HP and Dell are reportedly planning to launch their first 11 and 13-inch CULV based notebooks sometime in Q3 2009.
Taiwanese vendors, such as Asus, Acer, MSI and Gigabyte also have CULV
models in the works, and MSI has already showcased its X340 series of
thin CULV-based 13.4-inch notebooks. MSI's X340 is to launch in the
last week of April, while Gigabyte and the other should follow suit
sometime in Q2, although it's still too early for any fixed timeline.
So, first-tier manufacturers are to ship their products a bit later,
which is no surprise as we saw the same scenario unfold with netbooks,
as smaller manufacturers are a bit more flexible than big players.
CULV is becoming more important for Intel, as the economic crisis
starts to take its toll and consumers increasingly turn to more
affordable products. What's more, Intel is not too pleased with vendors
offering expensive, feature packed netbooks, as they bite into its
average selling price. Intel has also put in place numerous
restrictions concerning netbook design, leaving very little room for
vendors to make their products appealing, as they are all evenly
matched.
Unlike Atom, CULV is not a very cheap platform, although it is
significantly cheaper than Intel's previous ULV offerings. It is also a
lot better suited to business users, as it offers a bigger choice of
CPUs, including dual-cores, coupled with better chipsets and bigger
screens.
Intel also has budget minded consumers in mind, as it has recently
dropped the price of its entry-level CULV Celeron 723 CPU to $107, down
from $161 for 1k orders. This will make entry level CULV machines only
slightly more expensive than Atom based ones with similar panel sizes, thus making them
appealing to a much wider audience.
More
here.