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Intel Ships First Atom Chips for Tablets, First Honeycomb Devices Not Far Off

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Intel today has shipped the first of its Atom processors for tablets under the codename Oak Trail, and devices using the alternative to ARM chipsets could start popping up as early as May. The Oak Trail processor is designed to handle both Android 3.0 Honeycomb and Windows 7, making it a viable choice for manufacturers not named Apple with Lenovo, Fujitsu, Samsung, and others already interested in exploring the CPU’s potential.

Intel has worked with Google to get things squared away for Android compatibility, moving ahead in a relationship that already has already producde the Atom-powered Google TV and Cr-48 Chrome netbook. Intel isn’t promising stellar battery performance, but the company does hope their new chip will be more competitive with the ARM architecture seen in all tablets up to this point. The single-core Oak Trail chip is clocked at 1.5GHz and carries over certain aspects of the Moorestown chip designed for smartphones. The tablet processor features PowerVR SGX535 graphics and MPEG acceleration for 1080p video playback.

Seeing as most companies only have dual-core in their sights, Intel may still have some way to go in winning over converts from the current batch of manufacturers. We expect Intel’s line of chips to play better with PC manufacturers making tablets on the side, especially those interested in dual-boot devices like Lenovo.

[via PCWorld]

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16 Comments

  1. Finally a tablet with computing power. These processors will destroy the quadcore Arm processors.

    1. What? A single-core Atom? LOL.

      1. Actually, I believe it.

    2. I hope you were being sarcastic. The quad core Tegra 3 is about as powerful as a dual core 2 Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo. Atom is not even as powerful as Tegra 2.

      Oh, and after using an Atom netbook for 2 years, I can say that multitasking absolutely sucks on it. I’d pick a dual core ARM chip over a single core Atom any day because of this reason alone.

      1. Not a big fan of Nvidia or the Tegra 2 because of the ARM architecture they used—something about neglecting to use the ARM’s NEON vector extensions found in Apple’s A5. Are all of the Tegra 2 chipsets the same for different devices? I understand it’s nearly a year old, but not being able to play 1080 p at a reasonable frame rate is unacceptable to me.

      2. No offence, but you have no idea actually. Atom is much more powerfull than tegra 2. And tegra 3, they benchmarked it in compilller with maximum optimizations and almost none opt. for c2d. Optimized c2d absolutely trashes tegra 3. Also tegra 3 is the same cortex A9 cores as 2, just 4 of them.

  2. Intel chips in Android tablets. Cant wait to see how this plays out.

    Intel not promising stellar batter life….I hope it isnt worse than their competition.

  3. Not a freaking chance, at least not from the outset. Battery life we have heard rumors, can’t imagine what getting more than a couple hours at best with those processors. They are not designed to work with smaller batteries used by cell phones of today.

  4. this is great for dual boot WIN7+AndroidHoneycomb tablet opportunities, Lenovo lepad etc…

  5. Fuck that, put an Intel 2600k in that shit and overclock it.
    That would be the shit.

    1. My next PC will have a 2600k if I get it this year. I coulda got my first quad core in 2008, went with dual core. I waited before getting a quad core and it will be my first. And it looks like the wait paid off.

  6. The irony that Nvidia are ahead of Intel…

  7. Single core and the same PowerVR 535 is in iPhone 3 and 4?. Tegra 2 brings console/PC games to Android with its Geforce graphics chip and some are exclusive to Tegra 2.

  8. Being x86, wouldn’t that kill app compatibility? Even if android is compiled for the atom I think most apps will not work. Wouldn’t both the os and program need recompiled? Or is that what dalvik was meant for being java based? Please correct me if I’m wrong as I have zero programming experience, but apps developed using the ndk would need a second x86 version in the market as well right?

  9. This is a total FAIL!!!

  10. I have both the Chrome netbook and GoogleTV (both of which have Atom proc) and I’m 100% thoroughly NOT impressed. Either the software is holding the hardware back (could be since they are both beta devices) or the proc sucks.

    TBD but my gut tells me the proc is lackluster.

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