Intel: laptop/desktop crossover coming sooner than expected

Intel will sell more mobile CPUs than desktop processors this year, the chip giant's CEO claimed this week. "The crossover from the desktop to the notebook [is] happening essentially a year sooner than we first had thought," said Paul Otellini at Intel's earnings conference. It's not that long ago that Intel and others were …

[TeeCee]

Laptop / Desktop crossover.

Ok, I'll bite. But only if they can put my laptop in a *really* big case with a *big* side window and lots of flashing lights and lots of coloured fans with a rat's nest of loverly cables 'n stuff and loads of disks all raided together and a *really* big copper heatsink with another light-up fan and, and, and.....

My, do I feel sad now........

[Matt Bryant]

RE: TeeCee

Erm.... went to an IT event recently, all us geeks were crowded around a display laptop with a clear acrylic case - much more interesting than servers, storage arrays, software...... ;)

[Paul van der Lingen]

@ TeeCee

wow.. reading that, it sounds like you really would bite

:-)

[Phil Irwin]

Cheap Computers™???

Someone has trademarked "Cheap Computers"?

[It'sa Mea... Mario]

Shift probably helped by..

.. the fact that high street stores and even larger Currys/PC World type stores stock a lot less desktops now.

[Shabble]

Laptops in desktop's clothing

If you look inside some new model All-In-One desktops (the ones with the box mounted at the back of the monitor stand) you will see laptop RAM. Many also come with a laptop style external power transformers.

For a long time, the main design driving factors behind PCs and laptops were quite different - but with increasing energy costs and climate change a growing concern, and with the low cost of LCD monitors ushering a new generation of small footprint PC opportunities (no longer have to rely on terminal machines to go in small workspaces) the two are converging. Most business use only needs low spec PCs, so laptop hardware inside PC case will do the job no problems.

Give it a few more years and business laptops and small desktops will both have the same solid state HDDs, same RAM, same on-board graphics and sound cards, same low power CPUs. This will cut production and support costs significantly for the likes of HP, Dell, Acer etc as they can cut out a whole section of their production lines.

[PaulM]

Laptop CPUs may be being sold into Embedded CPU market

Intel and other semiconductor manufacturers sell many more CPUs into the embedded market than into the computer market. It is therefore possible that most of these low power laptop CPUs are being sold to be included in products such routers, mobile phones, fire alarm systems and set top boxes.

I once read that 95% of all microprocessors are sold into the embedded market.

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't buy it.

Most of these laptops will be used by Joe Blogs (not a typo) sitting on his couch watching American Idol, or sitting at his desk... Where his Mac used to live. Like it or not, Apple is bringing a preponderance of fashion firepower to bear and their laptops are simply must-have gadgets among the proles, not unlike the Razr phone of the past (except a hell of a lot more expensive). Everyone who can't afford an Apple laptop (whether monetarily or productivity-wise) "needs" to buy something close - so that'll be another laptop, then, because it's roughly the same shape.

Everyone wants to be seen as mobile, even though they're really not. Those of us who ARE truly mobile have had laptops for a decade and generally hate the damned things but accept them as a fact of our lives. Everyone else just wants to be able to surf porn on the toilet and watch Youtube videos during TV commercials - they don't need TRUE mobility because they have a computer at home, and a computer in the office. They spend the majority of their lives either at home, or in the office, or commuting between the two, and occasionally engaging in recreational activities that you have no business bringing a laptop to.

People who swear they're part of the "mobile workforce" because they own a laptop make me laugh. They'd inevitably get even less done if I gave them a plane ticket and hotel reservation in Las Vegas and told them to take their laptop.

[Anonymous Coward]

no room at the inn?

(certainly in the uk and japan?) maybe due to being crowded into smaller and smaller accomodation spaces due to increase and exhorbitant property prices means that you can no longer have that impressive big boy 2001 stlye monolith in the corner of your room as that is now where they put the kitchen! hnece more laptops or HTPC style devices to cram into the tiny spaces available!?

also maybe if it wasnt the old story of once intel produces a cheap thats to fast and powerful for the average user, microsoft brings out some bloat to throttle it to death! how long before 90% of typical surfing is done on cheap commodity devices such as the EEEEPC or similar....

[Anonymous Coward]

<no title>

Not sure how skilled I'd be at building myself a laptop, but give me a nice large case with plenty of bays to put stuff ... :-)

[Graham Lockley]

@<no title> AC

>Not sure how skilled I'd be at building myself a laptop

Thats the point, its an end of an era where hombrews were fun and powerful and yet could be made for less than Dell etc.

Strictly utility from here on in, the next ten years will probably see the end of one of the most cherished aspects of home/soho computing e.g. the ability to tailor and build/customise the PC that suits you.

[Charles Manning]

Embedded != x86

Relatively few embedded applications use x86. Most use ARM (for 32 bits).

[Anonymous Coward]

@I don't buy it

Holy Hell. What happend in your life to make you so bitter. And I thought MY life was tough.

[Matt Semper]

Not so power hungry

I think the reason for the convergence is that a couple of years ago we finally invented computers that were powerful enough to do 99% of everything the average person wants. Unless you're into the latest FPS games, there hasn't been a good reason to upgrade your PC past around 1.6 - 2 GhZ. Laptops now happily do everything our desktops do other than gaming, and gaming is nor pretty firmly in the living room attached to our HDTVs.

The next revolution for laptops though, especially to capture a little of the gaming market, would be to design and externally accessible peripheral port, fast enough for mobile graphics cards. so that One could simply buy a faster card, and slot it in place of the old one, no opening up of laptop required.

Also a few more standardisations wouldn't hurt, laptops are still just a pain in the ass to upgrade even these days.

[Anonymous Coward]

@@I don't buy it

He may be a bitter, cynical sod, but he makes a fair point though. I've a PC at home, and one on my desk. My work uses thin clients connected to a central farm pushing out a published desktop via citrix

What do I need a laptop for? To work on the train home for 20 minutes? My data is centralled stored, managed and backed up, so I'd just be introducing an unneccessary risk factor if I was dragging around a laptop with local copies of data. Give me a blackberry (or do I just grab a 3G iPhone, for it's web browsing?) and I can completely forgo the need for a further processing device- I'll just navigate to the citrix access gateway if I need to review a document.

I'll still buy one of those nice new HP 2133 devices though, just in case, like....

[James Pickett]

Snag

The only drawback is that they're so easy to steal. I can see them being banned in Government circles if they lose many more...

[Rob]

Blame the Desktop OEMs...

...For making cheap, shoddy desktop PC's.

People then see the laptops with similar performance, at a similar price point, and think as per the Cynical ACs post above.

Mine's the one with the Q6600 in the pocket...