Following this week's release of Intel's Santa Rosa fourth-generation Centrino platform, we continue to see notebook manufacturers releasing new models. HP recently launched three Centrino Pro/Duo notebooks in Taiwan, including one consumer model that is said to be the lowest priced Santa Rosa based notebook released so far.
Two of the three models - the Compaq 6910p and Compaq 6510p - target the business sector and are priced at NT$59,900 (US$1,793) and NT$49,900, respectively, according to sources at HP Taiwan. The consumer model, the Compaq Presario V3500 carries a suggest retail price of NT$39,900. According to market sources, this makes it currently the only Santa Rosa based notebook available priced below NT$40,000.
It didn't take long for PC vendors to start rolling out Intel's Centrino Pro and Duo based notebooks, others such as Lenovo, Acer and Asustek have also been busy this week releasing new notebook models. HP estimates Santa Rosa models are to account for 50% of HP's Intel-based notebooks by the third quarter of 2007.