Intel has officially launched their next generation notebook platform and they've called it Centrino Duo, although you may know it better by its codename Santa Rosa.

So just what is Centrino Duo and how will it affect us mere consumers? Well since Centrino Duo is a "platform" it consists of more than one single component and as such forms the base upon which notebook manufacturers will be able to build their latest, greatest machines. Here's a breakdown.

Performance
First off, it'll boost performance by introducing Intel's 965 chipset to the mobile sector for the first time. Chipsets in themselves aren't very sexy and for most of us we neither care about nor know about what they are and what they do, we're only interested in the end result. In this case that means support for newer, faster processors built using Intel's new 45 nanometer fabrication process. Spin-offs of these new processors are not only better performance but also less heat and increased energy efficiency -- good news for battery-life.

Better wireless connectivity
802.11n (someone seriously needs to think up a catchier naming convention for wireless networking) wireless connectivity is now included, the benefits of which include increased speed and range of your wireless network. Of course you'll need a new "N" router to power your home network but these are pretty easy to come by these days -- Apple do one in the Airport Extreme and so does Belkin to name but two.

Intel Turbo Memory
Turbo Memory is the new name for Intel's previously code-named "Robson" technology. This is an optional add-on for system builders that places a small amount of flash memory (either 512MB or 1GB) on the notebook motherboard itself which is used to speed up application load times and generally aid performance. It makes use of the ReadyBoost functionality built in to Windows Vista and works by caching data in flash memory as opposed to accessing it directly from the hard drive (simultaneously helping to improve battery life by reducing hard drive activity).

At the launch event the Intel tech bods gave us a live demo of Turbo Memory and the performance improvement was more than two-fold. They set up two identical Lenovo T61 notebooks and ran a scripted test that used a 3D fly-by in Google Earth as well as loading and manipulating a large number of images into Adobe Photoshop Elements. The results seemed pretty conclusive, 75 seconds for the Turbo Memory unti and 215 seconds to complete the same task without it.

Improved integrated graphics
The new 965 integrated graphic chipset makes significant gains over previous 915 and 945 attempts and means that notebooks will be able to run Vista in all its 3D-enhanced, transparent glory without having to fork out for discrete notebook graphics chipsets such as those produced by ATI and Nvidia. Make no mistake, Intel's new X3100 integrated graphics is still no match for either ATI or Nvidia's chipsets but at least now the majority of new notebooks, whether they be budget or high end models will at last be able to run Vista properly.

So that's that then, better performance, better wireless and improved graphics for even lower end notebooks. Sure there's plenty of fancy-pants tech going on behind the scenes to make this work but if you're an end user who only wants to know why you should bother with a Centrino Duo notebook...now you know.