Full Windows on ARM... LOL
It hurts!!!
There was a time when it seemed like everyone in the tech industry believed in two things; that ARM based chipsets would become more powerful than desktop ones and that they would be cheaper.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA.
This article talks about a $600 USD laptop running a Qualcomm Snapdragon 835, 4GB of RAM and a 256GB hard drive.
Here is a Core i5 with 8GB RAM and a 1TB hard drive for $550 CAD.
Less expensive even in a less valuable currency! More RAM, bigger hard drive... and I'm sorry, but that core i5 will spank that little Snapdragon 835. Around the corner and back. And guess what? The i5 doesn't need special versions of Microsoft's Office Suite for them to not run like crap.
Literally, the only things going for it are battery life and connectivity. I'm going to go back to an argument I made a while ago about wearables.
On the connectivity front... there is no technical reason why this can't exist in normal laptops. In fact, it is possible even today. I suspect patent holders are making it prohibitively expensive or at least just expensive enough that OEM's aren't biting.
On the battery life thing, I'll bounce back to an argument I made about wearables. There are targets device makers should be aiming for with battery life. And there are ways to get more battery life but end up with a less desirable product. 24 hour battery life is idiotic (in my opinion).
"Ideal" battery life falls into 3 different categories. Landing underneath these, or in between can be seen as a bad thing, and I'll explain why in a moment. Those three categories are, a full day of usage, a full week of usage, long term usage.
A full day's usage doesn't mean it lasts 24 hours or 8 hours or any specific number. It depends on the device and usage profile. A smartphone for instance in the daily battery life category should last for 16 hours of moderate usage with wiggle room at the end. This would mean that virtually every person would have access to their phone the entirety of the time they would actually be able to use it on a regular daily basis.
Weekly would be taking that number and multiplying it by something close to 7. And long term would probably be considered something like a month or longer.
So, why would a 24 hour battery life be terrible? Because human beings are pattern forming. We like things that fit into nice, reproducible, convenient patterns. Daily patterns are some of the easiest to maintain. So, if a phone lasts long enough that you know it will last the full day, but will be low enough that you know it won't last another full day, you'll create a pattern around charging it daily.
Weekly patterns take longer to form, but since most people have a lot of cues to draw from (weekends, garbage day, etc...), they generally don't take too long to adopt.
Long term is less about pattern forming and more about needing to take action so infrequently that it doesn't bother the owner.
But here is the problem... people, generally don't WANT to have to charge their devices. And undesirable patterns are SUPER easy to fall out of (dieting, exercise, etc...). And THIS is why a 24 hour battery life is a problem. Let's assume the "standard" 8 hour day for a laptop. That is 3 days. That is an extremely awkward pattern to build and maintain. And let's say you manage to get into the pattern, but then you don't use the laptop one day... now it doesn't need to be charged on the 3rd day any more. Pattern breaks. Ever notice how most people's laptops sit on a desk always plugged in? Now you know why. The exception are people who NEED their laptop to be portable on a regular basis.
The takeaway is super simple... the average person doesn't need a laptop most of the time. Let alone one with 20+ hour battery life. As a result, most people just leave their laptops on a desk, plugged in all of the time. If there is one thing we maybe need, it would be a universal battery across devices. So, on those rare occasions where I need to take my laptop off the desk I can simply attach whichever standardized battery I have that will yield the most appropriate battery life.
As for that LTE connectivity? Whether or not chip makers are to blame for laptops not having them... it is virtually a non-issue. Pretty much all modern smartphones support some form of tethering. And worse, it isn't like having an LTE chipset automatically gets you data anywhere. It requires a plan. These data plans are not any cheaper than the data in your cell phone plans. But you need to buy a totally separate plan just to use it!!!!
In other words... both of the defining features of these devices which more expensive than MANY models of much more powerful laptop are largely useless. Sure there are niche markets I can think of. But even within those markets there are problems and competition. It is a solution looking for a problem.
