With rumors of Android / Oaktrail tablets flying around, you might wonder why? Intel based tablets aren’t exactly renowned for their long battery life and the open-source Android versions we’ve seen so far are a lot different to the Google-enhanced Android tablets we know from the ARM world but these two issues can change and this week at Computex we should have the first chance to confirm this.
Firstly, Intel and Google should be able to work together on approved Android builds that include Google applications and the very important market. Why? Intel is obviously big enough to have a say in the matter and they should be able to present big-brand customers to Google too. They’re also founding members of the Open Handset Alliance so they’ve contributed for a number of years now. Expect on-stage demos to include Google applications or at least a promise of Google applications. [Update: Confirmed now]
Secondly, Oaktrail, Intel’s new platform, is different. It contains power-saving features that Windows just can’t control. An Intel Android build specifically optimised for Oaktrail could enable some quite impressive idle figures. By utilising all the available power-saving features, it could be possible to present a device that falls in the same battery life range as an ARM device. That should surprise quite a few people. Given some of the processing power advantages too, you should see performance that pushes Honeycomb performance ahead of some of its rivals.
I’m not saying that the Intel / Oaktrail / Honeycomb tablets will be better than ARM-based tablets in any significant manner but the fact that they hit similar battery life, weight, size and performance figures should cause people to sit up and take note. Even more so, If manufacturers show multi-boot Windows capability or even virtualised operating systems running concurrently, you could be looking at a very special unique selling point.
Watch out for Viewsonic, Acer, ASUS and Lenovo at Computex.
