Intel-Powered Smartphones Arriving Soon 182
adeelarshad82 writes "After years of promises to enter the smartphone market, Intel has finally done so. During his keynote at CES, Intel's Chief executive Paul Otellini said that Intel has signed Lenovo and Motorola to contracts to use its Atom processors in smartphones. Unlike past launches, Intel has held Medfield back until its partners were ready to go to press as well. According to an early preview, Medfield pairs a 1.6GHz Atom CPU with an SGX540 GPU designed by PowerVR. This is the same GPU we've seen tip up in the Samsung Galaxy Nexus and Droid Razr, though Intel is clocking it higher, at 400MHz. Intel's new SoC encodes video at 720p at 30 fps, can playback 1080p at 30 fps, and supports 1920×1080 output via HDMI. The first smartphone to carry an Intel chip will debut on China Unicom during the second quarter."
You haven't entered the market (Score:4, Interesting)
You haven't entered the market until the phones are available at retail. I would like to see this, but it hasn't happened yet and the announcement is premature.
I would like to see these phones on sale in the US. It would probably be my next phone, as I'm due for one in the fall.
Re:You haven't entered the market (Score:5, Insightful)
If the market at issue is the retail market for cellphones, there might be some validity to that. The market Intel is actually entering is the market for supplying processors to smartphone manufacturers, which they've entered as soon as they have a product available for those manufacturers to order.
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You haven't entered the market until the phones are available at retail. I would like to see this, but it hasn't happened yet and the announcement is premature.
I would like to see these phones on sale in the US. It would probably be my next phone, as I'm due for one in the fall.
As far as I'm concerned, it's like announcing yet another car which runs on gas.
Processors .. woop de doo. Better operating systems / apps are more important (plus compatibility to standards)
Re:You haven't entered the market (Score:5, Insightful)
As an Intel shareholder, though, I am very excited by this announcement.
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However, as consumers we are all likely to benefit from the increased power consumption.
There, thats fixed it for you.
No, no you didn't.
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So there is no more improvement available for processors?
Moore's Law be damned!
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Of course. This is the "marketing" and hype part of the process: announcing the product months before it's even available.
Intel really really hopes they can enter this strongly, the reality is that the atom processors are not going to compete well with android as they aren't even going to be compatible with apps out the door (as apps aren't all programmed for x86).
Had Intel actually used the arm license they themselves purchased, that would have been a wiser decision.
Re:You haven't entered the market (Score:5, Informative)
Most android apps are java; very few use any arm-specific code at all. They should run fine on android-x86 (which exists already BTW)
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Taking this to the logical conclusion, since now in the smartphone market, the "chip" is an SOC (the CPU + chipset logic on the same silicon die), OEMs will just buy the SOC chip and throw away the whole thing... Hmm, that sounds like something that will happen.
Intel often made decent, albeit low-end, chipsets. Fortunatly for them most folks today don't really buy smartphones based on latent hardware capabilities that they probably won't use (but just "in-case"), but software features. In this case, they
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I've heard similar things around their GPUs (I'm thinking older ones).
i945 chipset costs $x
i945 chipset + GMA950 = $x + $0.75
Factor in the marketing scam of "centrino" which customers thought meant a certain model CPU, but really meant Intel CPU (Pentium M or better) + Intel Chipset + Intel Wifi. Throw in a 75 cent GPU and you have a laptop that consumers clawed over each other to get.
Even though Intel has a history of making garbage GPUs.
First foray was Intel 740 which was a standalone AGP card. What a jok
one of those it's called K800 ... (Score:2)
... and there are a couple videos with it already where it runs some kind of (rather unresponsive) android.
I hope it's easy/possible to make it run whatever x86 OS you please.
what kind of power draw? (Score:4, Interesting)
Have they been able to get into power-draw ranges that'd make the battery life compatible with ARM-based devices?
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Even if that's the case, comparable isn't enough. To inspire a switch of platform requires a generational improvement in something.