The manufactured case I can come up with involves someone who travels frequently, but not for business and regularly uses enough data on laptop oriented tasks to justify a secondary data plan. I say not for business because business users already generally have corporate laptops. And since most longer flights use air planes with electrical outlets and shorter trips stop at air ports with plenty of places to charge, I wouldn't think many people would buy this device specifically for the battery life if they already had to bring a device along.
If the device was $200-300... maybe it would have some appeal. It would likely compete more evenly with net book processors and the battery life and LTE connectivity might end up being that "one more thing" which causes consumers to choose that over an Intel or AMD based one.
But, I thought on it a bit more, and I think the funny thing is this... most that cost is probably the battery. Sure, Intel and AMD processors are more power hungry, but not by huge margins. Laptops are much like phones in that the screen is the primary factor in battery life. So, what makes them better able to deliver that battery life is the smaller footprint of the components, thus allowing them to increase the battery size. In other words, had they simply opted to aim for something like 12 hours of battery life, 4GB RAM and maybe a 128GB hard drive, they could have easily been in or even under net book territory and provided and compelling product for the price point. Instead, they went crazy with battery ambitions and produced what I think will be an un-sellable product. JOY!
[update]
It occurs to me, Qualcomm is playing their cards the only way they can. They are touting the things which can tout to distract you from the things which they can't.
At the end of the day, Qualcomm will likely never deliver a chipset which can rival Intel and AMD in terms of both performance AND efficiency. They get too much of their business from mobile where they already dominate the landscape to waste money hedging their bets. So, they use what they have. A small, power efficient chip which is "good enough" for at least some use cases. Between the power efficiency and how good they are at all things small, they'll always be able to both fit in more battery and squeeze more out of one the same size. It doesn't matter if that kind of battery life makes any sense or not. It is their hammer, and every problem looks like a nail.
Plenty of laptops cross the 10-12 hour thresholds with performance that spanks Qualcomm up and down the block.
If Qualcomm were a strategist, I would say that they were trying to use specs to force AMD and Intel to hedge their bets hoping that it will slow their pace on the performance front without ever allowing them to reach their efficiency levels.
[/update]
There was a time when it seemed like everyone in the tech industry believed in two things; that ARM based chipsets would become more powerful than desktop ones and that they would be cheaper.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA.
This article talks about a $600 USD laptop running a Qualcomm Snapdragon 835, 4GB of RAM and a 256GB hard drive.
Here is a Core i5 with 8GB RAM and a 1TB hard drive for $550 CAD.
Less expensive even in a less valuable currency! More RAM, bigger hard drive... and I'm sorry, but that core i5 will spank that little Snapdragon 835. Around the corner and back. And guess what? The i5 doesn't need special versions of Microsoft's Office Suite for them to not run like crap.
Literally, the only things going for it are battery life and connectivity. I'm going to go back to an argument I made a while ago about wearables.
On the connectivity front... there is no technical reason why this can't exist in normal laptops. In fact, it is possible even today. I suspect patent holders are making it prohibitively expensive or at least just expensive enough that OEM's aren't biting.
On the battery life thing, I'll bounce back to an argument I made about wearables. There are targets device makers should be aiming for with battery life. And there are ways to get more battery life but end up with a less desirable product. 24 hour battery life is idiotic (in my opinion).
"Ideal" battery life falls into 3 different categories. Landing underneath these, or in between can be seen as a bad thing, and I'll explain why in a moment. Those three categories are, a full day of usage, a full week of usage, long term usage.
A full day's usage doesn't mean it lasts 24 hours or 8 hours or any specific number. It depends on the device and usage profile. A smartphone for instance in the daily battery life category should last for 16 hours of moderate usage with wiggle room at the end. This would mean that virtually every person would have access to their phone the entirety of the time they would actually be able to use it on a regular daily basis.
Weekly would be taking that number and multiplying it by something close to 7. And long term would probably be considered something like a month or longer.
So, why would a 24 hour battery life be terrible? Because human beings are pattern forming. We like things that fit into nice, reproducible, convenient patterns. Daily patterns are some of the easiest to maintain. So, if a phone lasts long enough that you know it will last the full day, but will be low enough that you know it won't last another full day, you'll create a pattern around charging it daily.
