YB, I agree that Pentium 4 is unsuitable for laptops. It's hot, requires bulky heat pipes, and drains battery life. But if you are going to call it all these things, you might as well put Mobile Athlon in the same bucket. AMD's "desktop replacement" CPUs are high power, too. Though they may be a dozen watts or so less than Pentium 4, they are still well out of the range of balance for a laptop.
As for the LV Mobile Athlon, those are much better at 25-30W, but like I said (and you seem to agree!), they compete against Centrino with price alone, not performance, low power, or special features. Many customers may very well buy the less expensive Athlon system, but at that point, manufacturers start lowering prices.
A 1.6GHz Pentium M processor costs $423, and the entire 1.6GHz Centrino kit costs $511, and that includes perfectly adequate integrated graphics. AMD's $134 new mobile chip requires at least a $50 external graphics chip, a $40 wireless solution, and a $30 chipset, which brings it within about $250 of Centrino. If you see laptops whose price difference is much more than this (you gave an example of a Centrino laptop that costs $1100 more!), then that is the privilege of the manufacture to charge such a high premium. Intel is not the one fixing those high prices.
And by the way, here is a link to a laptop that I just bought with a 1.6GHz Centrino inside.
If you subtract the carrying case and warranty, the base price for this system is $1999, and that includes 512MB memory, 60GB HDD, and CD-RW/DVD combo drive. Of course, mine came with a few more goodies. I'll post about them when the laptop actually arrives.
My favorite part is the fact that it came with a 14.1" screen, but only weighed "4.69 lbs (With CD-ROM and 6 Cell Li-Ion Battery)" and is only 0.94" thick. It's a very thin and light laptop, and amazingly well designed.
News 
Market Data 
Discover 
AI
