Dell testing AMD Athlon for notebooks?

The claim made last month by Thomas Wiesel Partners analyst Eric Ross that Dell was about to announce a notebook based on AMD's Mobile Athlon 4 processor drew plenty of scepticism - not to mention scorn - from AMD and Dell watchers alike.

But it now turns out he may have been on to something after all. AMD Zone on Friday posted part of an email claiming that the Texan PC giant is at least testing the Athlon 4 for mobile computing applications.

Says the email: "Dell still hasn't given the go ahead on using the Athlon 4, but I can confirm that they have been testing laptops using it. I know about a half dozen tech support reps at the Nashville location, and every one of them I have talked to has confirmed that they are testing the machine, but they havn't been told if it will go into production or not."

We don't know the source of this informatio - AMD Zone gives no clues - but it is an interesting follow-up to Ross' controversial claim.

According to Ross' own "reliable" sources, AMD was to announce the Dell design win at Taiwanese computer show Computex at the start of June. Computex came and went with no mention of such a deal, fuelling the scepticism of industry watchers who believe Dell won't reverse it's 'Intel only' policy.

An email forwarded to The Register, allegedly from Dell tech support, claimed that the company was indeed preparing Athlon 4-based notebooks.

Dell, meanwhile, recently signed Taiwanese notebook manufacturer to build up to five million laptops over an 18-month period commencing early 2002. ®

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Related Link

AMD Zone: *ell Laptops