All this power has to come at the expensive of battery life which is already an issue with alot the current phones. Interesting none the less

Out of battery will come next after famious out of memory. Well sayd tsunami.

Don't put too much stock in the idea of massive power consumption, the current - quite old - Intel smartphone chips are very competitive with current generation ARM equivalents and there's no reason to expect that this chip wouldn't compare well to A15-based ARM designs. Say what you will about Intel but they are industry leaders in both design and manufacturing, have almost unlimited funds compared to ARM and haven't gone wrong since the P4.

smartphone makers seem to ignore 2 important components....memory and battery. All the processing power in the world doesn't make up for lack of memory or lack of battery.

smartphone makers seem to ignore 2 important components....memory and battery. All the processing power in the world doesn't make up for lack of memory or lack of battery.

Basically this, while Intel is getting better at battery efficiency, they only beat ARM variants with a single-core SoC. Not sure if Intel can keep the power consumption down with multiple cores. I agree with everyone about battery, I rather trade better battery life over super performance. Performance is important but battery life should be paramount. Companies like Intel, Qualcomm, NVIDIA, Broadcom and etc. need to focus on designing better baseband radios than focus on SoC performance. They all do baseband radios and SoCs, they should make the former much more energy efficient. While displays eat the most battery, baseband radios are probably 2nd on that list. They eat battery like no tomorrow. deltatux

waits for the day the power goes out, and everyone has nothing to do* cause our technology just got paper weighted. Phones went from phones to being lil computers to people cant live with out them. technology is great bad also bad all at the same time. Would love one of them new phones,but i barely use the phone i have so why get new one.

Basically this, while Intel is getting better at battery efficiency, they only beat ARM variants with a single-core SoC. Not sure if Intel can keep the power consumption down with multiple cores. I agree with everyone about battery, I rather trade better battery life over super performance. Performance is important but battery life should be paramount. Companies like Intel, Qualcomm, NVIDIA, Broadcom and etc. need to focus on designing better baseband radios than focus on SoC performance. They all do baseband radios and SoCs, they should make the former much more energy efficient. While displays eat the most battery, baseband radios are probably 2nd on that list. They eat battery like no tomorrow. deltatux

The number of people who buy a phone for the battery life are almost non-existent. Battery life isn't sexy, battery life doesn't sell.

The number of people who buy a phone for the battery life are almost non-existent. Battery life isn't sexy, battery life doesn't sell.

Don't know who you've been talking to but the #1 complaint I hear about phones these days is about the short battery life and forgetting chargers at home. This is from regular people and tech savvy people, they all want a phone that lasts longer on a single charge. deltatux

If my HTC Trophy can last 5 days (and it actually has) on a single charge without using the battery saver feature.....there's no reason other "smartphones" can't last at least full 2 days without using a battery saver feature. My Samsung Galaxy Stellar needs that feature enabled to get past 1 day..... My Trophy hasn't been charged in 3 days and it's battery indicator is showing 49% battery remaining with an estimated time remaining of 2days 23hrs....

I can talk on my phone for 1 hr a day and it will still last a minimum of 2 weeks. If I don't talk on it I don't have to charge it for over a month easy. Gotta love old phones that can't even get online and only a 1.2 mp camera

@Hilbert - actually, your score comparison with the s3 and one x is slightly inaccurate. recently, antutu updated their scoring system to accomodate for the differences between a9, krait and a15 cores. so the scores are now different. my note 2 now scores 18300, a galaxy s3 scores 16301, and a htc one x scores 14022. so the new intel chip is only about twice as fast as the s3. still a big difference though.

I care more about battery life than about pure performance, that´s why i´ve bought an Xperia Ray that lasts an entire week on a single charge on light duty, of course. But like some people already said performance sells more than anything else even if that performance only shows up in benchmarks... As for Intel SOCs, sooner or later they are going to get it right and then ARM and their partners better watch out.

