Breakthrough in battery is not the solution.

It's who does more with the same amount of mAh.

Lol, took you awhile to realize that

Dominate what market?

I don't think Intel/AMD can outrace ARM (in the race-to-idle) anytime soon, so if Apple buys them out, then they'll be collecting (or increasing) the taxes while getting a bit of privy information of their competitor's potential devices roadmap.

It's not all about cash. Look at what Microsoft has been doing with all their money lately.

There's always a breakthrough coming in the battery division. I'm in materials and you can't throw a stone here without hitting someone who is working on some cutting-edge battery technology. The media is always catching wind of some laboratory-scale miracle device that for technical or practical reasons never sees the end of an assembly line.

There's no reason to believe there will be a revolutionary improvement in battery technology anytime soon. We are already using one of the most efficient chemistries possible (lithium *), and the possible improvements to overcome materials limitations are generally evolutionary rather than revolutionary.

Back on topic: i sure hope not. Even more than capacitive screens, it would represent a change based on management decisions rather than good sense.

The smartphone/computer phone market the same way X86 has dominated the PC market.

Also as far as I know has ARM SoC been used so far anywhere else than in the iPad? (dumb question maybe but I was curious to see what CPU they re-branded this time so I read about the big SoC bla bla)

Intel for an example also entered the SoC race.
IMHO cash is the only thing that allowed Intel to outrun AMD (just consider the innovation amd brought - X64 and breaking the ghz barrier - how else could intel have prevailed if not my investing billions into research?).


And in the end it's not about the race to idle or about the one with the greatest potential. It's about who makes himself popular first.

Just as RISC vs CISC.
Probably if RISC would have been adopted first, our computers would be twice as powerful and twice as green...? Who knows...

It seems to me that people (I am) are more likely to embrace X86 since it's wider spread largely adopted and has a huge application base (makes it significantly easier for developers or do I get the wrong idea?) rather than switch to a whole different standard.
Mobiles are regarded as non standard systems incompatible with PCs so ARM will never make an impact.
But the second I copy the Pidgin.rpm (I just installed on my pc) and install the same package on my phone, there's a whole different story.

I know linux is ARM compatible but that won't change the fact that the world is 90% X86-X64 and reluctant to change.

I don't think the best technology will decide.
I only hope Intel will make a huge step forward to become the best technology.

This thread is revelatory(to me)

I don't pretend to fully grasp the essence of CPU architecture.

But leaving aside the power factor, Wouldn't X86-X64 represent a revolution for developers and enable them to create applications for PC and mobile devices at the same time?

Wouldn't it ease the development process and create an unified application ecosystem?

No. It's WAY easier to go from Linux X86 to Linux ARM than Linux X86 to Windows X86. It's the OS/tools that define the ecosystem, not the HW.

But isn't it even harder to go from Linux ARM to windows X86?

And it looks like LG GW 990 will use some SoC Atom and meego...

Also if ARM is "buyable" why doesn't nokia make the move?

Actually, no, it's about the same difficulty - you start from scratch in both cases

As for LG, nobody can 'prevent' you from doing it, maybe it will be real snappy, but will still be a comparably power hungry brick.

why x86 when we could have x64? :<
not that we need that necessarily on a mobile device, but why not...?! ^^

@msa
X86 X64 same thing at the moment, I don't think you can have one without the other


Actually I think it's that long (GW 990)(seriously it's the longest phone I've ever seen, you could probably wrap it around your chin and it would still reach your ear) just to have room for the battery.

So from a linux point of view the architecture is not as important as the power/performance ratio of the CPU and since microsoft doesn't have an ARM solution, ARM notebooks and laptops would allow linux to be more widely spread.

But... wouldn't it have been more important for nokia to build a stronger connection with ARM than with intel? I know that this partnership has unified (will unify) the mobile linux into one powerful distribution, but is that more important for nokia than releasing powerful devices (power/cpu/formfactor?)

Maybe they made this choice knowing that intel has a ace up their sleeve?