Here’s an interview that GottaBeMobile did with Rochelle Wheelan of Intel’s Ultra Mobility group.
Battery life was the main topic (as always!) and I had to laugh a little at Rochelle’s spin on the issue. Do you remember back at IDF, Intel announced that they would have processor components that would dissipate about half the power of 2006 components.
A lot of people got excited and assumed that it meant double the battery life. Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzt! Rochelle talks about 4-5 hours battery life in 2007 along with her explanation about increased battery life but its not quite as simple as ‘New Intel CPU doubles ultra mobile PC battery life.’ Here’s why: [and here’s my original comment on the subject]
A 50% cut in CPU power brings Intel’s processors down to roughly 2.5W power dissipation. Its a nice cut but on its own, it would account for something like a maximum 20% power reduction in today’s Origami UMPCs. (Why? See the diagram in this report.) That’s an extra 30 minutes at maximum. Not quite a doubling of battery life is it! What she really means is that, when combined with improvements across the board (LED backlighting, flash drives, lower power radios, improved battery tech, better heat dissipation and general improvements in other components) you can probably reduce the average power consumption of an Origami ultra mobile PC from 12W down to 6-8 watts.
What’s the first thing that the Mobile PC Extended Battery Life (EBL) Working Group looked at when they wanted to make recommendations to manufacturers? LCD panels and backlighting. This is the biggest power-drain in nearly all UMPCs and needs to be fixed before we see the benefits of more efficient CPUs.
Look at this real life example. Take the Samsung Q1, remove the Intel processor and Cold Cathode backlit LCD panel. Replace with VIA chipset and LED-backlit panel. You end up with a Q1b and double the battery life! Granted, you’ve lost a fair bit of processing power and a lot of graphics power but if its battery life you want, then lets focus on that.
I applaud all efforts to get the power consumption down and Intel will probably continue to make great advances in chip technology that enable UMPCs with the most processing and graphics power but I just want to keep it in perspective.
Steve
In my experience on my HTC Universal, wifi and bluetooth are also huge power drains, especially bluetooth. In the case of bluetooth, I don’t know if this is a firmware issue that can be fixed, or something inherent in bluetooth, but I leave bluetooth on as little as possible.
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