Intel talks Ultrabooks, Ivy-Bridge & a new chip dubbed Haswell

Intel is still really hot on their concept of the thin, light, inexpensive, Ultrabook. Chief Executive Officer Paul Otellini talked today about how these types of computers will bring the “complete” computing experience and he talked a bit about a power efficient chip that could make this concept even more appealing.

ADVERTISEMENT

"The Ultrabook is our vision that delivers the complete computing experience...more responsive, engaging," Otellini stated at Intel’s developer conference in San Francisco yesterday. "Implications of the Ultrabook are huge." he continued.

The concept of the Ultrabook is simple; it should be thin, light, and $1000 or less. Essentially Intel wants to create the answer to the MacBook Air. I always think of the concept as what the Netbook should have been but never really executed. That $1000 price tag is important because many feel it’s the magic number that will make these Windows based machines able to compete with the MacBook Air.

Other important features of an Ultrabook are good battery life and the ability to be “always on” or boot very quickly. The idea of always on or even quick book can be solved easily with an SSD but what about good battery life?

ADVERTISEMENT

Intel is talking about two new chips that could potentially deliver strong performance while maintaining good battery life. First, the Ivy-Bridge which is a follow up to the Sandy-Bridge processor currently found in the newest generation MacBook Airs. Ivy-Bridge is approximated to be 50% more power efficient than its Sandy little brother.

The second chip is called Haswell. Haswell is likely going to be Intel’s first go at a system-on-a-chip. For comparison purposes, most of the chips that live in smartphones these days come from ARM chip suppliers and all of those are system-on-a-chip.

So what benefits come from Haswell? Intel says it will lower “platform power” by a factor of 20. According to the company that means “all-day usage, 10 days of standby.”

ADVERTISEMENT

With the combination of Ivy-Bridge bringing better performance and more power efficiency plus the benefits of Haswell, Ultrabooks have the potential to be something very special. The question is will Intel offer this chip combination to Apple? If the next generation of the MacBook Air had this combination it could be deadly for any other manufacturer seeking to get an Ultrabook on the market.

It seems that Ultrabooks are going to be the next generation of laptops. Powerhouse computers that are bulky and expensive with low battery life may just become a relic in a very short period of time.

I personally have a lot of love for my MacBook Air. With cloud storage being so readily available it seems like a no brainer to carry a smaller, lighter machine that has strong battery performance. Do any of you have an interest in these Windows based Ultrabooks? Would you even consider a laptop anymore considering the emergence of tablets or do you even bother when your smartphone can now do most tasks until you get back to your desktop?

No posts to display