(I am not an apple fan)

And that’s considered the barely above minimum to run a modern desktop OS smoothly without getting into running high resource demanding programs.  Even to run Windows 8 for ARM MS imposed specification for ARM.

Meaning no previous Smartbook could even run a desktop OS properly till now!  Most of today’s ARM chips even lack a GPU that could support the desktop versions of DirectX, OpenGL, etc.  This is rapidly changing but my point on the history of ARM also having its failures is valid.

While besides Android, ARM has also had access to Linux for years but even a basically bare bones distro still ran too slowly.  It took Tegra2 level performance before any ARM device could even run Ubuntu without being noticeably sluggish all the time.

So really, both ARM and Intel have been failing because both haven’t been ready but by 2013 both are finally reaching the point that they can finally seriously make moves into each other’s dominant markets.

As for as Super Computing, it’s irrelevant to the average consumer.  ARM is moving to fill the need of low power solution, highly dependent on parallel computing.  While Intel will continue to be used for general purpose systems, and while the GPU solutions can be powerful but they’re not very flexible. All of which means none are a one size fit all solution.

So Intel does have more than just legacy going for it, not to mention market momentum.  It doesn’t mean they can’t fail or won’t lose market share but let’s not make it sound so lop sided in that the other solutions don’t have problems of their own too.

Intel just dominates in high end devices and ARM just dominates in the low end devices, because that’s what they were designed for and where they are best suited.  Optimizing for both low and high end is not something either can just do.

ARM for example is strictly 32bit, 64bit has only recently been introduced but sample products are still years away and even then it can take over a decade before 64bit becomes standard for ARM like it already has for x86 hardware.

So it’s taken both of them to get to this point but by the end of this year we will finally start seeing overlap but only on the edge of where they basically meet.  All those multi-core ARM chips coming out before the end of the year are only rivaling Intel ATOM’s for CPU performance for example.

Mind though that Windows 8 for ARM is going to be delayed, possibly as long as mid 2013, and that gives Intel more time to get their next gen offerings out that helps reduce the gap between their offerings and ARM.

Many of the changes Intel needs to start competing on the low end don’t even kick in until they go 22nm, like their Tri-Gate Transistor technology for example.  However, those are coming to market in 2013.

Google knows this and it’s likely one of the reasons they’re hedging their bets with continued support for x86 for Android and Chrome. 

So while this is good choice for now, don’t expect this to be the rule in the coming years.

They should have used ARM in the first place.

Noise? Really? Is that ‘design code’ for “We don’t want to spend more to get the good processor”?