Intel’s CULV Laptops: Thin, Light & Cheap

It’s like the geeked-out version of West Side story. You have netbooks, which simply took the world by storm, bullying bigger laptops into rethinking their game, slashing prices, and taunting others about long battery life. Then CULV laptops rolled into town, snapping their fingers and bragging about how their bigger screens and batteries make them the ones to beat. And somehow, these two groups are rivaling each other and are now running the entire ultraportable scene. Well, that’s how I’m portraying it.

If netbooks has taught us anything is that light, inexpensive laptops, with long battery life sell furiously fast. Their small screens and cramped keyboards, however, were and still are their biggest downfalls. AMD tried to address these shortcomings by introducing its Neo processor, a low voltage chip aimed at laptops that were marginally bigger than a netbook, which subsequently gave rise to the HP Pavillion dv2 (1030us). But soon after, Intel came down with the hammer.

CULV, which stands for consumer ultra low voltage, isn’t a new technology for Intel. In fact, these processors commanded high premiums two years ago and were found in ultraportables that range upwards of $2,000. With CULV, Intel merely re-branded these processors, created new ones in the process, and began selling them in laptops that are less than an inch thick, average 13-inch widescreens, and don’t necessarily include optical drives. Most compelling of all, CULV laptops cost between $600 and $900 and delivered great battery life.

TheMondayCynic

Tags: AMD, Black Friday, CULV, inexpensive laptops, Intel, Intel's CULV Laptop, intellitxt, Laptops, netbook, New Product for Black Friday, New Technology, Pavillion, summaryData, technology