That's the standard retort from camp Wintel: wait until (insert laundry list of Intel code names hyped on Anandtech). Then you'll see! Microsoft Windows 8 will own the future!
Win 8 is a bit like Vista. On the other hand Win7 was pretty decent. I prefer OSX but Win7 was a vast improvement over XP while Vista was one of those two steps sideways, one step forward and one step back things. Win8 same deal. Whether Win9 will be a good OS is still TBD but given their pattern it probably won't suck as much as Win8.
Too bad it's currently the prime and sole example of a Intel Soc in a smartphone. 2 years ago Clovertrail got the same level of praise of the forthcoming Silvermont and under deliver on actual product, like the nVidia Tegra, they got a lot of hype and praised by the bloggosphere, but got deceiving product at the end.
We already have at least 6 Bay Trail tablets on the market. Silvermont's performance and capabilities are exceptional. There is nothing "deceiving" about them.
We already have at least 6 Bay Trail tablets on the market. Silvermont's performance and capabilities are exceptional. There is nothing "deceiving" about them.
Why are you avoiding the conversation? have you any Intel smartphone you can compared with? On tablet they all need to compensate with bigger battery. The iPad Air is currently one of the tablets with the best battery life with the smallest battery capacity, same apply for the iPhone 5S.
Ugh? I wasn't talking about Desktop CPU..... Intel problem is they need to slowdowns and remove to much feature from their CPU to make it work on mobile devices.
Atoms, until this generation, has been oddly backburnered in terms of process and development. I guess not that oddly given the pricing. They simply haven't been all that agressive given they could have moved Atom forward to 32nm earlier.
Silvermont goes from in order to out of order at 22nm with a 50% gain in IPC and moved the ISA to Westmere level. They should make for good tablet SoCs and decent smartphone SoCs. Airmont is following quickly the year after. And 64 bit is a non-issue for Intel.
Why are you avoiding the conversation? have you any Intel smartphone you can compared with? On tablet they all need to compensate with bigger battery. The iPad Air is currently one of the tablets with the best battery life with the smallest battery capacity, same apply for the iPhone 5S.
Avoiding the conversation? We haven't yet seen Silvermont in a phone, but we have seen it in a tablet. You just made the claim it was all hype and would be "deceiving", but that was not the case.
The ASUS T100 is running x86 Windows 8.1 with a 31Whr battery and offers 10:40 of use (Engadget).
The iPad Air is running iOS 7 with a 32.4 Whr battery and offers 13:45 of use (Engadget).
You think Bay Trail isn't efficient? A slightly smaller battery and it comes close to an iPad Air, despite the fact its running a complete Windows OS which isn't even as efficient as OS X.
When I read this story earlier and MacRumors it made me smile as I remembered all the analysts and tech bloggers claiming that Apple could not innovate. ...
I wouldn't call it "innovate". It's certainly the next step. Apple just took the lead and came out with the 64bit faster than others. Good work.
Hmm...So Samsung is building the A7....and how much of it will they copy since they will have have access to the chip? How much of Xynos will be copied from the A7? this will make a great patent war...
Atoms, until this generation, has been oddly backburnered in terms of process and development. I guess not that oddly given the pricing. They simply haven't been all that agressive given they could have moved Atom forward to 32nm earlier.
Silvermont goes from in order to out of order at 22nm with a 50% gain in IPC and moved the ISA to Westmere level. They should make for good tablet SoCs and decent smartphone SoCs. Airmont is following quickly the year after. And 64 bit is a non-issue for Intel.
My hunch is that Intel's been suffering through some strategy tax or product segmentation tax for awhile. Obviously, Atom was created for Netbooks, so it naturally had to perform not as good as Core processors and relied on n-1 nodes to make them cheap. Then for 3 straight years, they tried to shoehorn the in-order core into a smartphone SoC. They got a couple of very minor wins (Razr i, Yolo), but I view those as more concept phones (read: concept car) then a serious win. When they finally fab their smartphone SoC with their state-of-the-art fab node, we'll know they've finally accepted the model of selling CPUs for hundreds of dollars as not the way to move forward. That they are serious and view it as vital to the company.
The problem with Silvermont is that it's still trying to fit inside a box of not competing with Core while arriving a little bit late. They are essentially a new entrant in the mobile world and have to push out the incumbent. Silvermont is at parity with ARM SoCs. To push out the incumbent, they have to be better, both in performance and perf/watt.
Sorry, I have a much higher standard for Apple, especially with the price I am paying for a low-end laptop like Macbook. If I purchased any other low-end brand laptop for a very cheap price, then I probably wouldn't complain. It seems like you (and many others) gave Apple a free pass just because it is only an "esthetic problem." If you have such low standard for the price you paid Apple and if you have the mentality of the American auto industries back in the 80s and 90s, that is fine by me. I've never said the crack tempered the laptop functionality and that is not the point.
