HP officially announced it will base its first Windows 8 tablets on x86 chips, like those made by Intel and they won’t sell tablets based on ARM tech. The news comes from a spokeswoman for the company based in Palo Alto, California. The decision is good news for Intel and Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD), the most famous makers of x86 chips.
It also means that ARM isn’t the preferred choice in the initial rollout of Win 8-based products, at least for one big company. They matter because they’re the largest maker of personal computers and could dictate a trend in this area. Microsoft will release its own ARM-based tablet, so ARM will at least have their version of the Surface Tablet to fall back on. We remind you that the version that runs on their chips is Windows RT and the tablets based on x86 chips will run Windows 8.
The RT units were already a smaller portion of the big Windows 8 picture and now they’re even smaller. Microsoft also limited the number of PC makers with early access to Windows RT and its code, to make sure the number of high quality device is smaller and the pressure is higher to maintain quality. Pretty strange strategy right? Until we see two Windows 8 tablets with high end features side by side in a comparison between ARM and Intel I can’t say which one is better…
