What is going on with Intel

To anyone is not a secret that UMPC has been largely criticized because of the poor battery life in it's first generation. And it's not a secret that almost 40%27 to 30% (thanks to Steve for the correction) of the battery life is used by the CPU. So basically, the bad guy in the first part of this movie is Intel. To change this situation Intel desperate has introduced the McCaslin CPUs, currently used in Samsung Q1 Ultra and few other devices that have not been released yet, and from what I have seen they have been able to lower the consumption in around 30%. But is really a McCaslin a solution, I do not think so. What Intel have done is just cutting down the capabilities of their mobile platform, releasing a CPU with a lower speed, weaker capable of giving a lower performance than current Pentium M used in the first generation of UMPCs. is a coincidence that Intel is suddenly promoting MID as the device of the future? I do not think so. I think that Intel is trying to focus our attention to a "new" type of device where this weaker processor is enough.

	Consumption	Battery	Launch
Current Processors	>5W	1-3 hours
McCaslin	2 to 3W	4-5 hours	This summer
MenLow	<1w	6-8 hours	1st Q2008

Like any other user I would like to see a longer battery life in my UMPC but this next generation of UMPC coming with McCaslin processors is not what I want or need. I do not want to give up performance for 30% more of battery life. I'll be glad to carry more weight using a extended battery than giving up performance. So I definitely will wait to see what happens with Menlow CPUs that should be released at the beginning of 2008. In the meantime I'll wait for Kevin's tests of a 2GB RAM chip in this Q1p. I current Q1s support 2 GB that's going to be the best news of this year because from Intel I have not seen any good news yet.

Update: Here is a press release from Intel that is worth to read. If you read between lines you can see that they make almost no emphasis in McCaslin processors. But they spend a lot of time talking about Menlow. And the reason why is because there is where the real changes are. At least that's what I "hope". In one thing I agree with Intel, WiMax is the future.