Mass shipments of Ivy Bridge processors, the next generation of Intel will be postponed to June 2012. Small volumes will be available during launch though in April 2012.
Intel postposted the mass shipment because most first tier notebook vendors still have huge volumes of Sandy Bridge processors. This is because of the low sales volume of Intel notebooks due to a weak economy outlook.
The new Ivy bridge is the next generation processor for notebooks. As tablets and Windows 8 will be the trend in 2012, We expect notebooks will have a hard time in Q4 2012 as it will have to compete head to head with Windows 8 based tablets which probably are also lightweight, dockable with keyboard and comes with a touch screen.
The notebook will probably go into obsolence in the coming years with tablets running quad core and less power hungry processors available from different vendors.
Notebooks won’t disappear immediately but things will get exciting as we see these two platforms blurring.
If you look at the ASUS eeepad transformer, it can jolly well be the next “netbook” or notebook of choice since there is docking station for it.
In fact, I was quite surprised an overclocker that I met at an event used that instead of his traditional notebook.
I agree that the processing power might not be good enough for photoshop but things might just change in future, perhaps a docking supercharge station with hybrid processors/vga ? Let our imagination run wild for a while.
Interesting news.
But on your opinion, I disagree.
No, the notebook computer will NOT go obsolete because of tablet computers.
Makes no difference if tablet computers become more powerful.
Who will be wanting to type or finger-poke their reports, dissertation, books, spreadsheets, program development, artwork on a tablet computer? Almost no one.
For any serious work – beyond Tweeting and email and game playing, a notebook or desktop computer will be the preferred platform for many years to come.
But I know it is popular to trumpet the demise of whatever is currently used, plus it helps to get your column noticed, sensationalism grabs attention. Sad.