Submitted by: kirkland on Thursday November 02nd, 2006 at 04:00 PM EST

Dell Inc., which earlier this year said it would start using chips made by Advanced Micro Devices Inc. in select desktop and server systems, on Wednesday quietly debuted a line of laptop computers also featuring processors from the world's No. 2 chipmaker.

In May, Dell first said it would break its long-standing reliance on chips from Intel Corp. and begin using AMD's Opteron Dual-Core processors in some high-end servers. Four months later, Dell announced it would expand its use of AMD microprocessors in a new line of servers and desktop PCs.

Available on Dell's online store, the Inspiron 1501 notebook can be configured with a variety of AMD chips, ranging from the low-end Sempron to the speedier dual-core Turion 64 X2. Preconfigured models range from $549 for one with a 1.8 gigahertz Sempron processor to $859 for one with a 64-bit Turion.

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