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Being an x86 CPU the performance should be better. Better performance at the same power draw? Sounds like an advantage. Although 2Ghz dual-core ARM CPUs are coming out now so it might not be that much.
What I'm looking forward to is the modding potential of portable devices running Win8. It's a regular x86 OS, so it should be pretty easy to install Linux on these things, more specifically Maemo, the best portable device OS ever! :D
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If 70% more power draw than an iPhone 4S playing back 720p was "comparable", I might be impressed.
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If 70% more power draw than an iPhone 4S playing back 720p was "comparable", I might be impressed.
And the same source giving you that number says that iPhone 4S uses 30% more power for web browsing, which is far more common on a phone. 4S also uses more than twice as much power (111% more) when in standby and 14% more power when talking over 3G. Now are you impressed?
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That is their claim in the graphs in the article. Graphs that don't mention which competing devices are being compared and which have no numbers. But they are claiming to be middle of the pack in idle power consumption, which has always been the fatal flaw in x86 mobile devices until now. If they have really managed to get an x86 to idle at a couple of milliamps of current then they are probably in the hunt. If not, it is all bogus like an x86 tablet. Who wants a phone you have to charge daily even if
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The phones in the article are HTC Sensation, Motorola Droid 3, iPhone 4S, LG Optimus 2X and Samsung Galaxy S 2.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/5365/intels-medfield-atom-z2460-arrive-for-smartphones [anandtech.com]
x86 is offering more performance per watt than ARM, though by no more than a factor of 2.
Re:what kind of power draw? (Score:5, Informative)
That is their claim in the graphs in the article. Graphs that don't mention which competing devices are being compared and which have no numbers. But they are claiming to be middle of the pack in idle power consumption, which has always been the fatal flaw in x86 mobile devices until now. If they have really managed to get an x86 to idle at a couple of milliamps of current then they are probably in the hunt. If not, it is all bogus like an x86 tablet. Who wants a phone you have to charge daily even if you don't call or even light up the display? It is all about idle time with these more mobile devices, not how many HD frames you can push for the hour or so the battery can hold up.
Anand has done a really good job analyzing Medfield's performance and power usage, with actual comparisons against other shipping competitors.
So, to answer your questions:
1. Performance comparison -
Sunspider javascript benchmark (lower is better) -
Intel Medfield - 1331 - compare to iPhone 4S - 2250 & Galaxy Nexus running Android Icecream Sandwitch - 1988
Browsermark benchmark scores (higher is better) -
Medfield - 116425 - compare to iPhone 4S - 87841 & Galaxy Nexus running Android Icecream Sandwitch - 97381
Intel's Medfield has a good 20-50% performance lead against currently shipping top of the line ARM. Granted most ARM phones are due for a refresh in 6 months which will give them an expected performance boost of about 30-50%, Medfield will still be in the same ballpark performance. Its definitely a viable option. Plus, a Medfield upgrade will also come out in 9-12 months.
2. Power consumption on standby -
Medfield standby - 18mW - compare to iPhone 4S - 38mW & Galaxy S2 - 19mW
3. Power consumption during 3G web browsing -
Medfield standby - 1W - compare to iPhone 4S - 1.3W & Galaxy S2 - 1.2W
Power consumption during 720p video playback -
Medfield standby - 850mW - compare to iPhone 4S - 500mW & Galaxy S2 - 650mW
Barring video playback, Medfield actually has better power consumption numbers than iPhone 4S and Galaxy S2. Even in video playback, Medfield is only a little bit higher. Unlike what people have been warning about, Medfield is NOT a power hog and is in fact at par with currently shipping ARM.
Instead of getting into fanboyism, people should be excited by this news. Firstly, Intel is the small underdog here, while ARM is the 800lb gorilla. Secondly, it sounds like a cliche but competition is almost always A Good Thing. Thirdly, I am personally extremely excited at the idea of a Medfield based tablet - it would give us enough flexibility to run multiple OSes and the millions of legacy x86 apps and games sloshing around in the great wide interweb. It would also allow us to run Win8 when it eventually releases which is also an attractive proposition.
