Fujitsu, Hewlett-Packard and Toshiba have all released
new systems in anticipation of an increase in corporate purchasing
later this year.
PC industry suppliers and analysts said that corporate PC buying
is much healthier than in recent years and that trend is expected
to continue throughout the rest of the year.
Older desktops which were purchased three and four years ago are
starting to show their age, and corporations are starting to
realise that it is time for an upgrade, they said.
Notebooks have been the darling of the PC industry for over a
year, but recent data from IDC indicated that the phenomenal growth
in notebook PCs might be losing steam.
While still healthy, notebook shipments are not expected to grow
quite as sharply as last year as corporations selectively roll out
notebooks only to workers requiring mobility. Desktops still
provide more performance than notebooks, which require a more
sophisticated chassis design to handle the rigours of mobility.
With that in mind, suppliers have rolled out several
price-sensitive notebooks this week.
Toshiba's Satellite A70 and A60 notebooks are available with
Mobile Intel Pentium 4 processors or Celeron processors to keep
costs down.
Intel's Pentium M chip is considered the chip maker's premier
product for thin-and-light notebooks. The latest version of that
chip, the Dothan Pentium M, made its debut last month with improved
performance, but the chips are still more expensive than their
Mobile Intel Pentium 4 or Celeron counterparts.
A base configuration of the A70-S256 comes with a Mobile Intel
Pentium 4 532 processor at 3.06GHz, a 60Gbyte hard drive, 512Mbytes
of memory, a 15.4in widescreen display, a Radeon Mobility 9000
graphics card from ATI Technologies with 64Mbytes of shared video
memory, a DVD-Rom/CD-RW (CD-rewritable) drive and an integrated
802.11g wireless chip for $1,499 (£820).
The least expensive A60 series model, the A60-S156 costs $1,099
with a 2.8GHz Celeron processor, a 40Gbyte hard drive, 256Mbytes of
memory, a 15in display, a Mobility Radeon 7000 graphics card from
ATI with 32Mbytes of shared video memory, a DVD-Rom/CD-RW drive and
an integrated 802.11g wireless chip.
HP's Compaq Business Notebook nx9500 packs desktop performance
into a mobile package. A base configuration costs $1,799 with the
3GHz Pentium 4 processor, a 60Gbyte hard drive, 512Mbytes of
memory, a DVD-Rom/CD-RW drive and an integrated 802.11g wireless
chip.
Fujitsu's new LifeBook E8000 notebook uses the Pentium M
processor in a lighter package than the Toshiba or HP
notebooks.
The LifeBook E8000 costs $1,569 with Intel's 1.6GHz Banias
Pentium M processor, a 30Gbyte hard drive, 256Mbytes of memory, a
15in display, a DVD-Rom/CD-RW drive and an integrated 802.11g
wireless chip.
All notebooks are immediately available.
Tom Krazit writes for IDG News Service