Laptops running Microsoft’s Windows operating system currently utilize x86 processors, but that’s all about to change in mid-2013 when Windows 8 notebooks powered by ARM processors may hit the market. It could happen sooner, of course; Qualcomm’s CEO Paul Jacobs recently said that Windows 8 devices powered by his company’s ARM-based Snapdragon processors would hit the market in 2012. The Qualcomm Snapdragon-powered devices may only be tablets at first, however, and DigiTimes said Tuesday the first ARM-based notebooks from ASUS and Lenovo will begin to hit the market in June of 2013. Read on for more.
DigiTimes‘ sources said that software support will be the biggest barrier to entry for many manufacturers, but Jacobs recently suggested application support won’t be much of an issue. “For the apps that you really care about, I don’t see it as a significant growth inhibitor in terms of ARM vs. Windows,” Jacobs said earlier this month.
While ARM is said to currently offer a better power efficiency to price ratio than Intel’s processors, the company is expected to face stiff competition from Intel’s new 22nm Ivy Bridge processors, which are expected to be more power efficient than the company’s previous-generation chips.
