Intel's Atom Z6xx series isn't targeting Windows Phone 7, but 'full Windows experience' still an Atom priority
By Chris Ziegler 
posted May 5th 2010 2:31PM
posted May 5th 2010 2:31PM
What's getting us here is Intel's seemingly careful phrasing: "full Windows experience on Atom." Does that mean that Intel wants to keep Atom up in the Windows 7 end of the horsepower spectrum and avoid Windows Phone for the foreseeable future? It seems like a tough sell to say that Android is playing in an entirely different ballpark than Windows Phone is, and we're not sure that Intel can effectively argue that distinction -- but hey, with the Z6xx series' iffy power consumption stats, maybe it's for the best."Intel's goal is to ensure we offer our customers a choice of software that runs best on our processors. Yesterday's announcement was focused on Linux OSs, however our strategy is to also support a full Windows experience on Atom as we do with Menlow, Intel's first generation atom chip for mobile devices and Pinetrail, Intel's chip family for netbooks. Stay tuned."
[Thanks, R2V2]
I see Intel in the iPhone in 3 years or so
@Stevenk madness.
@bobewreckem
This is Engadget.
@Dafrety
NO.
This. Is. Madness!!!
@Dafrety Never will happen. Apple bought those two ARM companies for a reason.
@Stevenk I see Windows on Iphone in 3 years or so
@Gutsy Gibbons
I see myself in your mom in a few hours...
@SolidSnake
I see his mom in you in a few hours and a half.
Actually the z600 series does away with the pci bus which is aparently required for windows 7. The removed the pci stuff because it was wreaking havoc with the idle power states, every few miliseconds it had to ping all the devices on that bus which caused it all to wake up again. This is not a standard atom, it has been highly optimized for smartphone and tablet applications. Without some form of spoofing this won't run windows 7. The reason it doesn't support windows PHONE 7 is wp7 is designed to be fast and efficient on slow arm cpus so it will not make the new atom platform shine, it would be just as power hungry but just as fast as arm cpus meaning there would be no reason for this high performance (compared to arm) cpu on that platform. Intel wants their new silicon to shine and develop a good reputation as fast and efficient, on windows phone 7 it would be a waste and develop a reputation as power hungry, heavy, oversized, etc. Who really wants to run a nerfed operating system like wp7 anyways? I want some rhobuntu on this platform!
I don't get it...
@loocas
it's actually pretty logical, Windows Phone 7 (CE 6) is built for ARM, this is still x86 so it can run regular Windows 7 (NT 6.1)
@JeremyBenthem
just noticed from my comment it's pretty funny that neither of the two OSes are really 7
@loocas
New HP Slate chip? For Windows 7.
@cool8man
That's what I'm thinking too... Should be able to make some decent tablets with these.
Maybe Intel is getting in bed with Menlo?
@Emiliano Cant wait to see the children
@Emiliano Intel is already in bed with Nokia making birth to little meegos
So much talk about Moorestown lately--methinks this might be released sooner than later?
Android is already x86 ready since months. I would guess WP7 is very late on that front, plus the fact this is not MS priority at all.
@shagrath
x86 for Android will only hurt Android. Already the market is fractured and software that will only work on one hardware configuration shows up on the market for other devices.
This is only going to get worse when x86 Android tablets/phones start showing up. Pure Dalvik apps will run fine, but any games or other high performance software won't work. All of that type of software is compiled C code instead of Dalvik java and will need to be recompiled from ARM to x86.
This is going to be a nightmare for your average consumer and damage the perception of the Android brand. If Google doesn't do something soon to standardize the experience, the Android mobile space is going to become just as complex and off putting as the desktop that the iPad approach has shown doesn't work on mobile.
Would Qt not solve this issue?
@JFH
No it wouldn't. QT is a set of APIs and shared libraries, not an execution platform. A QT app compiled for WIndows still won't run on Linux or OS X. Even an x86 QT app won't run on an ARM Linux platform with QT installed.
When a ARM app gets compiled, it compiles to ARM machine code. There's no way short of emulation to make that run on x86, and it takes a far more powerful processor than an Atom to emulate the x86 ISA and then execute the code in real time.
@Invid
Whoops. That should be:
"...emulate the ARM ISA and execute in real time."
@Invid well, if that's the case wouldn't the tablets that run Android be the type that are more not looking to even feature the marketplace? That's just my guess, but there are devices out there (Archos 9 comes to mind) that just forego the marketplace by developing their own marketplace. It seems as if these can be more for those type of developments. Yes, it's a little unfortunate that if the devices sell well they wont strengthen the marketplace, but in some (or a few) they weren't going to anyways...just a possibility. But anyway, very informative, thanks.
i dont see whatnthe question is
Phone7's code is only in the hands of ms, so intel has absolutely no influence to make it compatible to x86
@user47alpha
I totally agree. WinCE has always been an ARM OS and it's not really suprising to anyone that it doesn't work on x86. Further, why would MS even want it to work on x86? It's not like Intel has proven to anyone that they can make a chip that works well in phone size devices.
Moorestown is just too power hungry for a phone. For a tablet I say hell yeah! By the time Intel gets these things into phones and out to consumers dual core Cortex A-9 phones will be out using less power and running circles around these things.
@Darkseider
Haven't you read Engadgets previous post? The new Z6xx series gets upto 10 days of standby! For something that runs Win7, thats an impressive numba.
@furquanatique You ain't gonna see those 10 days of standby with Windows 7 or at all.
@furquanatique Yeah 10 days. I am waiting for the unicorns now.
@Darkseider
Even if it's half that, show me another smartphone that lasts 5 days in standby.
@jon Yeh, I've got a smartphone which lasts a whole week in standby. Even with heavy usage, it still lasts for 3 days. A Nokia E71.
@mukatuna
Well, that's sort of a smartphone by today's standards.
And considering the fact that Nokia lists up to 20 days standby, only one week is pretty terrible.
So... menlow=menlo??
Menlow is the next generation of mobile Atoms, and menlo is the MS initiative to replace CE with an x86-compatible NT kernel. Thus menlo will run on menlow???
So confusing...
I had a Nokia smartphone that would give me 3 days, and a Philips dumbhone that lasted a week. Xenium 9@9. It is possible.
what experience?
Ok, thanks. Then, what is the big advantage of the write once deploy anywhere functionality that Qt apparently brings?
What a strange post..?
It has nothing to do with Intel if Microsoft decide to port Windows CE to x86 I would have thought....
I'm missing Symbian and webOS on that list :-(
@user0938
Symbian will stick to lower spec ARM, it can. MeeGo will try to use the complete power of CPU's
so one day i could have a phone with windows7 (or 8 etc..) on it + an actual phone os? could get interesting :)
please microsoft, an x86 build of your phone os, please! (most apps will be .net based anyways, so most stuff "just works" :))