VIA Technologies: Enabling Affordable High-Quality Audio on Laptops
This is not a news that VIA has been pretty successful with its Envy multimedia products. Recently the company managed to ink another bunch of deals on graphics processors supply with numerous audio cards makers, including Hercules. Unfortunately for VIA, on the desktop Creative Labs?position with its Audigy and Live! products are rock-stable and VIA?s market share growth is a problem. But the company thinks there is a chance to sneak into the notebook field with its Envy 24 MT, providing relatively affordable world-class audio for people who use mobile computers.
Currently there are a limited amount of options for notebook buyers if they want a high-quality audio: buy a laptop with integrated AC?7 audio, which will hardly satisfy those looking for quality movie and music play; get a laptop featuring Intel?s latest Centrino incarnation with the high definition audio; get Creative Audigy 2 PCMCIA flavour; get a notebook with proprietary improvements in the audio sub-system. VIA wants to offer another one: an affordable PCMCIA card with Envy 24 MT chip on it. Even though so far there are no companies interested, the solution itself may be pretty interesting.
