

ARM based processors coming to Linux netbooks - brkumar
http://arstechnica.com/journals/linux.ars/2009/01/07/new-freescale-processors-target-linux-netbooks
Freescale's ARM based i.MX515 will have the capability to power machines with up to 8 hours of battery life, with a display as large as 8.9 inches. Sporting an ARM Cortex-A8 core, the chip performs from around 600mHz to 1 GHz.<p>Seems like a clash between Intel and ARM is imminent.
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dchest
_All we know at this point is that these computers will almost definitely be
running Linux - these chips just can't provide enough CPU power to run any
Windows operating system, including netbook standard XP._

I thought the reason was that Windows doesn't run on ARM.

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davidw
Windows Mobile certainly does:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Mobile>

but, yeah that's not really windows for most people.

Also, even if MS ported Windows to ARM (it shouldn't be _that_ difficult), the
problem would really be the applications, which would either need emulating
(on an already slowish computer) or recompiling.

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dchest
Sure, not counting Windows CE variants here.

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axod
Cool, ARM are so much nicer to work with than Intel. Really well designed
CPUs.

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mcxx
As a normal user, how would I notice any difference?

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sireat
If you are a normal Linux user, then you'ļl be fine, and modern ARM plus
support chips should be less power hungry than Atom and chipset, although
Intel has been making progress. I think it is about 9Watts average on Atom
with newer chipsets, compared to first Atoms which use older chipsets and are
consuming 26Watts. That "new" AMD chip for netbooks is an atrocity (IMHO)
using about 45Watts.

If you want to run Windows, then you'll want to pass on ARM netbooks.

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LogicHoleFlaw
PowerTOP on my Atom-using MSI Wind netbook shows a hair under 10 Watts total
consumption at idle, and up to 13 Watts used under heavy load. There are
probably some tweaks I could do to drop that even more but I think I've hit
diminishing returns in that respect. I'm getting about 5 hours of real-life
usage on the 6-cell battery.

Incidentally, the backlight on this thing is almost _too_ powerful. I keep it
on the lowest setting even on AC power because it's just that bright.

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jws
The Cortex-A8 is pretty spiffy (SIMD extensions, extra compressed instruction
mode, ~GHz clockspeeds), but looking down the road, the Cortex-A9 intrigues
me. All the same goodies of the A8 but it goes to 4 cores instead of 1.

The other change to look for in the next few years is cheap OLED displays. A 1
watt CPU, bridge chip, and a fractional watt display will change the battery
life equation dramatically. Current displays make all the light a display
could need to all white all the time and then throw most of it away. OLED
displays only make the light you need. Say hello to the '80s and green text on
black to stretch your battery for coding.

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brkumar
From the article, "this chip will have the capability to power machines with
up to 8 hours of battery life, with a display as large as 8.9 inches". We can
finally hope for a long lasting laptop without having to weigh 4kgs (or 9
lbs).

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stcredzero
Someone should make something closer to the form factor of the Radio Shack
Model 100, with the same instant-on capability and ability to run freaking
forever on ordinary alkaline batteries.

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handelaar
Netbook with a browser that can't run Flash.

Outside this place they're not going to sell many of those.