Lastly, if you put aside the purist RISC/CISC debate, x86 over the years has promoted and ensured an open ecosystem of OSes, applications, websites, and open source projects/communities. For all the goodness that ARM contains, its advent into smartphones and now tablets has caused more walled gardens and vendor lockdowns, not less. The root cause may very well be greedy corporations (heck, even El Goog is turning into one) and nothing to do with ARM per se, but I'm calling it like I see it.
Re:what kind of power draw? (Score:4, Informative)
Sorry for replying to my own comment, but I just realized that my link to the Anandtech article got stripped out.
Here's the link: http://www.anandtech.com/show/5365/intels-medfield-atom-z2460-arrive-for-smartphones [anandtech.com]
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Javascript benchmarks test software, not hardware. They are useful for comparing the same software on different hardware. Anand has fallen for Intel's marketing again.
Samsung are making 32nm Exynos chips now, so Intel's process isn't even going to be better than the ARM chips it will be competing against.
And the figures Anand is presenting are a result of his own tests? Nope, they're from an Intel marketing slide.
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Intel is the underdog!
Just like Microsoft was when it entered new markets.
And legacy old x86 code gets easier to run under emulation each time a new generation of CPUs come out.
Just talk faster (Score:2)
Problem solved.
Dated hardware? (Score:2)
Dull Specs, but battery life? (Score:5, Insightful)
720p video encoding, 1080p video decoding and 1080p via HDMI are considered stunning features?
Heck, Apple's been conservative, and the iPhone 4s has got 1080p video encoding, 1080p video decode and 1080p via HDMI. Androids have had it in 2010-2011 (and were mocking Apple the whole time).
So... the bigger question is - what's the battery life? The performance looks spectacular, but x86 is a notable power hog. And more worringly, I see nothing in the articles about battery life, power consumption, or battery size.
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Re:Dull Specs, but battery life? (Score:4, Informative)
1080p decode is useful for two things:
1) Decoding 1080p media and scaling it down to the display in real time, eliminating the need for a reencode. It's inefficient and a waste of space, but still - in some use case it's better than reencoding before loading to the device
2) HDMI output
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I'd rather ask "which pocket device on the market has lens that deserve 1920x1080 resolution"
That's only 2 megapixels...
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People are buying cables that let them plug their phones into their televisions.
Example [amazon.com]
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My Galaxy S needs to be charged every night, but overall when I play a lot with the phone, it lasts enough to go through the day.
It may be that I do less or that battery lasts more or the battery is larger (now I see phones with 1800mAh instead of 1000mAh, from a couple of years back).
So I think there's a lot to be analyze
Anandtech has the numbers (Score:5, Informative)
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Medfield [extremetech.com] with 2.6W idle, and 3.6W playing 720p video? Numbres they they "hope" to get down to 2W and 2.6W early this year. If they haven't had a breakthrough in their power consumption, expect those phones and tablets to fail in the market as quickly as the Kin & TouchPad, or, if they're persistent, maybe they'll be out as long as the Original Xoom or PlayBook.
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The whole iPad takes 2.5W going full tilt. That includes the screen and backlight (1.5W) and the electronics (1W).
Now the SoC itself is taking 2-
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I don't understand how people are speaking with conviction at numbers that are based on guesstimates and hearsay, and to the extent that they have already written off a chip that is just launching. Plus, these numbers seem to be wildly incorrect based on initial actual tests.
Please see the Anandtech article that contains actual performance and power numbers:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/5365/intels-medfield-atom-z2460-arrive-for-smartphones [anandtech.com]
The Intel Medfield SoC idles at 18mW, consumes 1W during 3G browsing
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720p video encoding, 1080p video decoding and 1080p via HDMI are considered stunning features?
Heck, Apple's been conservative, and the iPhone 4s has got 1080p video encoding, 1080p video decode and 1080p via HDMI. Androids have had it in 2010-2011 (and were mocking Apple the whole time).
So... the bigger question is - what's the battery life? The performance looks spectacular, but x86 is a notable power hog. And more worringly, I see nothing in the articles about battery life, power consumption, or battery size.
