As part of what Intel describes as its normal pricing activity during the year, the firm will lower prices on its microprocessors for notebook machines today. (The Intel channel had been told there was a 700MHz Coppermine mobile being released today, but so far, there is no sign of that part). The changes affect both the Pentium III Coppermine mobile processors and the Celeron mobile processor. We understand that the next implementation of SpeedStep, a technology which helps conserve battery life, is due towards the middle of this year. The biggest price decreases occur on the 650MHz 0.18 micron Pentium III, which sees its price fall from $637 to $426 today, a drop of 34 per cent. The 600MHz processor which also uses SpeedStep falls from $423 to $316, a drop of 25 per cent. The 500MHz LV (low voltage) chip using the 0.18 micron process falls from $294 to $241, an 18 per cent fall, while the 500MHz vanilla 0.18 micron chip now costs $198, a drop of 19 per cent on its former price of $245. The Celeron mobile processors, already aggressively priced, see the following changes. The 500MHz 0.18 micron part drops by 16 per cent from $134 to $112, the 466MHz 0.25 micron chip remains at $96, the 450MHz 0.18 micron mobile Celeron falls by 11 per cent from $96 to $85, while the mobile Celeron, the 433MHz which uses 0.25 micron technology also remains static at $75. All the prices quoted are for quantities of 1000, and we can expect to see changes in notebook prices using these microprocessors over the next weeks. ®