Comment by breckinloggins | Hacker News Reader

Comment by breckinloggins | Hacker News Reader

It's a rant, so I'm not going to critique this post too much, but I'd like to call this out:

    [...] Intel is desperately trying to figure out what to
    do to combat the phones and tablets that are eating them
    alive from the ankles up. It is pretty obvious that the
    company both doesn’t understand what the problem is and 
    is actively shutting out all voices that explain it
    to them.

I don't think this is true. Intel certainly understands the market and where it's headed. However they are committed to x86/64. What Intel is doing in my view is taking a series of huge but calculated risks. They seem to be betting that:

- Laptops will stick around and have Intel Inside for quite a while. The market may be boring, but it will be there for years. Corporate America helps.

- Servers won't be switching to ARM any time soon (I'd argue this is the riskiest bet).

- The desktop and enthusiast/gamer PC market will be around for a while, and also won't be switching to ARM any time soon.

So all of these "shoe-ins" buy them time, and I believe they think that in time they can pull off the biggest risk of all:

- Intel is betting that the biggest differentiating factor is and will be performance per watt. They are willing to gamble that they will eventually eclipse ARM cores in this area. In their view, if they have an x86/64 core that trounces competing ARM architectures in ppw then phone, tablet, and set top manufacturers won't have a problem putting those chips in their devices.

Granted, I'm not saying I think Intel is 100% correct or that they'll succeed with their long term bets; I just don't think they are as clueless as this rant makes them out to be.

No doubt about it, though, UltraBooks DO suck.

EDIT: I'm going to revise my statement on UltraBooks. Not all of them suck. In particular, the Lenovo Yoga is fantastic.

What they are missing is that it's not performance per watt, but performance per watt per dollar.

Intel may be able to build lower power/faster chips but their foundries aren't cheap, neither are the thousands of engineers Intel puts on each SoC, and technology scaling is only getting more and more expensive.

It's a classic case of the innovators dilemma. Intel are optimized to sell very fast chips that cost hundreds of dollars but the performance of fast-ish chips that cost a few dollars has almost caught up to them and Intel simply can't compete without a complete restructuring. A further complicating factor is the fact that ARM is a weird many-headed chimera [1] that Intel simply can't kill they way the did with x86 competitors like AMD.

[1] http://www.anandtech.com/show/7112/the-arm-diaries-part-1-ho...

Not too sure what you are referring to by "Ultrabooks," (something ARM specific?) but I have an "Ultrabook" and I absolutely love it. Its my work machine, my gaming machine, and my web surfing machine. It may even become my Steam Machine.

Its light, powerful, and compact. I can throw it in my backpack and forget its even there. What's not to like about Ultrabooks?

(For anyone wondering, its a Dell XPS 13 running Ubuntu)

My Thinkpad X300 running Linux is about as perfect a PC as you can get[1], except for the missing SD card slot. Then Apple came out with the Air and Lenovo just lapped it up. I'm sure the X1 Carbon is nice, but it wieghs the same as my X300, has a chicklet keyboard and costs about $1500 more at current prices.

The X300 was the Ultrabook before the word Ultrabook even existed :)

[1] http://www.amazon.com/The-Race-Perfect-Ultimate-Portable/dp/...

Not saying Intel is ignorant of these facts, but the Microsoft/Intel hegemony is shrinking. Not dying, shrinking.

1. Apple and Google built an OS. Intel isn't willing to go after software. Are they smart to limit themselves? Microsoft is at least pretending to make hardware – alienating all the OEMs in the process – and Intel doesn't have what it takes to make software?

2. Cheap laptops have traditionally been Intel's enterprise play. Dell/HP/Lenovo are still selling 1366x768. Is Intel serious about their integrated graphics, while their customers are still being outfitted with 1366x768?

3. The server market is not a safe place to hide. Talk of how Intel is safe on servers ignores the consumer market and Intel is obviously not going to ignore the consumer.

So are we down to a single supplier for all our computers (Apple)? What will you do when Apple screws up? But more to the point, Intel had better watch out before Apple just ditches them entirely.

