AMD Fusion starts appearing in Malaysian stores

AMD recently just announced it’s new line of APUs (Accelerated Processing Units) which are essentially a CPU (Processor) and GPU (Graphic Processor) into one chip. The chip is expected to drive the price of portable computers such as netbooks and notebooks lower while not sacrificing the performance. It is expected to perform much much better especially when compared to Intel Atom netbooks.

Acer is one of the first manufacturers to sell a AMD based notebook here in Malaysia. It’s called the Acer Aspire 4253. The specs are below:

• AMD E-350 (1 MB L2 cache, 1.60 GHz, DDR3 1066 MHz, 18 W)
• ATI Radeon™ HD 6310 Graphics, supporting Unified Video Decoder 3 (UVD3), OpenCL™ 1.1, OpenGL® 3.1, OpenEXR High Dynamic-Range (HDR) technology, Shader Model 5.0, Microsoft® DirectX® 11
• 14′ HD 1366 x 768 pixel resolution, high-brightness (200-nit) Acer CineCrystal™ TFT LCD, 16:9 aspect ratio
• 320GB SATA HDD
• 2GB DDR3 RAM (upgradeable to 8GB)
• Gigabit Ethernet, Wake-on-LAN ready
• Bluetooth® 2.1+EDR
• Acer InviLink™ Nplify™ 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi CERTIFIED™ supporting Acer SignalUp™ wireless technology
• 8X DVD Super Multi Plus Drive
• Multi-gesture touchpad, supporting two-finger scroll, pinch, rotate, flip
• Acer Crystal Eye webcam, 1280 x 1024 resolution
• Built-in mono speaker with high-definition audio support
• 48.8 W 4400 mAh 6-cell Li-ion standard battery pack
• 2-in-1 card reader (SD™, MMC)
• Three USB 2.0 ports
• HDMI™ port with HDCP support, External display (VGA) port
• Headphone/speaker/line-out jack , Microphone-in jack
• 342 x 249 (D) x 28.5/33.5 (H) mm
• 2.2 kg (4.85 lbs.)

It is priced at RM1349 to RM1399. The battery is expected to able to last the Acer Aspire 4253 for around 4 hours.

I’m actually quite excited to see AMD Fusion based computers appearing here but i don’t find the specs for this Acer Aspire 4253 interesting. Honestly, i was expecting to see more ultraportables with screens around 12″ carry the AMD Fusion instead of this bigger 14″ laptop . Currently the 12″ screen category has limited choices, examples such as the Asus EeePC 1215 and Dell M101z often come to mind.

For 14″ screens around the RM1.3k price, you can expect to find much more choices, often with more CPU capability (AMD P-320 @ 2.1Ghz or P-340 @ 2.2ghz ) than the E-350 @ 1.6ghz on the Acer 4253. This is to drive productivity when working on a bigger screen. A few models which i can name are the Asus A42N-VX023, Compaq CQ42-304AU, Lenovo G465 or Acer Aspire A552.

If you are interested to try out the new AMD Fusion platform, check out these online stores:

http://www.techhypermart.com/notebooks/acer-aspire-4253-e352g32l-14-notebook-laptop-amd-e-350.html

http://buylaptop.com.my/web/products.asp?Id=1618

More AMD Fusion: Toshiba NB550D

Just the other day,we had a preview of the new AMD Fusion APU called Zacate, today specifications for another AMD Fusion based netbook appeared. The Toshiba NB550D runs the lower clocked AMD Ontario at 1 ghz. The NB550D is actually similar to the NB520 which has Harman Kardon speakers on the palm rest, except the later was running on Intels. Pretty cool looking speakers, don’t you think?

Full specs of the netbook below:

• Processor: AMD C-50 (1.00 GHz) Dual Core
• Display: 10.1 ” Toshiba TruBrite WXGA LED back-lit
• Storage: 250GB HDD (5400 rpm)
• Memory: 1GB DDR3 RAM
• Video Card: AMD Radeon HD 6250 integrated
• Battery: 6-cell Li-ion battery, up to 9.5 hours of battery life (manufacturer’s estimate)
• Ports: 3 USB 2.0 and 1 USB Sleep-and-Charge “, HDMI
• Connectivity: Wireless LAN 802.11 (b / g / n), Fast Ethernet LAN, Bluetooth 3.0
• Operating system: Windows Starter Edition 7
• Software: Toshiba LifeSpace featuring bulletin boards and ReelTime
• Dimensions: 261.9mm x 189.5mm x 17mm (front) / 35.5mm (back)
• Weight: 1.32 kg
• Other: VGA webcam
• Colors: Lime green, Orange, Brown

Pretty good for a simple netbook, even has a 6-cell battery for that longer hours. Now let’s see some pricing. The typical Intel Atom N550 will cost around RM1300 here in Malaysia, while the Intel Atom D525 with Nvidia Ion would fetch around RM2300. Let’s hope the price will fall somewhere in between that range (closer to the N550 price).

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MSI U270 with new AMD Fusion APU, Zacate

Ahead of CES in January 2011, we’re getting sneak peaks of even more new devices to come. MSI is showing off its new model of netbook called the MSI U270. This is running on the new AMD APU (combination of CPU and GPU) range called Fusion. Under the Fusion range, AMD has allocated a segment for CPU running on small portable devices. This will be based on the Bobcat design of the CPU core, and under this Bobcat design, we’ll be getting two specific model, the Ontario and the Zacate. The Zacate is seen on the MSI U270 at 1.6 Ghz

This netbook will come with latest features such as USB 3.0 and HDMI-out while also not forgetting the typical functions such as USB 2.0, VGA out, SD card reader, ethernet port, audio jacks & kensington lock. Unfortunately, the body is very glossy and attracts a lot of finger prints. It uses a chiclet keyboard which is very standard on netbooks nowadays and has a two button touchpad. The demo unit has a 3-cell battery

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Further information such as price and release date is still unknown for now. Watch the actually preview video below:

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