This summer Samsung unveiled a Galaxy Book S thin and light laptop with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8cx processor and an integrated 4G LTE modem for long battery life and always-connected capabilities.

But it turns out there’s an Intel-powered Samsung Galaxy Book S on the way too. Details are a bit scarce at the moment, but Intel says it’s expected to be the first device to feature one of the chip maker’s new Lakefield processors… the same chip that will eventually power the Microsoft Surface Neo dual-screen laptop when it ships in late 2020.

Lakefield is a low-power chip that combines a single high-performance Intel Core processor with four energy-efficient Atom-based chips (based on the new Tremont architecture).

The CPU cores will work together much the way ARM-based processors that use big.LITTLE designs do, providing an extra shot of power when you need it, and relying on the more energy efficient cores when you don’t in order to balance performance and battery life.

Like the Snapdragon-powered Galaxy Book S, the model with Intel’s Lakefield processor is expected to feature 4G LTE connectivity.

Meanwhile we’re still waiting for the Snapdragon version of the laptop to arrive. Samsung had originally said it would be available in September, but that deadline is now firmly in the rear view mirror.

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9 replies on “Next-gen Samsung Galaxy Book S will be the first Intel Lakefield powered PC”

  1. This will not successful as ARM Windows counterparts because Atom is a flop(no matter how hard they trying to tell this much that much bla bla), they will not always on like arm nor battery efficient. If intel want to successful they need proper new platform. I think it’s too late.

  2. Awesome. Intel finally brings the competition. It’s great that Samsung is building separate variants with both ARM and Intel.

  3. This is MUCH more interesting than ARM-based Windows machines. It has the same advantages over standard Intel machines, better battery life, always-on, 4G … but also with full backwards compatibility without the need for emulation.

    Intel could have done this years ago but instead waited until ARM was a real threat.

    1. Are you sure this will have always on/connected feature? I have a Surface Go LTE and a Surface 3 before that. Neither of them have Connected Standby/InstantGo/always whatever enabled. If I’m remembering correctly, MS killed this feature off.

      Do you have links that with Tremont Atoms, MS has re-introduced Connected Standby/InstantGo? Thanks.

      1. I guess the Surface Go does sort of have InstantGo. Although, after an hour or so, it hibernates. Unfortunately, you can’t disable the hibernation.

        Anyway, I’d really like to read some links where Intel and MS have brought back real InstantGo/Connected Standby without forcing hibernation after some period.

      2. This doesn’t use Tremont. It uses Lakefield, which has 1 Sunny Cove core and 4 Tremont cores.

        They said Lakefield reduces standby power from ~30mW to 2.6mW. That’ll make always-on much more viable.

        1. Still Tremont in the end when it comes to the always on stuff. Is that active standby or just regular standby?

          1. That’s active standby. Regular standby can have the chip off entirely like it always did. Actually the active standby feature has been available since 2013’s Haswell, but only recently its being used more widely.

            Haswell was aiming for 100mW active standby, and the datasheets show with C10 the chip used 30mW. The current Whiskeylake generation isn’t much lower, at 3xmW. Based on reviews of talking about 3-4% drain overnight, I’m assuming the active standby power is more in the 200mW range, best case scenario.

            In reality though many modern ultrabooks do not use the deeper C8-10 state, instead only support the much higher power C7 state. In C7, the chip idles at 300mW+. So OEMs have difficulty implementing the lowest states or you need much more work at all levels(hardware/software/firmware) to do so. This is probably why connected/active standby modes in most ultrabooks use close to 10% power per night.

            Lakefield cuts the 3xmW to 2.6mW, hence the 10x reduction. System-wise the reduction may not be as drastic, but they were talking about month long standby which puts it in the 50mW range and a significant advancement over today. Looking at how long actual devices are taking to arrive to the market, I reckon manufacturers are also putting in the work to make sure the 2.6mW is a reality rather than something that can’t be done in practice since such active standby modes are far more of a critical feature for tablets and super portables.

            Tremont core isn’t the reason for the low standby, but the whole 3D stacking present in Lakefield plus other things(like removal of some regulators and 22FFL ultra low leakage process used in the I/O die).

            In a way, this is Intel’s return to making dedicated ultra mobile processors after giving it up with Broxton back in late 2015. I don’t think we’ll see Smartphones based on it but dedicated Tablet CPUs are back!

    2. These aren’t Let enabled machines. I wouldn’t say they’re “more interesting”, they’re just another option. They look like very good products but for diversity and competition sake we need Windows on Arm to be successful. I’d rather see Samsung investing more R&D in their WoA offering, so that we could see Exynos compete with Qualcomm in this space.

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