Intel's concept notebook has WiMAX connectivty

It isn't in the shops yet, in fact it may never be despite rumours of production lines rolling at the end of this year, but just thinking about Intel's concept Metro notebook is enough to get our juices flowing.

Created by Ziba Design based on a brief by Intel to produce the world's thinnest notebook, the Metro is only 0.7 inches think (thinner than my current Motorola mobile) and weighs only a kilogramme, mainly because it uses Flash memory instead of a disc-based hard drive.

Before you start thinking that WiMAX Century has turned into a gadget blog though, let me reassure you that it's the presence of an embedded WiMAX / WiFi  / GPRS chip that makes this a landmark product for us.

Rumour has it that Intel will start manufacturing the multi-connectivity chipset towards the end of 2007 at which point we will start to see it appear in a range of devices.

Looks like the WiMAX century hasn't quite kicked off, but the players are definitely in the dressing rooms.