> Intel isn't willing to go after software.

I think it would be silly for Intel to build their own OS from scratch; it would be expensive and probably lead to their demise (ala Nokia).

They do hire software engineers to e.g. make Android work on x86 and make Linux servers run well on x86.

Just to add to the discussion, intel has a few chips in Tizen. I don't think it will ever succeed in any signifiant way, but it seems they're at least testing the waters.

What makes them suck so much? The Lenovo Yoga is a damn fine device if you ask me.

I actually agree. My roommate bought one and I'm lusting after it. But I would count Lenovo as the exception rather than the rule, here.

I'm strongly considering getting the new high res Yoga.

But even Lenovo has a bad reputation compared to the fruit company, I mean, they do ok for value, but the hardware can be flaky.

Their customer services sucks. When I bought my last Thinkpad, I had to buy it 3 times, over the course of two weeks before they finally built it and wait a month to have it shipped once the order actually went through. It was a solid machine (except for the speakers and screen), but I'll never buy another device from them. Instead, I'm typing this up on a fruit company device.

I had the exact opposite experience. When I chatted with a service rep, not only did I get help with the configuration, but she was friendly, sent me a personalized email with the details, helped me with the purchase process, and even gave me a discount because I didn't want Windows (I prefer Linux).

And to be honest, most of the help was unsolicited, but was friendly and helpful so I accepted it. My experience buying a ThinkPad was overwhelmingly positive, and I also love the machine (I ponied up for the 1080p screen, which is fanstastic).

I had a different experience: I killed my mainboard on my T61 via overclocking the GPU and they replaced it without any questions asked.

I've not had any problems myself buying new machines for my company but personally I tend to buy 2-3 year old ThinkPads off a eBay. They are less than 20% of the retail cost and are in perfect condition always.

I'm typing this on a T400 Core 2 2.4 Duo, Radeon HD, 8GB RAM, 1440x900 screen, 9-cell unit with 3G card built in and windows 7 x64 pro license sticker purchased in absolutely perfect unused condition for £145 (!). The battery had done charge 11 cycles to give you an idea. Chucked a Samsung 840 Pro in it for £102 and it's a perfect machine.

I have 2 spare ones (T61's) lying around as well so I always have a spare handy.

This puts me in a better position than a new Lenovo or fruit purchaser.

I'm a firm believer of letting someone else pay for the immediate depreciation in value! :)

Uhm I searched on ebay and found it for 199€ (+49€ for 8GB and +29€ for UMTS so a bit more). The seller seems to have many of them, unfortunately it's in Germany (i'm in Europe too but I want a QWERTY keyboard)

You have to wait for them to turn up patiently. They do every month or so, usually when some corporation has a stock clear out.

Your best bet doesn't even have 1080p display for a 14" screen!

It has (1600x900)..but the new 5" phones have full HD screens for some time.

> UltraBooks DO suck.

You mean, in comparison to ARM based tablets?

Yeah, what exactly are we comparing this against? Because if you know of something that has a nice screen, a long battery life, an excellent keyboard, and the ability to run decades of software aimed at helping me develop and get work done, then please let me know.

However, if you're saying that ultrabooks suck at consuming content compared to tablets, all I have to say is "well duh."

on tablet, with touch. development will be fun! oh, also no rooting allowed, no multi window, multitasking that freezes background tasks, just to make things more fun.

another fun fact: the OS for tablets and phones is compiled on x86, every time, all the time. Compiling on ARM for ARM is just way slower.

No doubt about it, though, UltraBooks DO suck. EDIT: I'm going to revise my statement on UltraBooks. Not all of them suck. In particular, the Lenovo Yoga is fantastic

I suspect neither you or the OP have been paying attention lately? Neither had I until I started looking. I got a Samsung series 9 earlier this year and I'm very happy with it. I think many people would love it, but they don't know it exists. Same goes for a few of the others.

Any bet that the PC (i.e. the laptop) is going away, always needs to ask on which platform the comments on the website it's posted to are being written.

I'm willing to bet some hear are typing out on a tablet, but I'm sitting here in the kitchen with my laptop.

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