At the dawn of tablet computing, Intel chips were the de facto standard, which makes sense, since early tablet computers tended to run Windows. But the vast majority of consumer tablets hitting the streets this year are powered by low power ARM-based chips. The Apple iPad 2, HP TouchPad, BlackBerry PlayBook, and virtually every Android tablet you can think of run on ARM-based chips. But Intel isn’t ready to cede the tablet market just yet.
DigiTimes reports that Intel will showcase a number of tablet devices at the Intel Developer Forum in Beijing next month. The company is reportedly working with Taiwanese manufacturers Inventec and Compal, among others.
A number of tablet-friendly operating systems are optimized for Intel chips, including Windows, MeeGo Linux, and Google Android. We’ve also seen some dual boot solutions, with tablets that run both Windows 7 and Android.
Eventually, we could see Intel pushing some of its low power Atom chips as a solution for tablets that don’t run Windows. After all, Microsoft has announced plans to develop a version of Windows that runs on ARM-based chips, so turnabout is fair play.
According to DigiTimes, Intel is already working with 6-8 notebook makers on Android tablets.