Again, you questioned rather or not I actually own the product, like the way you assume that the iOS 7 crash is my own fault. That does not help the discussion at all. I still own the white plastic Macbook (2007) and I returned it once for a new case and now the bottom part started to crack. I've never questioned your experience just because your experience is different than mine.
Quote:
Originally Posted by BigMac2
Agree It is always easier to blame some else for their own mistake. Also I do agree the volume of sales do not represent the quality of a product, but it make much more easy to identify a major design flaw if every device is affected with. Apple has never got a free pass before, every new product Apple comes with is scrutinize by so many groups so happy to get something bad to say about Apple and their product.
I totally disagree with you about calling those MacBook being plastic junk just because of a esthetic problems, have you got one of those MacBook? I've got many at my office, I still do have one in perfect shape, for the price and the time (2007), it was one of the best small laptop on the market, the cracking case issues was purely esthetic and never tempered the laptop functionnallity.
Hmm...So Samsung is building the A7....and how much of it will they copy since they will have have access to the chip? How much of Xynos will be copied from the A7? this will make a great patent war...
They didn't have access to the A7 architecture, and none of it will be copied. At least for 2014 where most of the 64-bit CPUs will be Cortex-A53 on 28 nm, or -A57 if they have a 20 nm node ready in 2H 14. Most of the CPU designs will end up in the same place: 4-issue, OOE, lots of caches, dual and quad core, and on-die power regulator for active idle. A Haswell type architecture is just about where they are all heading.
Theres this thing called Glasses. They help with vision. You may want to research it and come back to us in a week. While you are at it buy a Nexus7 and report back to us.
There is also this other thing called a bigger font which is easier to see, especially on a retina display.
Sticking with the low resolution screen of a 3GS does not seem like a very good solution.
Sorry, I have a much higher standard for Apple, especially with the price I am paying for a low-end laptop like Macbook. If I purchased any other low-end brand laptop for a very cheap price, then I probably wouldn't complain. It seems like you (and many others) gave Apple a free pass just because it is only an "esthetic problem." If you have such low standard for the price you paid Apple and if you have the mentality of the American auto industries back in the 80s and 90s, that is fine by me. I've never said the crack tempered the laptop functionality and that is not the point.
Again, you questioned rather or not I actually own the product, like the way you assume that the iOS 7 crash is my own fault. That does not help the discussion at all. I still own the white plastic Macbook (2007) and I returned it once for a new case and now the bottom part started to crack. I've never questioned your experience just because your experience is different than mine.
I do questioned your over reacting impression of calling things broken or crap base on anecdotal impression. Apple haven't got a free pass for this, as you related your self, Apple made a recall and replaced the top case free of charge, I don't think those issue is enough to utterly call it crap. Same apply on your assertion about the A7 and iOS7.
I've seen so much worst problem in the past, like the unstable for real Quadra 700, the bad power supply iMac G5, the ram amnesic PowerBook G4, the leaked PowerMac G5, the hinge cracking PowerBook Ti, etc..... Nothing is perfect, Apple included, but on the long run Apple is better a fixing things than other.
They didn't have access to the A7 architecture, and none of it will be copied. At least for 2014 where most of the 64-bit CPUs will be Cortex-A53 on 28 nm, or -A57 if they have a 20 nm node ready in 2H 14. Most of the CPU designs will end up in the same place: 4-issue, OOE, lots of caches, dual and quad core, and on-die power regulator for active idle. A Haswell type architecture is just about where they are all heading.
I was being a little facetious... with regard to Samsung (and others) copying Apple..
Remember when Chipworks "examined" the A7 die to get an idea how it works? I guarantee you Samsung would know a lot more than Chipworks would since they make the processor. They might not know how it would perform or how many instructions it can do per clock (6, BTW), but they'd definitely know it was 64 bit along with how much cache it had and many other details.
But how? I'm still cloudy on how they would know a chip is 32 or 64-bit. We're not talking about a node change which is something that needs to be performed at the fabrication level and is completely up to Samsung but an instruction set of a chip. What about Chipwork's images say "This is 64-bit"? Samsung would know that Apple included 4MB of RAM on the chip and other physical features but I don't see how Samsung would know it's 64-bit just by looking at it.
if they really did know all about this chip itt really makes that part of Samsung uncharacteristically tightlipped and ethical when they could have leaked the news and let Samsung make an announcement when Apple starts ramping up production before the iPhone 5S was announced.
