II. $150 USD Tablets With Intel Processors? Intel CEO Promises Big
Key to that effort will be the upcoming sixth major release to the Atom platform. Manufactured on the latest 22 nm node the quad-core tablet-geared Atoms (core: Silvermont; SoC: ValleyView; chipset: Bay Trail) are expected to be shipping in tablets and hybrid notebook/tablets this holiday season.
Mr. Krzanich boldly predicted the following price points:
Convertibles (hybrids) : $400 USD
Laptops (w/ touch) : $300 USD
Tablets : $150-200 USD
The big question is whether these devices will be appealing customers. Some $200 USD and lower tablets -- namely, Google, Inc.'s Nexus 7 -- have received good reviews. But current Intel tablets have been priced much higher (for example the Iconia W3 Acer Inc. (TPE:2357) at $379 USD) yet earned worse reviews.
A big question is how low Intel is willing to go on chip pricing. Intel typically has charged much higher rates per chip than ARM chipmakers, citing the processing power of its chips.
But ultimately the CPU is proving less critical to the tablet experience than other components like the touchscreen, battery, and operating system. A tablet with a less powerful CPU, but a better screen, battery, and OS is often perceived as superior to a tablet with a faster, more expensive CPU but otherwise weaker specs.
This has come to a shock to Intel, which has long put its faith in the philosophy that the fastest chip built on the best process sells.
Intel and its partners will have to make big changes to have any hope of hitting the price points Mr. Krzanich was advertising in the earnings call. Take Acer, for example. It would have to cut $172 USD off the current price of the Iconia W3, which has a 1.8GHz dual-core Intel Atom processor. That's a whopping 47 percent price cut, and one that will surely demand much lower unit prices from Intel.
According to DigiTimes, the HP tablet will be based on a single-core Atom processor from the Medfield generation. There are no further details on the display, which likely uses a low-res TN panel, or on the operating system, which is almost certainly a recent version of Android.
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