Less power draw than ARM for most tasks, more performance: http://www.anandtech.com/show/5365/intels-medfield-atom-z2460-arrive-for-smartphones [anandtech.com]
FFS... (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's see here... Intel is throwing their hat into the ARM-level power arena... we could discuss how fast their processor is, or we could do a bunch of irrelevant jabbering about how fast the SGX540 that virtually everybody licenses from PowerVR is... Hmm. Hey, let's focus on the part that everybody already knows about and make it even more fascinating by not discussing power for GPU operations; but encode and decode of some (unspecified; but quite possibly a restricted baseline of H.264) 'HD Video' format, and the maximum output resolution!
It's actually a pretty impressive way to natter on about the product without the slightest mention of what may or may not make it interesting. In other news, it is probably made of silicon, and in some sort of density-optimized epoxy package!
Re:FFS... (Score:5, Funny)
In other news, it is probably made of silicon, and in some sort of density-optimized epoxy package!
But will it have rounded corners? And shiny? Will it be shiny?!?
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I vote for shiny too.
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Will it be shiny?!?
It will come in Zune brown.
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So, fungus, start discussing it...
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Because it's relevant to the viability of the platform. The SGX540 is not particularly modern or competitive, so it holds back the rest of the platform. The fact that Intel is also licensing a third-party GPU (and talking about their future migration to the SGX543, also third-party) rather than using their own GPU is not particularly reassuring.
As a pure CPU, Medfield looks pretty decent. As an SoC, it's unimpressive. There's way more to an SoC than the CPU.
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The fact that Intel is also licensing a third-party GPU (and talking about their future migration to the SGX543, also third-party) rather than using their own GPU is not particularly reassuring.
Considering it's Intel... that's very reassuring.
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That was the previous generation attempt at a very low power Atom platform(also used in the embedded-only CE1400 chips, for set-top boxes), and was also a PowerVR licensed core(Intel's in-house at the time was the GMA950, an entirely different animal). Now, it may have been nice and cool-running; but the driver situation
Good, hope to see... (Score:3, Interesting)
PowerVR? (Score:5, Insightful)
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I'd just be happy if PowerVR would release (or bundle) their full OpenGL drivers; nobody other than Intel has licensed them, so all we get is OpenGL ES. Which is nice for apps written specifically for it, but few things in a generic Linux distro are.
Also, I'd be happy if I could get vsync working on my OMAP4430.
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This is the nastiest sticking point in mobile hackability. Pretty much everything smaller than a netbook has a PowerVR GPU and if you get an unfixable binary blob driver for your OS of choice from them, you should consider yourself lucky.
++ for distro choice! (Score:2)
That's the big deal to me. For a phone to eventually become a serious notebook and desktop alternative it needs to run an appropriate OS and make use of the vast existing application base.
What phone-centered software runs on x86? (Score:2)
Correct me if I'm wrong (and I could be), but AFAIK there is no strong ecosystem for x86 software that is geared toward usage on a touch-screen phone. Granted, Win8 will run X86 and will probably garner some touch-oriented software for the small screen, but it doesn't exist yet. So if I get one of these phones which 'apps' will I run? I suppose there is the Android x86 port, but I would imagine that most of the existing Android apps would fail in that environment.
Re:What phone-centered software runs on x86? (Score:5, Informative)
Correct me if I'm wrong (and I could be), but AFAIK there is no strong ecosystem for x86 software that is geared toward usage on a touch-screen phone. Granted, Win8 will run X86 and will probably garner some touch-oriented software for the small screen, but it doesn't exist yet. So if I get one of these phones which 'apps' will I run? I suppose there is the Android x86 port, but I would imagine that most of the existing Android apps would fail in that environment.
From Anand:
"By default all Android apps run in a VM and are thus processor architecture agnostic. As long as the apps are calling Android libraries that aren't native ARM there, once again, shouldn't be a problem. Where Intel will have a problem is with apps that do call native libraries or apps that are ARM native (e.g. virtually anything CPU intensive like a 3D game).
