Intel Santa Rosa Successor "Montevina" Knighted as "Centrino 2"

Four of Intel's mobile chipsets—including its most recent and well-known, Santa Rosa—have been Centrino as far as your mom is concerned. To help us keep things a little straighter and make it obvious they're actually updating stuff, Intel's upcoming Penryn-oriented mobile chipset, Montevina, which'll be pushing Santa Rosa aside, will be branded Centrino 2. Thanks, Intel, for bringing just a little bit of logic to chip branding. Core 2 Duo is still a mouthful, though. [Digitimes]

Intel Reveals New Mobile SSD, UMPC Concepts, the Skulltrail Gaming Platform and Penryn and Santa Rosa Updates

At Intel's Pre-CES briefing today, execs discussed a new super-small solid state drive, WiMax-capable devices, and 45nm Penryn chips in everything from UMPCs to television sets to slender desktop all-in-ones from your favorite computer makers. Here's the rundown: More »

Leopard Drivers Hint at Low- or Mid-Priced Santa Rosa MacBooks

While we know that Apple will eventually roll the Intel Santa Rosa chipset down through all of its laptops, there are surely a faithful few who feel their weekly pilgrimages to the Apple Store aren't being properly appreciated by Lord Jobs. But new Leopard driver evidence nearly proves that Apple does have Santa Rosa MacBooks (and Mac Minis) in their sights. More »

Slight MacBook Upgrade in November?

In the face of ultra-thin MacBook rumors, Think Secret claims that a modest processor bump for the MacBook will be the only hardware refresh for the rest of the year. Keep in mind, however, that Think Secret only says there won't be any more hardware updates. They don't say anything about new hardware announcements. Still, a MacBook speed upgrade seems odd since Apple doesn't like to mix processor speeds between consumer and pro lines. More »

Intel plans to release a "Santa Rosa Refresh" in January which loads the 45nm Penryn chipset and "improved graphics capabilities", the both of which allow for improved battery life and better Direct X 10 performance. The refresh laptops will also have 802.11n as well as Gigabit Ethernet networking. [Businesswire]

Lenovo Cranking Out Energy Star 4.0 Qualified Laptops Early

The Environmental Protection Agency's Energy Star 4.0 revision hits July 20th, but Lenovo isn't worried about making the cut. Three days before the revision, Lenovo plans to have the T61p, its first Energy Star 4.0 configured machine, out on shelves. The T61p won't skimp on power to save energy, either. It has a suite of features seen across the Lenovo lines before, but never in the same machine: Santa Rosa platform, NVIDIA Quatro FX 570M, a 15.4-inch screen, and ultra-wideband, all for under $2,000. Those specs are an easy way to get us excited about saving energy. More »

Santa Rosa MacBook Pro's Have a 1.3MP Camera Inside

The crafty folks over at Mac Daddy World discovered that the new MacBook Pro's have a different iSight inside. The new version, manufactured by Micron, outputs images to a much improved 1280x1024. Although iApps, like iChat, don't yet take advantage of the increased resolution they're still stuck in VGA. But an upgrade's an upgrade, right? More »

7 Takes on the Santa Rosa MacBook Pros

We've already shown you the new MacBook Pro benchmarks, which show respectable improvements over the old model, not just because of the new Santa Rosa chipset, but Nvidia's new monster 8600M makes short work of 3D gaming. But what about the other features? How's the battery life? What's the deal on those LED screens? Is the MBP still hot enough to sterilize me if actually left on the lap? Hit the jump to see what they reviewers have to say on the new 15-inch laptops beyond the benchmarks. More »

Some Intel Santa Rosa Chips To Have Separate HD Decoder

Multitaskers rejoice, Intel is going to start using seperate decoders for HD DVD and Blu-ray playback in certain versions of their Santa Rosa chips. Now your pewny graphics card won't have put up with your love of High-Def on its own. More »

Santa Rosa-based iMacs with Brushed Metal Frame on the Horizon?

Call it wishful thinking, but the folks at 9 to 5 Mac are reporting that Apple's new iMacs (which they say will debut at WWDC) will pack Intel's Santa Rosa technology and come in sizes larger than the current 24-inch model. Both are pretty safe assumptions, but what they'll look like is up in the air. Will they have brushed metal frames, will they resemble Apple's Cinema Displays, or is Apple dropping a completely new design on us? Only a few days before we officially find out. – Louis Ramirez More »

AMD Puma to Intel Centrino: "Surrender Your Laptops!"

