10. Wireless Surfing With Turion 64 Mobile Technology Works Even In A Centrino-Certified Hotspot

Marketing hype might dictate that notebook platforms built around the Turion 64 CPU will be bedecked with the trade name Turion 64 Mobile Technology, to counter Intel's ubiquitous presence. But in contrast to Centrino Mobile Technology, AMD's is an "open notebook platform." That means the notebook maker can freely decide which wireless LAN module to install, be it from Broadcom, Prism, Cisco or some other company. At any rate, the MiniPCI-slot and the various WLAN standards are already standardized, as far as anyone can tell.

Standard miniPCI card slot in a notebook: here's where WLAN cards from chosen vendors may be inserted

And a PCI slot can't know who and if the module it contains resulted in the exchange of promotional dollars or not. Intel can't do anything about that. As long as you have a compatible WLAN card and the necessary drivers, nothing can stand in the way of its use. Even those who might fear that using such a notebook might lock them out of a "Centrino Certified WLAN Hotspot" should take comfort from our discovery that in no case did the lack of a Centrino logo on a laptop prevent us from making use of such services. Even on a plane with a Centrino Certified Hotspot our experience with our test machine was positive, just as it was on the ground.

Turion 64 Mobile Technology: In choosing WLAN modules, the vendor or the user is free to choose among offerings from different companies.

Even a notebook with a PRO/Wireless 2915ABG module from Intel could bedeck itself with the Turion 64 Mobile Technology logo and still work perfectly. Even when it uses no logo, nor spends any marketing dollars.

You can install and use an Intel WLAN card in an AMD Turion 64 notebook without any problem.

This is the end of Part I. In Part II , you'll learn in the same location in detail, if the Turion 64 can stand up to the Pentium M, and when the Mobile Sempron will deliver an affordable and durable alternative to the Celeron M. We'll also compare our experiences with a widescreen notebook that we equip, first with a Turion 64 MT-34, and later, with a Mobile Sempron 3800+ and a mobile-PC outfitted with a Pentium M 750.