Intel’s release of the new SONOMA platform earlier this year ushered in a new era in notebook PCs. Nevertheless, the SONOMA did not stop the torrent of falling prices. Instead, after enjoying a brief period of high prices, the Sonoma notebooks were quickly enveloped by the low-price surge. Notebook distributors have protested falling prices and shrinking profit margins, but for SO-DIMM distributors, falling notebook prices continue to prove a blessing.

With the continuing low-price trend, notebook manufacturers like HP and Toshiba, who previously focused on high-end notebooks, are now expanding into the lower end of the market. Many major manufacturers are filling out their mid-range and low-end product lines, leading to continued downward pressure on notebook prices. Looking at the market in general, notebook prices have continued to break new record lows, and while the notebook PC used to symbolize sophistication, advanced technology, style and mobility, today notebooks are becoming more commonplace household items, and more companies are entering the low-priced brand-name notebook competition.

But with the constantly falling prices, consumers may ask, “At these prices is there any room left for profits? Are they selling products cheaply just to make a name for themselves? Or are these notebooks in fact inferior products?” The reason for the low prices is very simple -- to reduce costs, companies use lower priced CPUs and motherboards to lower the total product cost. Of course performance suffers with low-end components, but low prices are extremely attractive to consumer markets, and with the speed at which today’s IT products are advancing, buying a low-end notebook may in fact be a more economical option. However, consumers must be clear about one thing: choosing a low-end product means it will come with lower-end components. Therefore expanding RAM to improve your notebook’s performance is an absolute necessity.

Notebook PCs are less upgradeable than desktop PCs due to the proprietary nature of their internal components. Motherboards and graphics cards cannot easily be replaced as in a desktop. Therefore, the only real options for upgrading performance include switching out the CPU, adding a larger hard drive and adding or replacing memory. Memory upgrades have perhaps the most noticeable impact on notebook performance as they can dramatically improve graphics display capacity. Upgrading memory is also more economical than other upgrades, in part because expanding a computer’s memory usually does not require replacing existing memory modules. Therefore, adding memory is the best way to upgrade a notebook PC and improve its performance. Survey results show that over 60% of notebook users are inclined to upgrade their notebooks by expanding memory. This consumer trend coupled with the low price notebook market results in rising demand in the SO-DIMM market and improving SO-DIMM sales.

Unfortunately, today’s memory module market contains many different brands of varying quality. As an important part of a PC system, memory quality can directly affect the computer’s overall performance and stability. Finding the right balance of price and quality is therefore an extremely important consideration for memory buyers. Currently, the most trusted name in memory is the memory module manufacturer Kingmax, known for its Venus series of DDR-II SO-DIMM modules.

The Kingmax Venus series DDRII SO-DIMM memory possesses high stability and compatibility, high data transfer bandwidth and superior heat dispersion. Kingmax leads the industry in releasing products that support the Sonoma platform, and provides a full range of solutions to accommodate every requirement for the digital age: outstanding data transfer rates, superior application performance and high-volume memory capacity. Kingmax uses industry-leading lead-free production processes, IC chips, PCB and post materials to fully satisfy North American, European and Japanese environmental protection requirements. Additionally, Kingmax memory uses lower 1.8V working voltage rules in accordance with the latest JEDEC standards, which results in approximately 50% lower power consumption. The products also employ integrated ODT technology to maintain memory signal wave patterns under high speed conditions, reducing noise interference to the lowest possible levels.

Kingmax has also accumulated many years of experience in TinyBGA packaging technology, and has invested heavily (nearly US$10 million) to incorporate T5593 testing equipment in its production processes to ensure the highest quality for DDRII memory available on the market today. Kingmax maintains close partnerships with many major notebook manufacturers, and works with them during the initial memory design stage to test and certify memory products for compatibility. All Kingmax memory products undergo rigorous compatibility testing for compatibility with notebook suppliers’ products to ensure stability and compatibility certification. This gives Kingmax the confidence to include lifetime factory warrantees on all of its SO-DIMM memory products.

The demand for low-cost notebooks is good news for consumers and for Intel, whose stated aim is to make notebooks “as widespread as mobile phones.” In view of Intel’s unique position in the industry, it must continue to encourage this trend, and because of this, the low-cost notebook trend is unlikely to reverse in the foreseeable future. This means continued growth for notebook memory sales, and of course, more profits for a leading memory supplier like Kingmax.