Pentium. Remember the name? Although the brand has been out there since 1993, these Intel processors are still running hot, with the chip giant making some changes to the lineup.
Changes that Microsoft sees fit for its next Surface tablet.
We got new intelligence regarding this new addition to the Surface family earlier this week, via the FCC.
And though there was some confusion on whether this upcoming device might sport a Qualcomm ARM chip, considering it is expected to be affordable, somewhere around the $400 mark and meant to compete with the Apple iPad in the education market.
Some signs also pointed to Intel Core M processors, but that’s hard to accomplish when the starting price for a Core m3 chip is $281.
Anyway, now we know that this upcoming 10-inch tablet — or tablets, what have you — will house Intel processors. Pentium to be exact. Makes a lot more sense, this.
You can find the report here, with the fairly reliable source allegedly revealing that the based model of the tablet will have the Pentium Silver N5000 solution that is a quad-core 32-bit Gemini Lake processor clocked at 1GHz.
Higher end models will house the Pentium Gold 4410Y or 4415Y, which although are dual-core chips clocked at 1.5GHz and 1.6GHz respectively, deliver better performance than the Silver.
These are, of course, part of the new rebranding Intel has done for its Pentium lineup.
So, in other words, while these will not deliver earth shattering performance, we can at least expect a solid showing from these CPUs. More so, because they will be offered with either 4GB or 8GB of RAM and ship with Windows 10 Pro.
Which is interesting, considering the fact that these are meant for the educational market, and you wouldn’t be wrong if you wagered these to be powered by Windows 10 S.
But we’ll take it.
There will also be an option for 4G LTE connectivity, which is always welcome. And that leaves the screen size, which reportedly is the standard 3:2 aspect ratio and 10-inch. Significantly smaller, but okay.
Only thing that now remains is an official reveal, which hopefully is coming very, very soon.
Hopefully, Microsoft is able to go up against the Apple iPad and the iPad Pro with these new tablets.
