Arm, Qualcomm and their partners first introduced always-on always-connected mobile PCs running Windows 10 in 2017 with over 20 hours of battery life and LTE connectivity. The first models delivered on their battery life promise, but they were expensive while delivering underwhelming performance, but the upcoming Snapdragon 8cx processor should address performance concerns.
Those type of laptops are still a niche market, and so far Intel and their partners have not delivered similar type of laptops with long battery life, cellular connectivity, and always-on capabilities. That’s where Intel’s Project Athena innovation program comes in.
The program that defines a new class of advanced laptops running either Windows or Chrome OS operating systems, offering long battery life, 5G connectivity, artificial intelligence, and consistently powered on. They may not target the 20 hours of battery life like on Arm platform, but the part of the infographic above reads “worry-free day of battery life” so that you can “confidence to leave the charger at home”, so that may mean at least 12 hours of typical battery life. Intel Foveros Hybrid processors would likely be ideal for those type of devices, but Intel did not specifications mentions those with regards to Project Athena.
Intel will provide the following information to manufacturers to design laptops that follow Project Athena guidelines:
- An annual spec outlining platform requirements
- New user experience and benchmarking targets defined by real-world usage models
- Extensive co-engineering support and innovation pathfinding
- Ecosystem collaboration to accelerate key laptop component development and availability
- Verification of Project Athena devices through a comprehensive certification process
There are already quite a few partners involved with Acer, Asus, Dell, Google, HP, Innolux, Lenovo, Microsoft, Samsung, Sharp, and more.
Intel also uploaded a video about Project Athena clearly made by the marketing department, as all I learned is that good-looking and cool people will use those laptops, so you should too… I guess
Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later in 2011.
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Still don’t see why you need a always on terminal, as a laptop?
No need to power it off, so you can just open the lid to use it straight away, no need your boot it up. A bit like phones.
> No need to power it off, so you can just open the lid to use it straight away, no need your boot it up.
Isn’t this standard laptop mode anyway? At least I use my laptops exactly this way for more than two decades now (first with PowerPC, then since 2008 with Intel)
Let’s say I have to take a bus for 2 hours with my laptop, and don’t use it during that time. I’d normally turn it off during the trip to save on battery life. I’m not sure whether that makes sense actually.
I would believe whether it makes sense depends on how ‘sleep’/suspend is working. With suspend to RAM the battery will slightly drain while suspend to disk should have almost no effect on battery life. I’m used to close the lid wherever I am, simply opening it when I need the laptop again. PowerBooks back in the day IIRC only supported suspend to RAM, with the MacBooks you could adjust hibernate settings. But I rely on defaults, that’s suspend to RAM and if battery is drained too much the SMC (System Management Controller) will do a suspend to disk automagically. I… Read more »
Well if the smartphone is always on and with powerful SoC available are we not just back to a lightweight keyboard, screen, ssd dock? ( which raises it own security issues ). Also just thought it is a Phablet with Bluetooth keyboard basically then?
> Intel also uploaded a video about Project Athena clearly made the marketing department, as all I learned is that good-looking and cool people will use those laptops, so you should too… I guess
Thanks God I’m not good-looking, so I can continue using inexpensive, ever-lasting-battery arm chromebooks ; ]
Intel opens three Project Athena Open Labs in Taipei, Shanghai and Folsom, California.
https://newsroom.intel.com/news/intel-unveils-project-athena-open-labs-expands-ecosystem-integration-optimize-laptop-components/