AMD VISION Program Analysis for Desktop and Mobile

Next-Generation Notebooks

The first notebook we previewed was the Hewlett Packard DV7, which is considered a mainstream entertainment notebook that includes an AMD Turion II Ultra dual core mobile processor, ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4200 graphics, 17″ WXGA display, and a six-cell Lithium-Ion battery.

AMD had another Turion II-based notebook on display from Toshiba named the A505. This notebook has similar features to the DV7 like HD 4200 graphics and a 6-cell battery. However, this notebook includes a 16″ Tru-Brite LED display, which makes it a bit more portable than the DV7.

The next notebook we took a look at was the HP DV4, which also featured the dual-core Turion II CPU, HD 4200 graphics, and a 14″ WXGA LED display. This CPU, IGP, and chipset falls under AMD’s VISION Premium platform and can handle some lower-resolution gaming too.

Another mainstream notebook that was on hand was MSI’s CR610. This was the last notebook we reviewed that included the same Turion II processor as well as the other specs listed above for the first three notebooks. While the specs for most of these notebooks in the VISION Premium class are the same, many believe the OEMs will create software, utilities, and bundle other offerings to entice consumers toward their product over their competitors.

The ASUS F83T ultrathin notebook uses AMD’s Athlon Neo dual-core processor and HD 4570 graphics with 512MB of dedicated VRAM. The Athlon Neo MV-40 is a 15 W, single-core 65 nm CPU that is 64-bit capable. It’s also clocked at around 1.6 GHz and doubles its L2 cache over the Sempron to 512KB. While this notebook is in range of AMD’s VISION Premium class, it definitely seems to be geared toward users looking for an ultra portable, low power solution for their on-the-go lifestyle.

Gateway also jumped on the AMD VISION platform bandwagon with their NV5207, which is a second-generation, ultrathin notebook that features the Athlon Neo X2 dual-core processor and HD 3200 graphics. It also sports a 15.6″ high-definition LED display and the usual six-cell battery.

HP’s second-generation DM3 also made its way onto the showroom floor, and included alot of the same specs we saw in the Gateway NV5207 like the Athlon Neo X2, HD 3200, and six-cell battery. One difference in this VISION Basic notebook is the 13.3″ WXGA LED display, which is a few inches smaller than its Gateway counterpart.

Last, but not least, we saw our final notebook that featured the Athlon Neo X2 processor called the HP DM3. This second-gen notebook also includes the Radeon HD 3200 graphics IGP, 13.3″ LED display, and six-cell battery. All of these Neo X2-based systems are really just a step above netbooks, and do not include an optical drive. One positive item to note is that all of these systems can handle Windows 7 and AMD put a lot of effort to ensuring their hardware was more than efficient for using many of Windows 7’s entertainment and graphics features.