Lenovo, Asus Launching ARM Notebooks Running Windows 8 in 2013?

While Windows 8 have been making big news on the tablet front in the last few months, notebooks and ARM support will make a big splash in mid-2013 thanks to Asus and Lenovo. According to DigiTimes, ARM support on notebooks will be coming to the notebook market to take on the x86 platform, which is led by Intel and AMD, come 2013, though Qualcomm had previously suggested that its Snapdragon CPU would be available in 2012 for Windows partners.

The ARM CPU players are already aggressively cooperating with notebook players such as Asustek Computer and Lenovo and are set to launch WoA-based notebooks to test the water in mid-2013 with expectations to see the platform take off in 2014 and further grab share from Wintel in 2015 to become the second platform of the notebook market

Benefits to moving to ARM include low power consumption, which would lead to increased battery life, and lower price points. However, there are also a few challenges: “its biggest problems will be software support and cooperation with notebook vendors.”

Intel is also expected to debut its Ivy Bridge CPU, which utilizes a smaller 22 nm manufacturing process ensuring that these high end chips will also benefit from longer battery life. While Intel works to improve battery life on its performance chips and ARM tries to increase performance while maintaining its low power consumption, the notebook battle in 2013 will be an interesting one to watch.