AMD is charging against Intel's current Santa Rosa dominance and future Montevina platforms with their Puma chipset. They said it has been designed for mobile computing from the ground up. I say it was about bloody time already. More »

Ultimate Intel Santa Rosa Launch Guide

OK, you've heard way too much about Intel's new chipset today. But do you ever think about tomorrow? What if you suddenly really want to know about Santa Rosa then? Don't laugh. One day, soon, Santa Rosa will pop back into your head, and you will want the facts. Fast. Well, guess what? They're all here in this post. More »

Intel's New Core 2 Duos Get Priced

Now that we've shown you the technology and the hardware behind Intel's new Centrino Duo platform, it's time to talk CPU pricing. What do these new Core 2 Duos cost? It depends. They range from the top of the line 2.40GHz T7700 ($530) to the Core 2 Duo processor LV L7300 at 1.40GHz ($284). More »

AOpen and Niveus Crash the Intel Launch Party

We hit up Intel's launch party this afternoon to check out some more next-gen Centrino Duo goodness and much to our surprise we came across a pair of fresh-outta-the-oven small form factor PCs that plan on borrowing features from the new mobile platform. More »

What You Need to Know About Intel's New Santa Rosa Platform

So today marks the debut of Intel's new Santa Rosa platform. Aside from the fact that your notebook is officially outdated, what else does this mean? What does Santa Rosa offer that you're missing out on, and more importantly, is it enough to warrant buying a new lappie? More »

HP's 20-inch HDX "Dragon" Laptop Walked Through and Reviewed

The HP Mobility Summit is going down in Shanghai as we speak, and they've just unleashed no less than 13 lappies. I don't care about any of them as much as I care about the Santa Rosa powered HDX Dragon, previously leaked, now unveiled in all its scaly glory. The 20-inch pivot hinged monster that is built to bite Acer and Dell's 20-inch lappies right on their ass. Beyond our explanation of what we like, two Giz friends happened to get video tours and reviews on day-zero. More »

Informed Speculation: Apple Macbook With Santa Rosa Coming Very Soon?

With Lenovo and LG's Santa Rosa laptop offerings (not to mention various other PC vendors as well) almost upon us, we're left wondering what Apple is going to do. If you remember, Core 2 Duos hit PC laptops around July/August, but Apple's MacBook Pros only got them late October. Will we have to wait nearly three months for Centrino Pro? Maybe not. More »

Lenovo T61 and R61: Now with Hot Santa Rosa Action

Have a butchers at Lenovo's newest ThinkPads, the T61 and the R61. While there's nothing particularly scrummy about the design, the laptops do have Intel's Santa Rosa platform under the hood. Both models will be available from next month, with updated versions following on in June (a WWAN model of the T61) and July (a Blu-Ray DVD burner on the R61). There's even fingerprint technology on some of the T61s to keep your private stuff just that. More »

Rumor: Intel to Announce WiMax Chip Date

For those of us who aren't lucky enough to make it to the Intel Developer Forum in Beijing this week, the big news is that Intel will be announcing support for WiMax in its 2008 mobile chipset, called Montevina. If all goes well, Montevina will come out in the first half of the year, and replace the Santa Rosa chipset that launches soon. Eric Bangeman at Ars Technica did not mention when Ernest & Julio Gallo became the chief product namers for Intel. He did, however, say that the mobile WiMax support should manage 2-4Mbps average download speeds by the time Sprint has the network up and running. He also added that later versions would likely include gigabit WiMax, though the standard hasn't been ratified by the IEEE. There was no mention of battery life, but that must still be a pretty big concern. More »

Intel's Next Gen Mobile Chipset Coming May 8th, Will Include HSDPA

The buzz has officially started. Intel's next mobile chipset, which was dubbed Centrino Pro when they announced it last year, is expected to launch May 8th, along with a handful of shiny new Centrino Pro-based notebooks. The CP platform will have integrated 802.11n and support Intel's next wave of Core 2 Duo CPUs, but what we're most psyched about is the built-in HSDPA radio, which will let you get your Internet fix from pretty much anywhere. – Louis Ramirez More »