Sales of PC’s may have slowed but it has not stopped Intel from delivering processor technology that delivers better picture quality, the ability to talk to your devices and significantly improved battery life.
At a launch event at Sydney’s Museum of Contemporary Art Intel executives showed 4K content being delivered to two LG Ultra High Definition TV’s, music being played from a voice command. They even showed how easy it was to browse surfboards at Amazon without entering a keystroke.
The new “Haswell” fourth-generation Core processors have been redesigned from the ground up to deliver both performance and functionality such as slimmer design for devices the elimination of fans in an Ultrabook and the ability to deliver sharper clearer content to a screen.
Also revealed was a showcase of products from more than a dozen PC makers, including the likes of Sony, Toshiba, Dell, Acer, Asus and Lenovo, showing their first Haswell-enhanced models.
Notably missing, however, was the first – and one of the most influential – Intel customers to actually get Haswell models into the Australian marketplace: Apple, whose fourth-gen Core-sporting MacBook Air models went on sale this week. In question time Intel execs declined to say whether Apple had been given preferential treatment in early delivery of the new processors.
Greg (“GB”) Bryant, Intel’s Hong Kong-based Asia Pacific president, joined A/NZ MD Kate Burleigh for the press presentation, which stressed the huge improvement in battery life Haswell is offering over the Ivy Bridge third-generation Core chips – especially in the growing class of Ultrabooks.
Battery life is at least 50 percent better, he claimed, offering up to 11-12 hours in normal operation, and nine hours of video watching – enough, claimed GB, to have given him endless movie viewing on his Honkers-to-Sydney flight.
Among the many PC makers showing advance models of Haswell-enhanced PCs, laptops and Ultrabooks, was LG who drew a lot of attention for their very natty new “TabBook” slider PC that comes with an 11-inch screen that glides down over the good-sized keyboard, up to 180 gigs of solid-state memory and an i5 Haswell chip. It’s due on Australian shelves in September.
Sony drew a crowd with a number of Vaio notebooks and sliders sporting its “Triluminos” HD colour displays, a technology previously seen on Sony’s top-end Bravia TVs, and claimed to use quantum-dot technology to give gorgeous true colours.
The Duo 13 slider, equipped with a clip-on stylus – just remove it to start the computer – was an eye catcher, due in late June or early July.
Dell caught the eyes of hardcore game-players with a new line of Haswell-equipped Alienware games machines, the Alienware 14, 17, and 18.
The 14-inch model can hold up to three hard drives, its bigger brothers up to four. The Alienware 18 includes a full HD display with a wide-angle viewing feature.
They’ll all be available from late June direct from Dell, or from mid-July at “select” JB Hi-Fi stores.