Intel believes that roughly 75% of all Android apps in the Market don't feature any native ARM code. The remaining 25% are the issue. The presumption is that eventually this will be a non-issue (described above), but what do users of the first x86 Android phones do? Two words: binary translation.
Intel isn't disclosing much about the solution, but by intercepting ARM binaries and translating ARM code to x86 code on the fly during execution Intel is hoping to achieve ~90% app compatibility at launch. Binary translation is typically noticeably slower than running native code, although Intel is unsurprisingly optimistic about the experience on Android. I'm still very skeptical about the overall experience but we'll have to wait and see for ourselves."
http://www.anandtech.com/show/5365/intels-medfield-atom-z2460-arrive-for-smartphones [anandtech.com]
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Awesome - thanks. For some reason I wasn't even thinking about the Dalvik VM. If I hadn't already posted in the thread I'd mod you informative.
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what i love - is (with complete lack of accuracy).. Android is a port of Linux from x86 to ARM.. now they are porting Android from ARM to x86..
Best hope for Windows Phone 8 (Score:4, Interesting)
Normally, this would be a godsend for Motorola, but given its being part of Google and presumably the most favored Android tablet, I'm surprised that they went w/ this solution. Lenovo makes sense, and I'd have expected Dell to jump into this as well - surprised that so far, they haven't. Done right, this could be a serious challenge to RIM, since it would allow one's work environment to be staged, and employees on the go can keep working on their phones somewhat less optimally than on their PCs, but at least get the most urgent things out of the way.
What compelling features does x86 have for Android (Score:2)
I'm really not getting the point of all this effort. OK, sure, its kinda cool that they've got a x86 processor that is small and cool enough to run a phone. But the overall features are only on-par with the existing Android ARM phones of the current generation. The multimedia capabilities are also not substantially different / better.
If I want to buy a new phone, what's going to make the Intel-based offering better? Yes, it runs a different instruction set at a low level, but the only way in which th
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Intel has by far the largest R&D budget of any chip maker out there. They've done some amazing things in the desktop and server space recently with their "Core" line, to the point where pretty much no one can touch them at the moment on performance or power efficiency (at that performance level).
This is only their first release for the smartphone market, and already they are releasing a chip that beats exis
Intel just now entering? (Score:2)
Don't they already make ARM chips ? Or was the real story 'x86 Powered...'
Re:Another Headache (Score:5, Insightful)
I agree it adds an extra headache for developers, but I like multiple platforms conceptually, because it's an acid-test way of keeping developers from accidentally drifting into platform assumptions that they aren't really supposed to be making, and which will complicate things later. Sometimes even helps find bugs; back when they were more active (and still to some extent), the Debian ports to non-x86 platforms frequently helped uncover latent bugs that were just infrequently triggered on x86 for various coincidental reasons.
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Why do you care about CPU architecture? If you write proper C/C++ code, you won't care because it's already portable, and is just a recompile away.
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Integer length? #include <stdint.h> and use int32_t etc. Has been around for ages.
As for endianness, why do you care? For networking there's ntoh* and hton*. For everything else, it shouldn't matter unless you're using dirty hacks like reinterpret_cast where you shouldn't be (i.e. where the language spec says that the result is undefined behavior).
C/C++ is perfectly portable if you know how it works. It's easy to write code that's U.B. per spec (and non-portable in practice), yes, but you as a program
Re:the specs and benchies are a YAWN (Score:5, Interesting)
"Wintel"? Focusing on Apple products? Fanboi much?
MS is moving to an platform of ARM/x86 cross compatibility, and Apple uses Intel on it's notebook products, so really, the only focus here is Intel, but some how you have to add Windows to it anyway?
Trying to figure out if your post is a subtle troll, or you are really just that obsessed...
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How can any have been sold, it hasn't been developed yet. A better comparison would be Windows 7 Phone, which has sold some (not much, but some). Moving in any direction always requires a first step. MS is moving to the cloud with many apps, so you can add a client-architecture irrelevance to the list of things easing the move. Just as many users don't care about dev/gaming, they also, sadly, don't care/realize the dangers of the cloud.
