Laptops, which have traditionally been powered by Intel’s x86 chips, don’t get the kind of battery life that your smartphone or tablet does, right? So why not make a laptop that uses the same sort of chips that power your mobile device? That was the thinking behind Qualcomm’s invention of the “smartbook” brand back in 2009. Why haven’t you heard more about “smartbooks” since then? Because the chips that powered the smartphones of 2009, 2010, and even 2011, weren’t powerful enough to be used in a laptop-like device. That and there wasn’t a real compelling operating system available for “smartbooks”, but that’s due to change later this year with the release of Windows 8. It’s the first version of Microsoft’s desktop OS that’s going to run on the ARM instruction set, otherwise known as the instruction set that your mobile phone and tablet uses. Qualcomm recently told PCWorld that this year they’re going to have a quad core version of their Snapdragon S4 chip out on the market. It’ll power laptops that are thinner and lighter than Intel’s “ultrabooks”, and better yet they’ll have built-in 3G and 4G connectivity.
Forgetting about Qualcomm for a second, the bigger question is will ARM compatible Windows laptops take off? Microsoft will be starting from scratch when it comes to this product category. The apps you’re using today will only run on x86 machines, not ARM. Developers will no doubt work tirelessly to get their applications working on ARM machines, but it’s not going to happen overnight.
And then there’s an even larger question, a bit of an uncomfortable one. What happens if Intel catches up? As in, what happens if Intel finally gets around to inventing an x86 chip that has all the benefits of ARM chips, yet delivers more performance and similar battery life?
This is a battle that will play out in 2013, not 2012. We’ll be watching it closely.
[Via: The Verge]