The engineering wizardry that spawned the smart phone revolution—putting astonishing compute power, long battery life and wireless connectivity in the palms of our hands—is now transforming the PC market.
It’s been an incredible symbiosis: as consumers have embraced smart mobile devices, they’ve started to look to their tried-and-true PCs/laptops, wishing for more smartphone-like functionality including always on, always connected, snappy app performance and long battery life in a slim, sleek device.
PC OEMs have heard these demands from consumers. They've watched the innovation coming from the smart phone world and have seen
Faced with these consumer demands and inspired by the pace of innovation driving the smartphone segment, OEMs have turned to Arm and the smart phone ecosystem to help transform large-screen form factors to deliver newer, more compelling user experiences.
Against this background, we're seeing the dawn of the always-connected PC, which is being enabled thanks to the mobile legacy and innovation of the Arm ecosystem.
As part of this, we're incredibly excited about the recent announcement of Microsoft Windows 10 running on Arm. With the new Windows 10 devices built on Arm Cortex technology, consumers can now enjoy a "smartphone like" experience on their mobile PCs.
This move lays a solid foundation for the future of the always connected PC, rooted firmly in the innovation and popular use cases that have propelled the smartphone industry for more than a decade.
Among the biggest driver is Arm’s laser focus on building the most power-efficient compute solutions. Arm's low-power, small-form factor legacy helped kindle the mobile industry explosion, and that innovation is now available for large-screen form factors, delivering all-day performance without sacrificing performance. For example, the ASUS NovaGo PC boasts 22 hours of battery life when viewing video and an astounding 30 days in stand-by mode. Most consumers want to use their devices for an entire day without having to plug in, but current PCs don’t offer this capability.
Responding to a question about battery life with Arm-powered devices in the new form factor, Pete Bernard, a program manager at Microsoft told The Verge, “To be frank, it’s actually beyond our expectations. We set a high bar for [our developers], and we’re now beyond that."
It's not just battery life, however, that's so alluring. With instant- and always-on functionality, devices fire up at the touch of a button like your phone and are instantly connected to the Internet — via LTE or WiFI — in ways not previously possible with the form factor. It allows users to seamlessly switch from cellular to Wi-Fi depending on location and needs.
In addition, supporting all this innovation for consumers in this new class of laptop devices is silicon innovation and widespread availability thanks to a global Arm ecosystem steeped in the mobile legacy.
Consumers will find that the new class of always-on, always-connected mobile PCs will enhance their productivity by enabling them to run all their favorite Windows and other apps on a truly mobile device with long battery life where ever they are. In short, the PC form factor they like just got a lot more "mobile."
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