It seems that after Intel, just about every chip maker wants a piece of the netbook pie. AMD is an obvious competitor, but VIA is also eyeing the little notebooks. However, more exotic options like the Chinese Loongson chips and ARM's Cortex A-8 and A-9 chips are also among the contenders. We can now add a new contender: Freescale.
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Member since:2006-01-06
Sorry, the thing about "minutes more" is truly crap.
Pandora runs 8.5 hrs full load with a 4000mAH battery, that's less capacity than any 3 cell atom battery available.
So of course add a real 3 cell or even a 6 cell battery to a Cortex-A8 based system you're talking full load processing for waking hours.
X86 won't ever be able to meet efficiency levels of ARM, not unless there's 3+ generations of manufacturing advantage. And normal desktop operating systems mostly don't lend themselves well to these desktop appliances.
AMD has proven that they are only interested in lagging the industry by 2 years or so, they haven't done much innovative aside from pricing for a while. Maybe AMD will get into the market 4th quarter....maybe...
VIA was happy building mini-ITX boards and charging an arm and a leg for them. Intel came out and sold their atom based mini-ITX system for $70 and have cut out via's legs. I honestly don't see much interesting on their plates either.
Have fun with your windows running behemoth. I am not happy with having to carry around an 8lb slab. And so far sales have shown most people aren't interested in that either.
Btw here's a new link:
http://www.engadget.com/2009/01/09/pegatron-and-freescale-team-for-...
Edited 2009-01-11 02:45 UTC
Member since:
2006-01-28
Some of the Atom netbooks with 6 cell batteries can get very close to (and maybe even exceed) 8h runtimes. Presumably the machine in question is also running off of a 6 cell battery, as Intel has improved power efficiency greatly, while OTOH Freescale hasn't done much beyond what they originally had. Freescale simply lacks the funding.
Personally I'm finished with non-x86 architectures unless I have no choice in the matter. I'd MUCH rather have the capability to run Windows and be able to play at least some kind of recent games, apps, and quite frankly general software support(e.g. browser plugins) over having a few minutes more runtime if you even would get that.
AMD and Via ARE interesting in that they'd likely be using better 3D GPUs than what you typically get with current Atom based netbooks barring Asus' N10J, but even that is only a slight step up...