By Alexander Villafania
INQUIRER.net
MANILA, Philippines – Intel Atom, the much awaited ultra-mobile PC (UMPC) processor, is making waves worldwide. However, it is just about to test the waters in the Philippines, where a majority of portable PC buyers would want to spend as little as possible. It was expected that the Atom, a low-power chip for basic computer requirements, will supply the budget-conscious PC market with low-cost computers.
So far, two brands have introduced Atom-powered notebook computers in the Philippines: MSI with its Wind and Acer’s Aspire One. Both are currently being distributed and both are priced much lower than their larger, more powerful counterparts.
Being low-energy devices mean that these cannot match the power of notebooks based on Intel’s other processors, including the Celeron and the recently-revived Pentium branded Dual Core processors.
This is because the Intel Atom is aimed at a different market segment, which has not been addressed before. The Atom is made specifically for the UMPC market, where users want to carry around a device no heavier than 1 kilogram or no bigger than an actual 10-inch paper notebook.
Of course, Intel wants to rename the concept and would rather want the market to use the terms “netbooks” and “nettops” for computers that use their processors.
As explained by Intel Philippines Business Development Manager Jermyn Wong, the Intel Atom is targeted at Internet consumers, and not so much the Internet content makers.
He emphasized on the Internet largely because of a trend among people to use the Internet for a variety of applications like watching online videos, downloading songs, online chat, voice communications, photo and video uploading, document editing, among others.
Wong stressed that the Intel Atom will not replace any of their current low-end processors including the Celeron, since these are addressing a different market.
“The Atom is distinguished by what Internet consumers want, which is online services. For anything beyond these basic services users can turn to the more powerful processor models,” Wong said.
The Atom is 22 millimeters in size, or half that of a typical Intel processor. It is also powered down to consume only 2.5 watts of electricity. In comparison, a Celeron M processor can consume up to 30 watts.
Yet despite its low power consumption feature, the Intel Atom can still pack a punch. Like its big brothers, it can still play and render high-definition videos and sounds, play most casual online games and do some simple photo and video editing.
And also because of its small size, the Intel Atom does not use too much space for the processor, giving laptop manufacturers more space to put in more other components. Small form factor notebooks can integrate solid state drives instead of typical hard drives, more USB ports, WiFi and Bluetooth wireless connectivity.
Instead of using Microsoft’s current Windows Vista operating system, the Intel Atom is best used with either a Linux OS or Windows XP, whose support has been recently revived by the software firm to accommodate the UMPC market.
