Hewlett-Packard and Dell, the PC vendor giants, did not announce notebooks to support WiMax on Oct. 8, the day Sprint launched the WiMax network in Baltimore. Acer, Lenovo and other OEMs announced several laptops that support WiMax. HP says it is still testing WiMax, while Dell says its Latitude E line of laptops, launched in August, is already WiMax-enabled.While
Lenovo, Acer and a host of other PC vendors are offering up WiMax options
with their laptops, the world's two largest suppliers of PCs—Hewlett-Packard
and Dell—are taking a wait-and-see attitude for the time being.
On Oct. 8, the same day Sprint
and Intel in Baltimore rolled out Xohm, the first commercially available U.S. WiMax network, Lenovo and Acer were two of several top OEMs that were ready
to offer their users access to the new network through their laptops. While
that proved a promising sign for Sprint and Intel, the two biggest backers of
WiMax technology to date, HP and Dell were notably absent.
While
HP, the world's top PC maker, and Dell, the world's second-largest PC vendor,
each make a number of laptops that carry Intel's WiMax technology
through the chip maker's Centrino 2 mobile platform, neither company is currently prepared
to offer that wireless broadband option to its customers.
While HP did not make official public announcements, the company did issue a
statement saying its notebook designers were testing WiMax technology with its
laptops, but that HP has no plans to offer it as an option for either consumers
or corporate users at this time.
Click
here for a list of WiMax-enabled notebooks from Acer, Toshiba, Lenovo and
Asustek Computer.
In the statement, HP said WiMax in its current incarnation does not meet the
needs of HP's customers. If HP customers want to use WiMax, the company suggests
buying a separate WiMax-enabled PC card, ExpressCard or USB
dongle.
"HP views mobile WiMax as an emerging technology and may integrate it
into notebooks as the technology matures and the commercial availability of
mobile WiMax networks increases," according to HP's written statement.
"However, at this time it is premature to integrate mobile WiMax into HP
notebooks due to the limited scope of commercially available networks and
uncertainties around interoperability, roaming and quality of service."
Dell offered a less expansive explanation. While Dell
has several notebooks in its Latitude E line that are WiMax-enabled, a
company spokesperson said there are no further plans to offer the technology as
an option just yet.
Desktops & Notebooks 
/ 3 