Mind you, 5 years from now is a long time, it look less time than that f
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I doubt very much we'll see anything running ARM SoCs which look like a PC(desktop
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and how many Windows 8 tablets have been sold?
Huh? Win8 isn't even shipping. How could any be sold?
sell it for $500 but have it cost less to build due to it not being powered by Intel then it's going to get built and sold. and that day will come soon. won't be good for most gaming/dev work but 99% of the people won't care.
Why do iPads sell well? Because there are lots of applications and you can do lots of good stuff.
Why do Windows computers sell well? Because there are lots of applications
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Did AMD stop making chips, or just laptop ones? Hmm, neither apparently [amd.com].
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Did AMD stop making chips
Sigh.
OK, you got me. Aren't you so smart?
"Non x86." blah blah blah.
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Intel means Intel.
IA-32 isn't really used. We call this x86.
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Saying Intel means anything using the IA-32!
So by the same token does saying 'AMD' mean 'anything using the AMD64 architecture'?
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I was thinking that the boast about encoding in 720p at 30fps already puts it behind the curve of present-day Apple mobile chips, let alone what will be available later this year with the next iteration of the iPhone.
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intel should be making these on 22nm and new products being released now,
I think the reason they don't is because 22nm requires more power to operate at a high speed.
Mark my words in the next 5 years ARM is going to have a CPU good enough for a laptop. the cost structure of Wintel will make this a huge financial/profit opportunity for laptop makers
I don't think this matters. The CPU is not why laptops are expensive, so even if some ARM manufacturer manages to match Intel in performance (unlikely), what motivation is there to dump all your legacy software that only runs on Intel?
Also, if AMD couldn't overtake Intel with chips that were at times superior, why do you think VIA or Qualcomm could?
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at this point the iOS and android software catalogs are large enough that it's not an issue. developers will build on that.
ARM laptops won't run current PC games or do dev work but 99% of people don't care. Angry Birds has as many customers as Call of Duty games if not more. the hardcore gamer market is tapped out and the next gaming frontier is casual gaming with less emphasis on blood and gore
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at this point the iOS and android software catalogs are large enough that it's not an issue. developers will build on that.
No, it is an issue. Do you really want to buy a new copy of Photoshop and Microsoft Office, just because of some dubious processor change? Are they really going to use "Pages" on their iPhone? Intel is a marketing genius.....when it comes to processors, all most people know about is "Intel Inside." They don't care about RISC, but they DO care when their software stops working. That includes people at home who were stupid enough to pay $50 for Word Perfect that came bundled with their computer.
The only way
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and how many regular home users buy Photoshop? how about spending $300 to upgrade their trial of MS office they got.
95% to 99% of computer users do
internet
email
light document work for which google apps, pages or the other apps out there are more than good enough
photo editing - there are photo editing apps in both markets and as long as they are as good enough as the current version of iphoto it will be good enough for most people
Asus has a good idea with the Transformer tablet but they are marketing it wron
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Yes. That's been true for 15 years and yet MS and Intel are still on top. People understand their own needs change over time and the mix of software may need to change as well. If you don'
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95% to 99% of computer users do
internet
email
light document work for which google apps, pages or the other apps out there are more than good enough
photo editing - there are photo editing apps in both markets and as long as they are as good enough as the current version of iphoto it will be good enough for most people
Those are the tasks that 95-99% of computer users have in common, not the only things that 95-99% of users do.
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I think with the new quad core ULP CPUs we will be pret
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Yeah, I heard that from apple fanbois a couple years ago, "iOS has all the apps, nobody will build for android" how's that turning out?
Quite well thank you.
It seems you're having difficulty understanding the question, his point is that while supposedly these 'apple fanbois' said 'nobody would build for android', it turns out that was incorrect.
Re:the specs and benchies are a YAWN (Score:4, Informative)
intel should be making these on 22nm and new products being released now,
I think the reason they don't is because 22nm requires more power to operate at a high speed.
