ITS Information & Articles Database
What is Centrino?
Centrino is an Intel® name for a set of components used in Notebook PCs. In order for a laptop to bear the Centrino trademark it must include the following parts:
- An Intel® Pentium M or Celeron M processor
- The Intel® 855 Chipset
- An Intel® PRO/Wireless Network Connection
What are the benefits?
- Longer battery life. Less time plugged in and less chance of the battery running flat half way through an important lecture or meeting.
- Less heat. You are less likely to fry your legs and cook the other components in your Notebook PC.
- Less noise. Less heat means that quieter fans or fanless heat-sinks can be used making for better results with speech recognition.
- Less weight. Less chance of backache and more room in your bag for other important stuff.
- Built in wireless networking. Ability to connect to the internet without wires. Sit in the garden or Starbucks and read your emails and surf the web without wires.*
*Requires connection to a wireless access point. For information about the Wireless Access Points we sell, see our pricelist, or for further information on Wireless networking, read this article.
Doesn't more Megahertz mean better?
For years Intel® spent millions of dollars convincing the public that there was only one measurement that counted when it came to performance - clock speed measured in Megahertz (MHz) and Gigahertz (GHz).
With the launch of Centrino they moved the goalposts stating that a 1.5GHz Centrino machine would cope with the same tasks as well as a 2.4GHz P4 desktop chip.
Customers quite rightly got confused by this so how can this claim be justified?
The Pentium and Celeron M are based on massively upgraded Pentium 3 architecture. Intel has cleverly added millions of transistors to speed up processing and have upped the onboard cache memory.
What is cache memory and why is it important?
Most people are familiar with the idea of more memory improving performance and many new machines now ship with 512Mb or even 1GB of RAM however increasing cache memory improves processing speed even more significantly than increasing the RAM.
How can this be?
If you think of yourself sat at your desk as the processor, the cache memory as your desk drawers and the filing cabinets as the RAM. The more room (Memory) you have in your desk drawers for storing information the quicker you can complete your task without going to the filing cabinet.
Can I connect to the internet when I am up a mountain like I saw on TV?
That depends on whether there is a Wireless Access Point nearby. There is a wireless access point at the Everest base camp so you could connect there. It is currently unlikely that you will be able to connect in the middle of the countryside. However wireless coverage in cities is much more widespread and many universities are installing wireless networks.
Some access points are available for free but many companies such as Starbucks and BT Openzone charge for access.
If you have a laptop with wireless capability and want to set up a wireless network call us to discuss your needs.