HP’s first AMD Turion notebook helps cancer charity

Hewlett-Packard (HP) will launch its first notebook based on AMD’s Turion mobile processor as part of a benefit for cyclist Lance Armstrong’s foundation, the companies announced Friday.

The HP Special Edition L2000 notebook PC comes with various AMD Turion processors at a starting price of $999. HP and AMD will donate $50 from the sale of each notebook to the Lance Armstrong Foundation, a charitable organization founded by the six-time Tour de France champion that raises money for cancer research and educational programs.

Turion is AMD’s first real attempt to compete directly with Intel’s Pentium M notebook processor. AMD’s Athlon 64 and Athlon XP processors have been used in heavy performance notebooks for years, but the company is now trying to get its chips into thinner and lighter notebooks, a category dominated by the Pentium M.

The L2000 comes with a 14-inch widescreen display and weighs 5.3 pounds (2.4 kilograms). It will be available for U.S. customers starting in June at HP’s Web site, and will hit U.S. retail shelves in July. There are no plans as of Friday to make the notebook available outside the U.S., an HP spokeswoman said.

U.S. notebook buyers are just now starting to realize the benefits of thin-and-light notebooks, a category that has had more success in Europe and Asia. The percentage of notebooks sold in U.S. retail stores that weigh less than 6 pounds reached 30 percent of all notebook sales in April, up from just 10 percent last April, according to data from Current Analysis Inc.

The notebook should help HP erase a poor performance last year among retail buyers during the back-to-school shopping season in July and August, an important period for PC companies second only to the fourth-quarter holidays, said Sam Bhavnani, an analyst with Current Analysis in San Diego.