Notebooks a priority for LG after restructuring

LG Electronics has launched its Express notebook series, based on the latest Intel Centrino mobile technology - earlier codenamed Sonoma - for notebook PCs, an official said.

"LG's Express notebooks offer a total mobile computing solution, fulfilling the demands of users at all levels and purposes," said C.H. Lee, president, LG Electronics Gulf FZE.

"We have a range of wide-screen and regular notebooks in a number of ergonomic designs and form factors. These mobiles support key mobile computing tenets such as powerful processing capabilities, enhanced battery life, low power consumption, high density audio quality, higher bandwidth of memory and every time, everywhere wireless access, placing laptops on equal footing with the newest desktops," he said.

LG's five Express model notebooks are packed with entertainment and business features, ranging from enhanced graphics to better responsiveness and support for greater security options, official said.

The systems do not compromise on important capabilities such as integrated wireless LAN access and great battery life, they said. Equipped with the Mobile Intel 915 chipset, formerly code named Alviso, the notebooks are powered by the latest Pentium M processor with a 533MHz frontside bus, while the accompanying chipset handles up to 2GB of DDR2 memory and provides support for ExpressCard (PCI Express) options, they said.

The next generation data bus, PCI Express, supports LG Express notebooks. This high-speed interconnect is designed for high performance graphics cards and fast disk drives and enables notebooks to use DDR2 (Double Data Rate 2) RAM. This feature has, until now, been limited to desktops, and can increase data transfer speed from 400MHz to 533MHz, officials said.

With the restructuring of its mobility division, notebooks are a priority product for LG this year, officials said. The company sold $25 million (Dh90 million) worth of notebooks in 2004, and is targeting sales of $100 million (Dh367.7 million), this year, they said.

Even though the company has a long history of notebook manufacturing, LG only started selling notebooks under its own brand name in 2003, officials said.