AMD fusion hits mainstream notebooks

Short on the heels of Sony, which launched India’s first AMD Fusion powered notebook, World number 3 laptop brand Acer introduced two new full-sized models with full day computing.

Unlike other manufacturers such as HP and Sony, Acer has launched full sized notebooks — 14 and 15.6 inch — on the AMD Fusion E series chips.

AMD Fusion is a breakthrough chip design from the number two PC chipmaker and the result of a four year old effort to combine the graphics power of ATI chips with the processing power of AMD. Unlike Intel chips, AMD Fusion chips meet the Direct X11 standard, the highest graphics benchmark by Microsoft.

Also unlike Intel chips, they consume a peak of around 18 watts, around half of the direct competition from Intel. They are also estimated to cost half of what Intel chips cost.

Fusion range is divided into four series — C for netbooks and tablets, E for long-life notebooks, G for high power notebooks and A or Llano series for extremely powerful notebooks and desktops. Only the first three have been introduced in the market, while Llano series is expected to hit the market in the third quarter of 2011.

Both of Acer’s new models are based on E series, while an earlier model from Acer was based on the C series. Both HP and Sony models are also based on E series. The Sony model has the weakest battery life at just around 4-5 hours, or half of the others.

“The Aspire 4253 and 5253 notebooks are the perfect instruments to let you unleash your creativity as one can use the notebook for advanced multitasking, playing highly detailed games, listing to music and or for editing photo and creating HD movies,” the firm said, introducing the models.

The two are priced at around Rs 24,000 and Rs 25,800 respectively, compared to around Rs 33,000 to 38,000 for those based on second generation Core i chips from Intel.