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Intel has brought its Pentium 4 processor to mobile PCs, and several major PC makers have released products taking advantage of the new chip.

Compaq and Dell have announced products that run off the Pentium 4 Processor-M. Also on Monday, Toshiba announced three new notebooks that utilize the Pentium 4.

Dell has released two notebook computers containing the mobile processor, the Inspiron 8200 and the Latitude C840. Both come with a NVidia's GeForce4 440 Go graphics controller, a 15-inch high-resolution display, and several high-speed optical drives.

The Inspiron 8200 is targeted at users looking for a range of features from low price to high performance, Dell said. The base model comes with a 1.6-GHz Pentium 4 Processor-M, 128MB of DDR SDRAM, a 20GB hard drive, support for wireless networking with a mini-PCI slot, and Microsoft Windows XP Home. Prices start at $1699; the processor is available immediately.

Users who seek value and optimum performance will prefer the Latitude C840, Dell said. It features a 1.6-GHz Pentium 4 Processor-M, 128MB of DDR SDRAM, a 20GB hard drive, an internal 802.11b wireless networking card, an enhanced graphics display, and Microsoft's Windows XP Pro, for a starting price of $2607.

New Compaq Notebooks

Compaq followed suit with the introduction of the Presario 2800 and the Evo N800 notebooks. These machines use the 1.7-GHz Pentium 4 Processor-M, which makes them the fastest notebooks from Compaq, the company said in a statement. Both notebooks come with Compaq's Multiport feature, which enables wireless access to the Internet or corporate networks using either Bluetooth or the 802.11b standard.

The Presario 2800 is designed for consumers, and comes with a 30GB hard drive, ATI Technologies' Mobility Radeon 7500 graphics with 64MB of DDR memory, and a DVD/CD-RW combo drive; it weighs less than 6 pounds. The Presario 2800 starts at $2399 in this base configuration, and is available immediately.

Business users are the target market of the Evo N800, which is only 1.3 inches thick. It comes with up to a 60GB hard drive, ATI's Mobility Radeon 7500 graphics with up to 64MB of DDR memory, and various optical drives. Compaq expects the Evo N800 to be available in the second quarter of 2002.

Power-Conscious

The Pentium 4 Processor-M is made using Intel's 0.13-micron process technology and is based on the NetBurst microarchitecture, which has a 400-MHz system bus and a 512KB memory cache.

Using Intel's SpeedStep technology, the new chip can operate using low voltage, which saves battery power in mobile computers, Intel representatives said. SpeedStep technology automatically switches between maximum performance mode and battery-optimized mode depending on the workload created by an application. Users will experience quicker and more reliable data transfers over a wireless network through the automatic selection of the most energy-efficient mode, the company said.

Despite these claims, one analyst feels that the Pentium 4 Processor-M is not only "the most powerful mobile processor available today (but also) the most power-hungry." The trade-off between faster performance and battery life characterizes Intel's mobile processors, said Gordon Haff, an analyst at Illuminata. In a mobile environment, a faster processor isn't necessarily a better processor, Haff added.

Along with the mobile processor, Intel announced a new chip set family for mobile PCs. The mobile Intel 845 family will combine with the Pentium 4 Processor-M to deliver performance increases and wireless capabilities to both consumers and businesses, Intel said in a statement. The 845 family includes two chip sets, the 845MP and the 845MZ. The 845MP is currently available and supports external AGP 4X graphics cards. The 845MZ will be available later this year, Intel said.

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