It is not certain that consumers and businesses want faster and faster PCs, especially notebooks which are often used for simple e-mail and web surfing, tasks which can also be done on most smartphones. But, Intel Corporation (NASDAQ: INTC) has released a series of powerful quad-core chips for portable PCs. The company already makes quad-cores for desktops and large notebooks–the Core i7, Core i5 and Core i3 processors.

The newest chips consumer less battery power than their desktop counter-parts.

The processors will cost a small fortune–$305 for the i7 “ultra-low voltage” and $241 for the i5. So much for the ultra-popular $300 netbook.

Douglas A. McIntyre