Weekly patterns take longer to form, but since most people have a lot of cues to draw from (weekends, garbage day, etc...), they generally don't take too long to adopt.
Long term is less about pattern forming and more about needing to take action so infrequently that it doesn't bother the owner.
But here is the problem... people, generally don't WANT to have to charge their devices. And undesirable patterns are SUPER easy to fall out of (dieting, exercise, etc...). And THIS is why a 24 hour battery life is a problem. Let's assume the "standard" 8 hour day for a laptop. That is 3 days. That is an extremely awkward pattern to build and maintain. And let's say you manage to get into the pattern, but then you don't use the laptop one day... now it doesn't need to be charged on the 3rd day any more. Pattern breaks. Ever notice how most people's laptops sit on a desk always plugged in? Now you know why. The exception are people who NEED their laptop to be portable on a regular basis.
The takeaway is super simple... the average person doesn't need a laptop most of the time. Let alone one with 20+ hour battery life. As a result, most people just leave their laptops on a desk, plugged in all of the time. If there is one thing we maybe need, it would be a universal battery across devices. So, on those rare occasions where I need to take my laptop off the desk I can simply attach whichever standardized battery I have that will yield the most appropriate battery life.
As for that LTE connectivity? Whether or not chip makers are to blame for laptops not having them... it is virtually a non-issue. Pretty much all modern smartphones support some form of tethering. And worse, it isn't like having an LTE chipset automatically gets you data anywhere. It requires a plan. These data plans are not any cheaper than the data in your cell phone plans. But you need to buy a totally separate plan just to use it!!!!
In other words... both of the defining features of these devices which more expensive than MANY models of much more powerful laptop are largely useless. Sure there are niche markets I can think of. But even within those markets there are problems and competition. It is a solution looking for a problem.
The manufactured case I can come up with involves someone who travels frequently, but not for business and regularly uses enough data on laptop oriented tasks to justify a secondary data plan. I say not for business because business users already generally have corporate laptops. And since most longer flights use air planes with electrical outlets and shorter trips stop at air ports with plenty of places to charge, I wouldn't think many people would buy this device specifically for the battery life if they already had to bring a device along.
If the device was $200-300... maybe it would have some appeal. It would likely compete more evenly with net book processors and the battery life and LTE connectivity might end up being that "one more thing" which causes consumers to choose that over an Intel or AMD based one.
But, I thought on it a bit more, and I think the funny thing is this... most that cost is probably the battery. Sure, Intel and AMD processors are more power hungry, but not by huge margins. Laptops are much like phones in that the screen is the primary factor in battery life. So, what makes them better able to deliver that battery life is the smaller footprint of the components, thus allowing them to increase the battery size. In other words, had they simply opted to aim for something like 12 hours of battery life, 4GB RAM and maybe a 128GB hard drive, they could have easily been in or even under net book territory and provided and compelling product for the price point. Instead, they went crazy with battery ambitions and produced what I think will be an un-sellable product. JOY!
[update]
It occurs to me, Qualcomm is playing their cards the only way they can. They are touting the things which can tout to distract you from the things which they can't.
At the end of the day, Qualcomm will likely never deliver a chipset which can rival Intel and AMD in terms of both performance AND efficiency. They get too much of their business from mobile where they already dominate the landscape to waste money hedging their bets. So, they use what they have. A small, power efficient chip which is "good enough" for at least some use cases. Between the power efficiency and how good they are at all things small, they'll always be able to both fit in more battery and squeeze more out of one the same size. It doesn't matter if that kind of battery life makes any sense or not. It is their hammer, and every problem looks like a nail.
Plenty of laptops cross the 10-12 hour thresholds with performance that spanks Qualcomm up and down the block.
If Qualcomm were a strategist, I would say that they were trying to use specs to force AMD and Intel to hedge their bets hoping that it will slow their pace on the performance front without ever allowing them to reach their efficiency levels.
[/update]
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