Intel has recently made its anticipated Haswell lineup of processors official, with units now shipping across the globe. However, a pesky little USB hardware bug has delayed the refresh of its desktop motherboard refresh.
But that is the desktop story — the mobile story is almost as interesting.
Ultrabooks powered by the Intel Haswell platform are just making their way to the store shelves, with notebooks soon to follow in the next month or so. But that chip maker is already planning to launch another version of Haswell, a much more energy efficient variant that does not require a fan.
CNET is reporting that according to an Intel spokesperson, the new Haswell processor will cut its power rating to an extraordinary 4.5 watts, in contrast to the current lower limit of 6 watts.
Additionally, this makes it the first member of the Core family of CPUs to be fanless.
What exactly does this mean for mobile devices? A whole lot, in fact! This powerful new Haswell chip could soon find itself powering everything from thin and light notebooks, tablets and hybrids, but still providing these products with a greatly enhanced battery life.
One constant criticism of the first generation Surface Pro tablet is its battery life, which means users (professionals and business users, in particular) have to constantly charge the slate. Its 4 hours of battery time is pretty much half of what power users expect.
The next generation Surface Pro, if it houses this incredible chip, could last a full (business) day on a single charge, while still bringing to table x86 compatibility and power performance in a slim package.
Surface Pro slates are one thing, this is something other hardware vendors on the market could pick up and run as they prepare to unleash new Windows 8.1 devices soon.
