Intel has either been hiring forgetful people who like to make their customers' lives just a bit more miserable, or they're just running out of numeric designations for mobile CPUs. As the designations have four digits each, the first option seems a bit more likely.

A friend of mine asked me for some advice. He's getting a notebook and thinking about an Acer powered by a T1400 CPU. I'm not a CPU guy, our Viennese HW boys choir are into that stuff, but I was pretty sure it was an ancient Core Solo T1400. Well, it ain't. It's Intel's dual-core Celeron in 45nm. So why the T1400 designation? I have no idea and I doubt Intel has either.

Furthermore, this interesting and affordable 45nm mobile CPU is only available in Acer's Extensa 5220, a modestly priced 15.4" notebook, as you can see here. Acer claims it runs at 1.86GHz, while Intel says it's clocked at 1.73GHz, here. We tested the desktop Celeron E1200 a while back and we were very pleased with its performance, especially its overclocking potential. As overclocking is a no go in mobile CPUs, we were at least hoping for an affordable, energy efficient 45nm dual core mobile, but in the end it doesn't end up much cheaper than the T23xx dual core Pentiums.

Anyway, we'd still like to know why Intel chose to use the T1400 designation for this interesting little CPU. Maybe they should turn to AMD for some help in naming their products, and confusing the hell out of even more consumers who can't tell what's what as it is.