Freescale's ARM based i.MX515 will have the capability to power machines with up to 8 hours of battery life, with a display as large as 8.9 inches. Sporting an ARM Cortex-A8 core, the chip performs from around 600mHz to 1 GHz.<p>Seems like a clash between Intel and ARM is imminent.
<i>All we know at this point is that these computers will almost definitely be running Linux - these chips just can't provide enough CPU power to run any Windows operating system, including netbook standard XP.</i><p>I thought the reason was that Windows doesn't run on ARM.
The Cortex-A8 is pretty spiffy (SIMD extensions, extra compressed instruction mode, ~GHz clockspeeds), but looking down the road, the Cortex-A9 intrigues me. All the same goodies of the A8 but it goes to 4 cores instead of 1.<p>The other change to look for in the next few years is cheap OLED displays. A 1 watt CPU, bridge chip, and a fractional watt display will change the battery life equation dramatically. Current displays make all the light a display could need to all white all the time and then throw most of it away. OLED displays only make the light you need. Say hello to the '80s and green text on black to stretch your battery for coding.
From the article, "this chip will have the capability to power machines with up to 8 hours of battery life, with a display as large as 8.9 inches". We can finally hope for a long lasting laptop without having to weigh 4kgs (or 9 lbs).
Someone should make something closer to the form factor of the Radio Shack Model 100, with the same instant-on capability and ability to run freaking forever on ordinary alkaline batteries.