If my HTC Trophy can last 5 days (and it actually has) on a single charge without using the battery saver feature.....there's no reason other "smartphones" can't last at least full 2 days without using a battery saver feature. My Samsung Galaxy Stellar needs that feature enabled to get past 1 day..... My Trophy hasn't been charged in 3 days and it's battery indicator is showing 49% battery remaining with an estimated time remaining of 2days 23hrs....

It also depends on the signal strength of the area you're in. For example, since I'm with a regional carrier, signal's not at full bars everywhere, thus requiring the baseband to use more power to sustain a signal. Your baseband will erode any power savings that you attain by taxing the processor less (baseband consumes much more power than your SoC anyways). This same can be said on nationwide carriers in Canada as well, unless you live in the city core (which I don't), signal is not perfect which affects battery life too. deltatux

It also depends on the signal strength of the area you're in. For example, since I'm with a regional carrier, signal's not at full bars everywhere, thus requiring the baseband to use more power to sustain a signal. Your baseband will erode any power savings that you attain by taxing the processor less (baseband consumes much more power than your SoC anyways). This same can be said on nationwide carriers in Canada as well, unless you live in the city core (which I don't), signal is not perfect which affects battery life too. deltatux

I live rather close to a Verizon (my cell carrier) tower so signal strength isn't an issue.

Don't know who you've been talking to but the #1 complaint I hear about phones these days is about the short battery life and forgetting chargers at home. This is from regular people and tech savvy people, they all want a phone that lasts longer on a single charge.

Yep but it doesn't sell, it's something everyone complains about later on but never really thinks about when buying one.

While displays eat the most battery, baseband radios are probably 2nd on that list. They eat battery like no tomorrow.

It really comes down to usage scenarios. In my case the baseband shares the top spot with the idle mode power consumption, and that's running exclusively in GSM mode (as I have access to Wi-Fi everywhere). Switching to WCDMA would significantly increase power consumption, both due to higher base power and worse coverage. As long as increased performance and/or hardware and software improvements keeps increasing the number of usage scenarios that are enabled with mobile devices those will eat up any and all increases in battery performance, at least for the foreseeable future. If you're a light user there's really no problem in getting a modern smartphone to last a week or two on a charge, it's just that most users don't fit that description.

I live rather close to a Verizon (my cell carrier) tower so signal strength isn't an issue.

exactly, hence why your phone will consume less power because it doesn't need to try getting a cleaner signal since your signal is very strong.

It really comes down to usage scenarios. In my case the baseband shares the top spot with the idle mode power consumption, and that's running exclusively in GSM mode (as I have access to Wi-Fi everywhere). Switching to WCDMA would significantly increase power consumption, both due to higher base power and worse coverage. As long as increased performance and/or hardware and software improvements keeps increasing the number of usage scenarios that are enabled with mobile devices those will eat up any and all increases in battery performance, at least for the foreseeable future. If you're a light user there's really no problem in getting a modern smartphone to last a week or two on a charge, it's just that most users don't fit that description.

There's only one nationwide carrier in Canada that offers GSM and WCDMA at the same time and that's Rogers Communications. Everyone else is stuck at 3G because the other 2 of the Big 3's abandoned CDMA in favour of GSM implementations and so they never had a 2G GSM network. Many of the regional carriers only operates 3G networks since they're very new so they never had a GSM network. It really depends on your location, signal matters a lot in terms of battery. Plus, unlike Sweden, WiFi hotspots aren't everywhere in Canada, it's a miracle if some place has free public WiFi here (McDonald's, Tim Hortons', Starbucks and some restaurants are the only ones I can think of, but they're quite rare).

Yep but it doesn't sell, it's something everyone complains about later on but never really thinks about when buying one.

