Intel Mobile Internet @ CES. Round-up.

Following the latest Intel press conference, we now have a bit more info about Menlow-based products that we will see showcased at CES. Apparently there are ‘more than 10.’ Most of them we saw at the fall IDF [keynote analysys] (see image above from Fall IDF.)

• Asus – The R50/R3 will be there. News and specs here.  (see above)
• Aigo – They were supposed to be releasing the Stealey-based Amtek U560. Have they stepped back from it because of delays? (The U560 is being produced in sample qualities right now. We might see volume production early next year.) Will the u560 be re-modeled for Menlow?
• Acer – They have already stated that they are looking at the late 2008/2009 timeframe.
• BenQ –  News here.
• Clarion – No info, this is, I assume an in-car UMPC.
• Compal – They are the designers of the previously seen Menlow prototype. Maybe they will take a variant of this into production.
• Elektrobit – Like Compal, they are offering a design prototype for others to pick up. Details here.
• Inventec – ODM for the Kohjinsha/Vye 7″ convertibles. I assume they are working on a complementary MID.
• Lenovo – That’s a new one on me. A Business oriented MID?
• Quanta – The company responsible for manufacturing the OLPC. Image above.

We also have a few more snippets of info about Silverthorn, the CPU that will be used in the Menlow platform. ARSTechnica have found and analyzed some technical details on it and have the following summary:

I think we can safely assume at this point that Silverthorne will be clock-for-clock slower and less efficient than a comparable ARM part, especially on integer-intensive Web and productivity apps. But if the 45nm Silverthorne launches in the 1-2 GHz clockspeed range that Intel claims for it, then it may still be competitive in terms of performance/watt with ARM’s 65nm, slower-clocked Cortex A8 (600MHz to 1.1GHz), its closest competitor. In other words, Intel is planning to do to RISC in the embedded space what it has done to RISC everywhere else: steamroll the competition with sheer process muscle.

That’s interesting and I don’t take it as negative at all that Silverthorne and Coretex will have similar processing per clock figures. Coretex is supposed to be capable of 4-times the power of current ARM solutions for a ‘250mw power envelope.’ In my estimate that would give Cortex the potential to get right up to the processing power of, say a 600Mhz Stealey or 1Ghz VIA C7. This is easily good enough for a complete desktop-style Internet experience. Of course there are still question marks about media capabilities and core software. With all the development work an momentum in the PMPs and Smartphone markets with media processors, operating systems and user interfaces, I wonder if ARM will have the edge in 2008.

There are bound to be more UMPCs and MIDs based on other platforms at CES and a few surprises too. I won’t be at the expo myself but I have plenty of contacts out there reporting for me and i’ll be teaming up with JKKMobile and a new, as-yet unannounced portal so that together with the UMPCPortal team, we can catch and cover every single snippet of ultra mobile PC and MID news that we can get hold of. More exciting than Christmas? Yup!