Very Thin Laptops: HP Voodoo silicon, MacBook Air & ThinkPad X300

When looking at all the latest thin laptops you will be forgiven for thinking that they look almost the same, the main three are the HP Voodoo Envy, Apple MacBook Air and the ThinkPad X300. Yes they are all thin, but it is not just in looks where they are the same, when you look inside there are many more common features. When it comes to the processing power, the Hewlett-Packard Voodoo silicon shares the same one used in the MacBook Air, this is the low-power Intel SP7700 and SP7500.

Don’t try looking for these processors on any price list from Intel; these CPU’s were designed especially for the MacBook Air. The processors have a thermal envelope of just 20 watts at 1.8GHz and 1.6GHz, CPU’s which run at those speeds usually have a power rating of 35 watts. The ThinkPad X300 uses a different processor, an Intel SL7100. This CPU still comes in a small package, but has a lower clock speed of just 1.2GHz and only uses 12 watts of power.

One thing that we notice about these CPU’s is the fact that they are the older 65-nanometer “Merom” processors, we would have thought that they would have used the newer 45-nanometer Penryn generation. There are rumours of an upgrade of these processors coming, which will be able to fit into these slim notebooks.

There are also a number of other similarities with these laptops; all three use the Intel X3100 integrated graphics as well as offering a choice of 80GB hard disk drive (4200RPM) or a 64GB solid state drive. One thing is certain about the HP Voodoo silicon, MacBook Air & ThinkPad X300; they are the future in laptops.

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