I know people and friends who refuse to buy a particular phone if the battery doesn't last (within reason since smartphones will never last as long as old feature phones unless you don't use it). Having to worry about carrying a charger doesn't sell either. deltatux

exactly, hence why your phone will consume less power because it doesn't need to try getting a cleaner signal since your signal is very strong. There's only one nationwide carrier in Canada that offers GSM and WCDMA at the same time and that's Rogers Communications. Everyone else is stuck at 3G because the other 2 of the Big 3's abandoned CDMA in favour of GSM implementations and so they never had a 2G GSM network. Many of the regional carriers only operates 3G networks since they're very new so they never had a GSM network. It really depends on your location, signal matters a lot in terms of battery. Plus, unlike Sweden, WiFi hotspots aren't everywhere in Canada, it's a miracle if some place has free public WiFi here (McDonald's, Tim Hortons', Starbucks and some restaurants are the only ones I can think of, but they're quite rare). deltatux

Erm...cell phones don't use more power trying to receive a clearer signal. They use more power when needing to transmit a stronger signal to a further tower. A caveat to this is transmitting data where receiving errors or packet loss could result in more power usage. http://www.technologyreview.com/news/506491/efficiency-breakthrough-promises-smartphones-that-use-half-the-power/

There's only one nationwide carrier in Canada that offers GSM and WCDMA at the same time and that's Rogers Communications. Everyone else is stuck at 3G because the other 2 of the Big 3's abandoned CDMA in favour of GSM implementations and so they never had a 2G GSM network.

Ouch, that's pretty much a terrible situation. Granted, living in northern Sweden I really only have access to one carrier that has excellent coverage but given that they're both the best and the cheapest (I pay 49 SEK, roughly ~7.5 USD, a month for my plan) that's not really a problem.

It really depends on your location, signal matters a lot in terms of battery.

Absolutely! I just meant that it's rare that GSM coverage is anything but ideal for me. I jump from ~ -73 to ~ -59 dBm most of the time. Obviously 3G is a lot more sketchy, which is why I avoid it as I don't need it for data anyway.

Basically this, while Intel is getting better at battery efficiency, they only beat ARM variants with a single-core SoC. Not sure if Intel can keep the power consumption down with multiple cores. I agree with everyone about battery, I rather trade better battery life over super performance. Performance is important but battery life should be paramount. Companies like Intel, Qualcomm, NVIDIA, Broadcom and etc. need to focus on designing better baseband radios than focus on SoC performance. They all do baseband radios and SoCs, they should make the former much more energy efficient. While displays eat the most battery, baseband radios are probably 2nd on that list. They eat battery like no tomorrow. deltatux

Please. http://www.anandtech.com/show/6529/busting-the-x86-power-myth-indepth-clover-trail-power-analysis Read that so maybe we can get over the whole "x86 is not power efficient" bs line I've been hearing. Like I predicted 2 years ago and is actually happening; Intel has through better engineering tightened power budgets to the extent that they are near ARM equivalent if not sometimes better (as can be seen in the linked article). The point is Intel's got an ancient core, on an old process and competes with ARM in both power and performance. Next year we are going to have a new in-order architecture, on a spanking new finfet node vs the A15 which will be on what, a 28nm planer silicon?, add the fact that it consumes considerably more power then the A9 and things get worse. The extensive work Intel is doing on the analogue side of the equation (Intel is working on their own radios can't find articles right now), the eventual merging (can be seen by roadmap) of both SoC and desktop architectures, the non-disputable domination in process fabrication as well as the fabless nature of ARM give x86 parts a mega advantage. People here forget the nature of the companies involved, ARM competed in a largely competition free integrated market; where companies like Microchip or Atmel used to charge high prices for development boards and individual parts (compared to an 8051 a 1980 Intel developed part). So the company stormed the old market by improving performance radically and offering a very compelling business model where the IP is sold in blocks and the customer can do what they want (like add DSP engines needed for early phones). The only "problem" Intel has with the new markets are the margins, Intel likes them way high so they have two choices; either live with razor thin margins which doesn't really work unless they diversify heavily, or add value to their processors (which they can) and get better margins on their SoC. Found the IDF article about Intel and RF research http://www.anandtech.com/show/6291/intel-developer-forum-2012-justin-rattner-keynote-live-blog