Fujitsu hints at first Penryn notebook

Fujitsu this morning became the first computer maker to announce a notebook based on Intel's upcoming mobile Penryn processor architecture. The 12.1-inch LOOX R70 will use a consciously unnamed Core 2 Duo processor that will both improve speed and help optimize battery life to extreme levels: a stock battery will let the system run for as much as 9.7 hours, by Fujitsu's reckoning. The use of a thin, LED-backlit screen will also reduce its weight to 2.8 pounds despite the inclusion of a DVD burner.

The glossy black ultraportable will come standard with 1GB of memory, a 120GB hard drive, Bluetooth, and Windows Vista Business. Pricing has not been set but will come with the official release of the new LOOX in January for Japan, in time with the expected unveiling of Penryn. The system may be available in the US under Fujitsu's LifeBook brand sometime later.

The surprise announcement both confirms Intel's processor release and also illustrates likely gains to be made with Penryn, which is based on a 45-nanometer manufacturing technique that reduces power needs while allowing faster clock speeds of 2.1GHz or higher, a larger Level 2 memory cache, and new SSE4 instructions that help with media processing and similar software. Large-scale computer makers such as Apple, Dell, and HP are believed to be readying Penryn-based notebooks shortly after Intel's debut. [via Impress]