Today is the big launch day for the Intel Core 2 Duo processors, those laptop-specific processors which were affectionately known as Merom during their development stage. Just about every laptop manufacturer is trumpeting these updated dual-core processors they’ve dropped into existing notebooks.
Case in point: Dell, updating its XPS series laptops with Core 2 Duo processors, with the Inspiron, Latitude and Mobile Precision lines also soon benefiting from the Intel-quoted 12% overall system performance improvement over first-generation Core Duo processors.
The XPS notebooks now offer a choice of three Core 2 Duo processors, including the T7600 (2.33GHz), the T7400 (2.16GHz) and the T7200 (2GHz), and are priced from a steep $3500 for a XPS M2010, $2300 for the the M1710 (pictured above), down to the first Merom-packing Inspiron E1705 for $1124. Other Core 2 Duo-equipped Dell Inspirons, Latitude and Mobile Precision Workstation notebooks are forthcoming. We’ll be reviewing one of Dell’s Merom-packing notebooks in a couple of days, so stay tuned.
