Ultra Mobile PCs yet to "fulfill their promise"

Intel has confirmed that it is designing a new processor specifically for the Ultra Mobile PC platform.

It gave scant detail about the CPU or its likely schedule for release, stating only that it would be built “from scratch” and would not be Core 2 Duo based.

Intel is still firmly behind the UMPC platform, showing off a few designs for the platform at the Intel Developer Forum.

And it said it would have a new UMPC in the first half of next year that, according to Dadi Perlmutter, senior vice president and general manager of the Mobility Group, that would “cut the power by half and the size by three quarters” compared to current generation products. He would not indicate if this would use the new CPU.

Current UMPCs, while lighter than laptops, are still considered too heavy and as having too short a battery life to make them the all day portable devices promised. With manufacturers, Intel needs to find ways of reducing power consumption without impacting performance. It also needs to cut heat to the point where products can be fanless, making them quieter, and make price more competitive.

One Intel delegate said current UMPCs were like “radio with pictures”, referring to when TV ads first appeared, and were essentially extensions of those already broadcasts on radio. In other words, current UMPCs are still too much like tiny PCs, rather than devices in their own right.

Perlmutter admitted it would be a couple of years before UMPCs began to fulfil their promise. “This year, the UMPC is still far away from what we want to achieve. Next year the technology is going to be better. I would not claim today that we are fulfilling the promise we are making.”

While he accepted there was some risk to the reputation of UMPCs with early versions, he argued that this didn’t stop the bulky, early laptops from becoming a success once the technology matured.

The few UMPCs on show at IDF included one used by Volkswagen as part of its research into in-car entertainment, and a clamshell design aimed at the education sector.