The Launch Of The Dothan!

Team ARP was recently invited by Intel to the launch of the new Dothan processor on Intel's Mobility Day. Representing Team ARP were PsYkHoTiK and ZuePhOk. Although the local IT publications were also invited, Adrian's Rojak Pot was the only hardware site to be invited to the event. Let's check out their report!

Intel Mobility Day

On Monday, we had the honour as being the only website in Malaysia to be invited to Intel's Mobility Day. Along as a few representatives from Malaysian IT publications, we attended a press conference at the Regency Hotel in Bukit Bintang, Kuala Lumpur. The purpose of the press conference was to introduce Intel's latest processor for the notebook market - the Dothan.

Press registration started at 2:00 pm, Kuala Lumpur time. It was a really hot day. Hot, even for Malaysian weather! I arrived at the Regent Hotel that was situated in Bukit Bintang, right across KL Plaza. ZhuPhok was running kind of late so I decided to go ahead and report in.

There, I met one of Intel Malaysia's PR officers, Jocelyn. Refreshments were served and I mingled with the journalists from various local IT publications. I was kind of apprehensive as this is my first press conference. The fact that ARP was the only hardware site invited to the event gave me a sense of pride towards ARP.

At 2:35pm, all of the invited journalists were ushered into the Grand Ballroom of the Regent Hotel. The press conference was about to start. Where is ZhuPhok?!

The Press Conference

The first person to speak was Peter Choong. Peter Choong is the Country Manager of Intel Electronics Malaysia. He is in charge of Sales and Marketing operations in Malaysia.

His first speech was a welcoming address and as well as opening words for the event. After that, he gave a Dothan keynote speech. He noted that WiFi hotspots have been increasing tremendously over the year. According to him, home users were the ones that made up the majority of WiFi users and that WiFi Hot Spots were blooming everywhere. No real arguments about that! :)

After that, Peter went straight into the main reason for the event - the Dothan! He then officially launched the Dothan. He spoke about the three variants of the processor (which we will cover later in this article). He also gave a brief explanation on the new features of the Dothan, especially its 90nm manufacturing process and the low-k dielectric insulator. He also stressed that the new chipset for the Dothan will support up to 2GB of DDR333 memory.

Peter also discussed a little about the Dothan's battery life, no doubt to dispel any worry about lower battery life. He stated that regardless of the increase in transistors, additional features and better performance, the Dothan won't suck up as much battery juice as the Banias.

He also said that the consumers are now adapting to a digital lifestyle. Apparently, more and more people are now using laptops for music, creativity, movies, TV and ... games. WHAT! Games???! I hope he means games like Minesweeper or Solitaire. :)

He went on to say that a growing number of gamers are using laptops for gaming. Dear God... I hope that he doesn't mean running REAL games like Unreal Tournament 2004 or Farcry on it. Maybe even Quake 3? The slides showed that the number of gamers using laptops was on the rise. Solitaire must be pretty popular nowadays, eh? I happen to be a hardcore gamer. Personally, I would never use a notebook for gaming.

Now, back on track, Peter Choong declared that he intends to increase people's awareness of the Centrino. To do that, he went through the methods of advertising he intended to implement to increase awareness amongst consumers. They include outdoor ads (billboards), print (newspapers), TV and online sites (like us! :D).