Brand name Centrinos to slip under £1,000 price point after Christmas

By Alun Williams

Posted on 5 Sep 2003 at 16:35

Toshiba says that it expects Centrino based machines to dip under the £1,000 mark by the time of the January sales, so if you want to buy Centrino, it may be worth your while to wait a month or two.

Toshiba says that it expects Centrino based machines to dip under the £1,000 mark by the time of the January sales, so if you want to buy Centrino, it may be worth your while to wait a month or two.

If you can't wait, the Satellite M30 - 15in display, with Nvidia graphics support at the higher end - is among the machines destined for the Christmas market. This reasonably high-specced machine (available with 1.3 to 1.7GHz Pentium M processors) should be in the shops in October for around £1,100. Sub-£1,000 Centrino machines are expected a-plenty with the New Year.

However, Toshiba is worried that Intel hasn't got the word out about Centrino to the mass market yet. Currently, the traditional focus remains on processor headline speeds, along with larger screens. Desktop-replacements are where Toshiba sees the high street business focusing, rather than on issues of portability or connectivity - the selling points of Centrino.

Inmarsat was also at the briefing on wireless technology. It currently describes its Satellite IP modem as the 'Regional' BGAN, because America is excluded from its coverage. With fourth generation Inmarsat I-4 satellites being launched next year, it will support a 'full' BGAN service with global broadband (432Kbit/sec) support in 2005.