Intel claims it’s halved laptop display power slurpage Intel today staged its annual keynote at Taiwan’s Computex tech-fest and revealed a new “Low Power Display Technology” that the company said can halve the power consumption of a laptop’s screen. Chipzilla’s schtick this year is going from “PC to Personal Contribution Platform” and adapting the PC so that users “can make their …
I'm wondering whether they just handwaved some magic "AI" and "ML" into discrete LED backlight tiles to turn them off "betterer" when that part of the screen is dim (which as a general idea is really not new, it's what all the "LED TV"s do). Actual (O)LED panels don't need any extra tech - when they're off, they're off but that's not exactly novel - and traditional full-screen backlights just can't save power. Hey, maybe they invented tiny mirror-backed pixels that reflect all blocked light back into the backlight unit to be used by other pixels! Yup, that must be it...
Intel integrated are a hell of a lot better than they used to be. Which isn't saying much I guess, but their top of the line integrated graphics are now being built by AMD.
Yeah, AMD GPUs in Intel CPUs. Really.
No it doesn't make any sense to me either.
Of course they could stick it in normal monitors or TVs and reduce electrical consumption.
With zero information on the display technology we don't know how it compares in terms of contrast, vibrancy etc etc to other display technologies. E-paper (such as was used in the pebble time) or e-ink (there is an e-ink monitor I would buy if I had £1,000 lying round doing nothing) were good candidates for reducing eye strain and increasing battery life but they've ended up as niche technologies.
"Of course they could stick it in normal monitors or TVs and reduce electrical consumption."
Or, presumably, in phones. Which makes the claim that they're going to claw people away from their phones and back to PCs sound a bit odd - if you can improve battery life, phones are going to see the biggest benefit out of all devices. It might be restricted to PCs to start with, but if the improvement is real and as big as they claim, they'd be insane not to roll it out everywhere they can - phone manufacturers would be clawing over each other to get Intel inside their kit if it meant they'd be able to boast of double the battery life.
Actually, it occurs to me that there would be a way to save major energy - by directionally emitting pixels, which is a nice way to say "horrible viewing angles". They would be the death of any TV or phone (not seeing your phone's screen resting flat on a table would be a disaster) but to be honest - how many times do you look at a laptop/desktop monitor any other way than head-on? If the fall-off could be made sharp and synchronous across colours (ie. no "colour inversion" or other major change between +/- 15 degrees or so, then suddenly pitch black outside that) it might work, and you could even sell it as a "privacy" bonus feature...
Intel knows there’s nothing wrong with modern PCs and that’s the problem: users will put up with ‘em for a year or three longer than used to be the case
You mean Intel didn't release a significantly faster desktop chip for years, but when AMD Rizen from the grave Intel managed to suddenly up the core count. :)
Although it is good to have a longer battery life on your laptop i think more people would want longer battery life on their phones. I remember reading that the majority of laptops spend most of their time at homes and offices sat on desks and are rarely used on the move, so most of the time they will be plugged into the mains or at least have power close by if required.
I know personally that it is almost 12 months since my laptop was used while out and about as it was when i took my car in for its MOT which is due again soon. On that occasion I was a able to plug it into the mains while i used it anyway.
This is welcome news. Just a shame it didn't happen 30 years ago. I expect smartphones could benefit too. And the bit about an Intel display adaptor doesn't bother me: apart from anything else, if the technology catches on, competitors are sure to emerge.
But we already have a perfectly good near-zero-power display technology? Where have the e-ink laptops been this past decade and more?
eInk is almost mechanical, steampunk. So forget animation & video or scrolling.
It can't do colour without a x3 to x 8 brightness penalty depending on colour saturation because it's purely reflective, LCD inherently x2 brightness or more with backlight same power as eInk front light
More than a few shades of grey needs dithering.
VERY expensive.
++++
++++
On the plus:
300dpi
Zero power till page changed
Great for reading 1 million words or much more between charges.
More relevant question: Where is Mirasol? It does colour and animation. Has it been crippled by Qualcomm royalty charges?
It's not the display power (well it is, bu) - it's the power budget as defined by OEMs. Batteries that were worse than now lasted longer than now "back in the day" - up until OEMs found that a more performant system sold better even with reduced battery time; it's crept down steadily, and with few exceptioins, monotonically.
To the extent intel has any control at all - they'd love to sell more-faster you-name-it other silicon and battery life is someone else's problem. If in fact they now have an acceptable display that draws less power, OEMs will just use it up (and more) in other faffery. Those who forget history...rhymes.
With tech from what was a perfectly good old samsung flip phone that had a calc app and voice recog good enough to dial a number (and other junk never used) - battery life was days, and not on standby.
Batteries were worse then (NiMH!), as were cpus and displays. What's that tell you?
Glad I gave the things up long ago. I don't need to be the entertainment for anyone who has my number and is bored - my time is MINE to waste as I please.
... for a full Windows desktop OS on a 5-inch tablet PC to replace my svelte old pocket-capable and windshield-friendly Viliv S5. Sadly, phones still have not managed to meet my mobile computing needs. Come on already. And I'll happily take that with a dash of reduced screen power usage and a dollop of faster wifi please.
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