This is from AnandTech's write-up on this years Intel Developer Forum conference:

Maloney's keynote started by talking about Intel's involvement in mobile phones, PDAs and flash memory. The first demo of the day was actually quite impressive, even though it wasn't of any new technology.

Sean Maloney had two systems setup, a 3 - 4 year old Thinkpad notebook and what appeared to be a similarly old desktop computer. He was playing Meet the Fockers on both platforms, with the Thinkpad clearly dropping frames in the video, while the desktop computer was playing it smoothly. Not too surprising right? Then he lifted the case off of the desktop PC and revealed that the video was playing back on a cell phone - faster than a laptop from 3 - 4 years ago.

This also shows just how much has been put into multimedia accelerating instructions. The processors can't do the same sort of raw computation as a 4 year old machine (assuming it was reasonable close to fast then, as in an 800 Mhz P3 or something) but with all of the coprocessing and specific purpose instructions, in most practical matters a modern cell phone actually is faster. And they certainly have fsater internet connections. ;)

AnandTech: IDF Spring 2005 - Day 2: Mobility Keynote

Posted by Shane on March 2, 2005 10:43 AM | Permalink