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Dell Considering ARM-Based Smartbooks
wonkavader sends us this quote from an article in PCWorld:
"In an effort to expand its Linux offerings, Dell is researching new netbook-type devices and will soon offer netbook Linux OS upgrades, a company official said on Wednesday. The company is researching the possibility of offering new Linux-based mobile devices called smartbooks, said Todd Finch, senior product marketing manager for Linux clients, at the OpenSourceWorld conference in San Francisco. The company will also upgrade its Ubuntu Linux OS for netbooks to the latest version in the next few weeks ... Smartbooks with Arm chips have inherent advantages over x86 chips like Atom, such as lower power consumption and longer battery life, according to Finch. The chips are also becoming more powerful, as indicated by the growing number of applications on smartphones, he said. 'I think it's natural and reasonable for us to begin looking at them as they begin scaling their processors up.'"
These are rough times with shitty sales. I'm sure Dell is just trying to stay afloat by what ever means. The days of exclusive deals between the industry giants is hold for now at least.
Life is not for the lazy.
The very applications that keep a lot of people running Windows instead of e.g. Linux also keep Windows firmly locked to x86.
Take away the third-party closed source applications/games, and suddenly Windows is looking pretty crappy even to your average consumer.
Apple handled this with emulation, but they were moving to a faster chip.
Or does x86 inherently consume more power at the same performance level?
Difficult: ARM has traditionally had a very clean instruction set which eliminates a lot of the junk that an x86 requires in order to function, and it's much easier to take a chip designed for low power and increase the performance than to take a 100+W monster like an x86 and scale it down for low-power use. The modern 'x86', at least from Intel, is basically an x86 emulator wrapped around a RISC core.... the ARM effectively eliminates the emulator and just runs the RISC core.
If I remember correctly, the dual-core ARM chips I was working on a couple of years ago used about 1W of power to play 720p HD... an Atom has trouble doing that even with several times that power usage.
Microsoft is planning to build "Microsoft PC" products that are Microsoft Software+Hardware.
You think Dell is just going to see back and watch that happen and not have a plan B?
Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
I have been raptly awaiting Pegatron's $200 arm netbook with an 8 hour runtime:
from January
from July
If Dell is willing to ship what is practically the same device, then this competition can be nothing but good for everyone who wants one.