??? How's that happen, typically the lower the process size, the lower the energy use for the same design (and the higher possible clock speed before heat issues occur).
Mark my words in the next 5 years ARM is going to have a CPU good enough for a laptop. the cost structure of Wintel will make this a huge financial/profit opportunity for laptop makers
I don't think this matters. The CPU is not why laptops are expensive, so even if some ARM manufacturer manages to match Intel in performance (unlikely), what motivation is there to dump all your legacy software that only runs on Intel?
Also, if AMD couldn't overtake Intel with chips that were at times superior, why do you think VIA or Qualcomm could?
The issue isn't cost, but performance. Even a low end x86 (except Atom and AMDs equivalent) can outperform an ARM chip significantly. Also, have you seen the price of replacement notebook CPUs? They are a lot more expensive than similar desktop CPUs. It's not the only reason they are more expensive, but it certainly is part of it.
ARM may in fact catch up to x86 - the question then is, will Intel focus more on their own ARM development? Performance focus has been moving from per-thread performance (where x86 is usually pretty good, and performance/watt is not necessarily a huge concern) to multi-threaded performance (where performance/watt can translate quite well, since you just have to add more cores to up the overall performance). I believe ARM is better at performance/watt than x86, so with ARM catching up on core count (and probably exceeding x86 soon), x86 may indeed lose it's lead. Of course, that only hurts Intel if they focus on x86.
Then again, I can see a slightly different future. Both multi-threaded and monolithic-threaded have their advantages. For notebooks (and maybe desktops/servers) I can see a primary ARM CPU handling most of the work, and an x86 (or Power, or whatever?) taking on the brute force stuff when needed, and otherwise powering down. Of course, applications and libraries will now need to store both ARM and x86 versions, and the OS will need to have code to allow cross talk between x86 and ARM at least at the cross-process level, but possibly even within processes themselves. Then again, that would be a huge undertaking and possibly not worth the effort.
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??? How's that happen, typically the lower the process size, the lower the energy use for the same design (and the higher possible clock speed before heat issues occur).
Not strictly true. The switching current is what goes down, but leakage current goes up. For older technologies that power threshold was recently crossed, that's why each new process step isn't just about feature size, but new tech to reduce leakage current so the power draw doesn't go insane. So reducing feature size, particularly at the scales we have now have real leakage current issues that need to be addressed at each step. High-K metal gates at 32nm was key to address this. And now Intel has the 3
Re: (Score:2)
heck until we can have smartphones powered by liquid naquadah (or similar) the other specs are a yawner
BLUE MAN KREE!
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Apple can pull it off because people know Apple controls everything from
Re: (Score:2)
We might see ARM on servers but it would have to be specialty hardware to keep it from getting anywhere near what's considered a PC.
It's here. [hp.com] Limited availability and high price as yet.
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It reminds me of how Dell had to sell Linux and even had to change pages Microsoft disagreed with.
It may be "here" as in at HP's beta site but it isn't here as in the real world.
LoB
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Not too late (Score:2)
Re:Not too late (Score:4, Funny)
It's never too late to come out with something wonderful - to raise the bar - to redefine what people expect from their technology in ways that empower and delight and amaze. Is this it? We don't know yet. But it's not too late.
I would just like to point out that handwarmers have been around for ages. Putting them in a cell phone is new, I'll grant you that.
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They better.
Offering the mobile market x86 is like offering a vegetarian beef jerky. They don't want or need it.
The only reason x86 still exists is for application compatibility.
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For the most part, they don't need to. Android has already been ported, and 75% of the apps for Android are written with the standard SDK, meaning they're cross-platform Java applets.
That leaves the 25% of remaining apps that are written with the NDK. Of those, most can be recompiled by the developer with minimal effort (the NDK supports building for x86 or ARM, and most apps wouldn't require any changes to recompile). Of those that can't, or aren't, Intel is going to be supplying binary translation softwar
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You could probably port Wine to Android-x86 with some effort, so WoW is not off-limits.
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Glad to see that there are others out there who value silence above all else!