The speed of mobility
With the launch of the Centrino 2 today there have been device reviews and technical specs appear all over the web as just about every major OEM has launched a notebook or two. Or three, or nine. 
The vaunted Centrino platform has been around for quite some time and I remember when it first started appearing in mobile PCs at that time how quickly it became apparent that it was going to be a game changer. The performance and battery savings that Centrino offered up compared to what came before was quickly noticed and adoption spread like wildfire as it should have. It wasn’t long before the Centrino purple logo was affixed to just about every laptop sold and for good reason, it was that good.
I expect we’re about to see the same thing with the Centrino 2 platform. The extra bus speed and CPU speeds are going to find us appreciating the rapid performance we get using it and when you throw in better battery life we’re going to be in hog heaven. We’re going to be even happier when we see the first notebooks that use both integrated graphics for power savings on battery and discrete graphics for when we want to play a few games. Switching between them on demand without a reboot is going to make us plain silly, at least that’s how we’ll look with that big goofy grin on our face.
Yes, the Centrino 2 is a game changer I believe and a very good one. The only question I have is why would you now want to put an Atom in a notebook running Windows when a Centrino 2 would probably provide just as good battery life with much better performance? Price maybe, I guess.
The Atom shouldn’t be compared to the Centrino 2. People expected way too much from the Atom when they pay over $500 for a Windows netbook when it is intended to run Linux. Dell’s $299 Linux netbook will be the game changer for the Atom. I think the Atom works a whole lot better with resource efficient Linux where a Centrino 2 would be overkill.
I compared the Centrino 2 to Atom because OEMs are putting them in Windows boxes and people seem to think that’s a good thing. That’s why I think the Centrino 2 makes more sense in that scenario.
I think the majority of notebook models will feature Centrino 2. The 25W processor was released this week; small form factor, 5.5+ watt versions are expected in September.
Atom’s niche seems to be maximizing battery life on handheld devices. The chip consumes 0.6-2.5 watts and is only 13mm x 14mm in size.
Netbook makers may also choose the Atom because of it’s price; hard to put a $200-$300 Centrino 2 processor in a computer selling for $300-$500.