and "get's". I sometimes even notice that I've missed them when proof-reading too, which is really annoying. For a while I tried not to use contractions at all, and suddenly I stopped making these mistakes. I think the brain develops some sort of typing memory and triggers fingers to type the wrong thing at times.

  • Sonoma .. Zzzzzz (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Should Intel really have named a chip that sounds like the name for a sleeping pill?
    • 'Sonoma: The chip that puts you to sleep'
    • 'Sonoma: The chip thats always sleeping'
    or for that matter a hallucinogenic [huxley.net]
  • I'm still a little peeved that people have not caught on to what centrinoi means. In order to have the centrino label you must

    1. Have the pentium M
    2. Have a designated intel chipset
    3. Have the intel wifi

    Basically all non techy consumers/buyers want are centrino laptops. At the launch of centrino everyone wanted the centrino models not the exact same non-centrino model without the intel wifi(some even went as far as to buy the centrinos knowing the intel solution was not a good match and bought pc
  • You heard it here first!

    One of the next 3 stories posted on Slashdot will be about Exeem Lite with links to the story at the Register...

    Aero

  • New models? (Score:5, Funny)

    by caluml ( 551744 ) <slashdotNO@SPAMspamgoeshere.calum.org> on Thursday January 27, 2005 @06:58AM (#11490842) Homepage
    new models

    Not the kind of models I was hoping to see... Just some boring laptops....

  • Yeah for a heavy picture website. Come on slashdot! Come on slashdot! Come on slashdot effect! (and a hit is heard over the hill)

  • Intel needs to learn from GMC (Score:3, Funny)

    by RubberDogBone ( 851604 ) on Thursday January 27, 2005 @08:45AM (#11491346)
    Don't name your chipsets after a lousy light pickup truck, i.e. the GMC Sonoma. Same as the Chevy S-10 basically.

    GMC recently replaced the Sonoma with the much better "Canyon" truck. It even sounds better.

    Sonoma = rolling rust heaps.

  • Hey - is that a curved keyboard I see in the first picture? Might laptop makers actually be thinking about incorporating ergonomic keyboards into their design? This is the one thing I've really been waiting for. These new wide-screen laptops have an inch on either side of the keyboard that they just waste. Why not use that space to give me a split, ergonomic keyboard like I use with my desktop? :)
  • linky [trustedreviews.com]
  • After looking through all the pics I noticed one notebook that looks just like the iBook.

    I posted a pic on my blog [blogspot.com].

    Asus makes the iBook. Do you think this is even the same plastic?
  • ...who read "sodoma party"?

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