The Future Of Android-x86 Is In Question

[RussianNeuroMancer]

But then you can just run proper Linux on it.

That what I do, but other people may want specific apps that available only as UWP apps or as Android apps.

[darkfires]

So, what are those Asus phones and tablets with Atoms using then?

Intel pulled the plug on atom chips targeting phones/low power tablets, sadly. I believe all of the chips in the phones are (broadwell?) based and we're unlikely to see anything new from them anytime soon. It's unfortunate because the chips were far superior to ARM junk, just not enough companies wanted to jump ship except for chinese junk factories.
It sucks because you see people getting all excited about these new "fast" arm chips and then you compare them to even a low powered x86 and it's just a joke. Even those ARM server chips AMD was working on couldn't even beat an Atom (likely part of the reason they abandoned it)... will always dream of the day when all the phones/tablets are x86 and ARM is ancient history.

http://www.theverge.com/2016/5/3/11576216/intel-atom-smartphone-quit

[starshipeleven]

It sucks because you see people getting all excited about these new "fast" arm chips and then you compare them to even a low powered x86 and it's just a joke. Even those ARM server chips AMD was working on couldn't even beat an Atom (likely part of the reason they abandoned it)... will always dream of the day when all the phones/tablets are x86 and ARM is ancient history.

Ummm.... no. x86 was better than ARM if it was on a smaller manufacturing process, now that also ARM has switched to same process then it's better again.

The fact that Intel failed to sell x86 in mobile has other reasons behind (mostly that they entered the market like 3 years late when everyone and their dog had already committed to using some specific brand of ARM processors and had experience and all that in place and would not change that just for lulz), and the fact that AMD has put on hold ARM processors has more to do with the fact that the company needs to become profitable again ASAP so all focus is on x86 stuff they know they have a market for.

[Vistaus]

Intel pulled the plug on atom chips targeting phones/low power tablets, sadly. I believe all of the chips in the phones are (broadwell?) based and we're unlikely to see anything new from them anytime soon. It's unfortunate because the chips were far superior to ARM junk, just not enough companies wanted to jump ship except for chinese junk factories.
It sucks because you see people getting all excited about these new "fast" arm chips and then you compare them to even a low powered x86 and it's just a joke. Even those ARM server chips AMD was working on couldn't even beat an Atom (likely part of the reason they abandoned it)... will always dream of the day when all the phones/tablets are x86 and ARM is ancient history.

http://www.theverge.com/2016/5/3/11576216/intel-atom-smartphone-quit

Faster doesn't mean more stable. I remember all of the Intel instability problems many people had with the Motorola Razr i (me included, although I only had it for a brief period of time because I couldn't get used to Android).

[darkfires]

Faster doesn't mean more stable. I remember all of the Intel instability problems many people had with the Motorola Razr i (me included, although I only had it for a brief period of time because I couldn't get used to Android).

The stability issues of android on Intel are due to bugs in Android/Linux kernel, it's not because the chips were flawed.. even Android on ARM has its stability issues depending on the device/chip being used.

[ldo17]

It's unfortunate because [Atom] chips were far superior to ARM junk...

Yet Intel never stood a chance against that “ARM junk”.

I can remember when Atom chips were first announced, back in 2008. Intel claimed they could offer the “full Internet experience”, which was code for “Adobe Flash Player”. Even with that compatibility advantage behind them, they were still a flop.

Intel has spent billions over the last decade developing Atom chips. Every time a new generation was imminent, you would hear the fanbois claim “this time it will be the ARM-killer for sure”. Only it never was. I don’t think their Atom division ever made money.

[torsionbar28]

Yet Intel never stood a chance against that “ARM junk”.

I can remember when Atom chips were first announced, back in 2008. Intel claimed they could offer the “full Internet experience”, which was code for “Adobe Flash Player”. Even with that compatibility advantage behind them, they were still a flop.

Intel has spent billions over the last decade developing Atom chips. Every time a new generation was imminent, you would hear the fanbois claim “this time it will be the ARM-killer for sure”. Only it never was. I don’t think their Atom division ever made money.

Atoms are perfectly fine chips for simple tasks, provided you're running an efficient OS i.e. not Windows. Nearly all consumer atom devices were either netbooks, or micro peecee's running Microsoft Windows though, and performance was abysmal. But what's the market for a chip with 6w TDP in a laptop or desktop form factor? Those form factors allow for much higher TDP's (read: higher performance) so there's no reason to use such a crippled little chip in them. And of course with phones, tablets, and other mobile devices, ARM is king. So Atom turns out to be the answer to a question nobody asked.

[ldo17]

Atoms are perfectly fine chips for simple tasks...

...only when they were sold at a loss.

[aht0]

I've always been curious about this project. Who is using it? Are there any manufacturers shipping product with it pre-installed? Android is useful only on mobile devices, and ARM rules the mobile device world, so I'm honestly not sure which market Android-x86 is targeting.

I've used Android-x86 on Asus eeePC's. Spot-on-perfect for this rather weak x86 hardware. Android is positively "flying" on it, compared to slugging on Windows they come with by default. Some ebook apps for Android are much more convenient to use than their x86 ports for windows or Linux (FBReader for example). Sort of a mix of tablet and laptop. I managed to get stuff like Xposed framework to work on Android-x86 as well, love this Android flavor.

[droidhacker]

It sucks because you see people getting all excited about these new "fast" arm chips and then you compare them to even a low powered x86 and it's just a joke. Even those ARM server chips AMD was working on couldn't even beat an Atom (likely part of the reason they abandoned it)... will always dream of the day when all the phones/tablets are x86 and ARM is ancient history.

http://www.theverge.com/2016/5/3/11576216/intel-atom-smartphone-quit

Funny how my 2.5 year old Nexus 6 (Snapdragon 805) is orders of magnitude more powerful than, say, an Intel C3230.
Both are 4-core 28 nm... the Snapdragon is a 32bit part, the C3230 is a 64bit part.

Want to see something truly hilarious?

http://www.pcworld.com/article/2889155/intel-announces-atom-x3-sofia-chip-new-cherry-trail-atoms-for-tablets.html

Look at the benchmark chart that says "Intel’s Atom X3 benchmarks predict great things against Qualcomm’s current chips."

Current... YEAH, the current LOWEST END Qualcomm chips that they sell for phones distributed in India (targeting the absolute lowest price), running Cortex-A7 cores (the same core as Raspberry Pi 2... not 3... TWO). Add to that the fact that the Intel benchmarks are ESTIMATED (which means, obviously, FAVORABLY).

And yeah, I actually do own something with a C3230... car radio. It is truly a DOG. Don't get me wrong, it gets the job done, but its just keeping the dashboard warm until I can get my hands on a Dragonboard 820c (I need to USB3 ports for the bandwidth to get around the need for a custom car interface board).