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Posts: 1,513 | Thanked: 2,248 times | Joined on Mar 2006 @ US
#5
Originally Posted by Milhouse View Post
Nokia and Intel (who were together developing HSDPA for the new Centrino chipset) decided there was no business case.

Considering most laptops have Bluetooth built in, isn't it easier to Bluetooth the laptop over to the mobile phone for internet connectivity? In fact, precisely how one connects an Internet Tablet to the cellular network - using Bluetooth. No need to put an extra SIM in the laptop and no matter if the phone supports WCDMA/GPRS/GSM/HSDPA etc the laptop can connect to the network without a hitch - brilliant.

Building phone functionality into devices that each then need their own additional contract with the network provider makes no sense at all to me. There may be some side benefits from having the phone functionalioty integrated but these are few and far between - most users won't care about it. I guess Intel + Nokia realised that too, eventually. And besides, SonyEricsson just released an HSDPA PCI Express card which addresses the tiny fraction of users who are interested in HSDPA in a laptop/UMPC device.
Well, HSDPA needs a boost in the US. Its inclusion in the Centrino Duo platform would have done that and was the motivating factor here. Whether or not bluetooth pairing is easier or better solution was a secondary issue. What the article says is that the laptop OEMs balked at the extra cost - not Intel and certainly not Nokia decided not to do it. My interest was that Intel was hoping it could introduce Centrino Duo in its core segment and then parlay that into another category of devices (see the first post). So this might be why laptop OEMs balked - HSDPA does bring more business case value to a handheld device than to a laptop.