“To highlight the potential of its handset CPUs, Intel has showcased a number of Atom-based smartphones designed by its partners at IFA. The models include ZTE’s Grand X IN, Orange’s San Diego, Lenovo’s K800 and Lava’s Xolo X900.”
“Motorola, the first major handset vendor to tie up with Intel, is scheduled to unveil its first Atom-based smartphone in London in September, the sources noted.”
Hint: They all run Android/Linux… This is not Wintel but something else. It’s also a gateway to the desktop for Android/Linux since the software runs on Intel. It should be able to run on Intel PCs of all kinds, perhaps with modifications for the phone stuff. Wintel is fragmenting even before M$ gets onto ARM. Isn’t it cute that Intel and friends are releasing these gadgets in September more than a month before “8″? It’s all good.
Intel is getting price/power/performance competitive on smart phones in order to be able to do this. That was inevitable but Intel is still handicapped by single core operation to be in the game. That puts them into the low end of smart phones but that’s still a huge market. In a year or two they will be competitive even in multi-core thanks to Moore’s Law. Soon neither ARM nor Intel will demand much power to run. The display will be the limiting factor.
See Digitimes – More vendors to launch Atom-based smartphones, but market acceptance remains to be seen.
OTOH, some makers of netbooks intend to get out of the market reducing some use of Atoms. Strangely, one of the triggers for this is higher licensing fees for “8″. Instead of opting for GNU/Linux on netbooks, OEMs are abandoning the netbook altogether in favour of tablets and smart phones. Whatever small cheap computer works, I guess.
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Hey, Mr. Posgon, split again? I can clearly recall how you expected ARM to run Intel and x86 into the ground. Now, Atom is becoming a competition to ARM. Seems Intel is not exactly dying anytime soon.
Finally, shall I need to remind you that Windows runs on Atom from day one? It is a matter of optimizing Windows Phone 8 for Atom, and there you go. Btw, you can technically install Windows 8 on any of these devices, only MS forbids it to ensure high quality and great experience for the users.
“It’s also a gateway to the desktop for Android/Linux since the software runs on Intel.”
Please enlighten me: Why would I want to run an OS on my desktop or notebook whose UI and existing apps are designed to be used with a touchscreen?
And there’s a reason why neither my desktop nor my notebook have a touchscreen (and yours don’t, either): Just hold out your arm in front of you, fully extended, for some minutes, and you’ll know.
Hint: They all run Android/Linux…
And no one seems to care. There are quite a few Atom based PCs, of course, and they are all Windows based. These machines are, as you note, becoming less and less popular. I have had one for three years now and I haven’t used it for quite a while. For me, a 10″ screen is just too small. I have an Acer One and it works perfectly and does everything it should, but I take my Dell 15″ when I travel now. The Acer is just too small to satisfy my needs.
ch
http://www.fujitsu.com/global/news/pr/archives/month/2011/20110721-01.html
Phone can have keyboards and mice. The insanity that has been done.
Phenom I really see why not thinking MS allowed Windows 7 to be placed on this beast.
“The insanity that has been done.”
For once I agree with you completely: It’s just insane.
More than 10 years ago (~1999), my boss let me buy a HP Journada 690 (they are still sold on ebay: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Hewlett-Packard-HP-Jornada-690-Palmtop-PC-Computer-With-Docking-/250949841398?pt=PDA_s_Pocket_PC_s&hash=item3a6dc6b1f6 )
I liked it a lot – it was perfect for taking notes in a meeting, carrying it back to my desk in a trouser pocket and then loading those notes into Word on my main machine. The keyboard is really great for the size – and I think it’s actually the minimum size you can get away with for a usable keyboard.
At the time, I thought that maybe within ten years we might be using small things like that and just plug them into some docking station with big display, keyboard etc. attached when we want to do more demanding work. Well, hasn’t really materialized yet, some nice geeky gizmos nonewithstanding. I think now that using different devices optimized for those different usages and sharing the data between them makes more sense. At least that’s what most of us seem to be doing today.
ch
http://www.asus.com/Mobile/PadFone/
I guess that is your dream but with more cpu/gpu power.
In fact, I was thinking of that one when I wrote “some nice geeky gizmos nonewithstanding”.