Sorry, I have a much higher standard for Apple, especially with the price I am paying for a low-end laptop like Macbook. If I purchased any other low-end brand laptop for a very cheap price, then I probably wouldn't complain. It seems like you (and many others) gave Apple a free pass just because it is only an "esthetic problem." If you have such low standard for the price you paid Apple and if you have the mentality of the American auto industries back in the 80s and 90s, that is fine by me. I've never said the crack tempered the laptop functionality and that is not the point.
Again, you questioned rather or not I actually own the product, like the way you assume that the iOS 7 crash is my own fault. That does not help the discussion at all. I still own the white plastic Macbook (2007) and I returned it once for a new case and now the bottom part started to crack. I've never questioned your experience just because your experience is different than mine.
I do questioned your over reacting impression of calling things broken or crap base on anecdotal impression. Apple haven't got a free pass for this, as you related your self you've got it repair from Apple free of charge, I don't think those issue is enough to utterly call it crap. Same apply on your assertion about the A7 and iOS7.
Sure, Apple didn't get a free pass just because people like me are "overreacting based on anecdotal impression". Wow, Apple is willing to repair their defective product for free because people like me are "overreacting based on anecdotal impression". It's a real wonder of how you view things. Go tell Anandtech and iPad Air users that their article is just based on some anecdotal impression just because you don't have the same issue. The fact that Apple took care of the Macbook plastic crack, which the media didn't make a big deal out of it at all, just proves my point. You can't say an issue doesn't exist just because the media didn't make a big deal out of it.
Paying hundreds of dollars more for the same hardware quality that you get from other laptops. If a product that sucks you extra hundreds of dollars for nothing shouldn't be called junk, then I'm not sure what should be qualified as junk. What difference does it make if I saved that hundreds of dollars to buy a used laptop that doesn't work? I guess hundreds of dollars don't really worth much to you.
Yeah, plastic Macbook had Mac OS X, so did Macbook Pro, only if somebody told me that it was worth the price. And I bet that somebody wouldn't be people like you who tell plastic Macbook owners that the crack is just an anecdotal impression.
If what you have to say is "you are wrong because of this technical reasoning", then I am all ears and I respect that. However, all you are doing so far is "There must be something wrong with you because your experience is different than mine. Your experience is based on anecdotal impression because it is different than mine. The same applies to those who post their experience that are different than mine on any online forum, including Anandtech's article." I'm not sure how that kind of reply itself is not based on "anecdotal impression." I guess that is your best shot.
My take on benefits of 64-bit is that it's a holistic one for the consumer. The big benefit will be for developers (Apple software included) and customers get a downstream effect of better software.
Virtual address space goes to whatever terabyte or exabyte levels it will be, instead of the 4 GB it is today. This will make it easier for them to make more complex software. So, for obvious things like video, 3D, big computation applications, developers can get going designing their software now. It'll allow for desktop level implementations of web browsers, which is likely the largest user-facing, highest usage application on computers today.
Then, for hardware, it opens the door for Apple to using their ARM SoC in "bigger" hardware, like the supposed 13" iPad or a new 12" laptop. If Apple keeps going at the pace of SoC development where CPU and GPU performance is doubling year over year, they can used it for Macintoshes in a year or so. iMacs have a curvy bulge in the back about 1.5" thick or more. With an 5 Watt TDP SoC, an iMac could be 0.5" thin. With 5 Watt TDP, instead of the 7.7" x 7.7" Mac mini, it'll be like the Apple TV or Airport Express, just 4" x 4" and 0.75" high. Lastly, the laptops can get thinner and lighter. Instead of a 3 lb 0.68" thick 13" MBA, it'll be 2 lb and 0.5" thick instead.
Thanks for the reply. I would be interested in a MBA with an ARM chip. I would keep an iMac at home to do the heavy lifting and use the MBA for just browsing, email, etc. on the go.
The problem with Silvermont is that it's still trying to fit inside a box of not competing with Core while arriving a little bit late. They are essentially a new entrant in the mobile world and have to push out the incumbent. Silvermont is at parity with ARM SoCs. To push out the incumbent, they have to be better, both in performance and perf/watt.
x86 compatibility for Windows tablets is a big deal. Windows on ARM is pointless.
Core is going to be Ultrabooks and up. Silvermont will get marketed as Atom, Celeron and Pentium for lower end products.
Whether they get smartphone design wins is still up in the air. I'm not certain that Intel cares that much even now. They sure as hell care that ARM doesn't encroach on laptops and servers and would like to win in tablets.
But if they really cared about being real players in smartphone SoC market they could have been making ARM SoCs this whole time. I'm thinking the margins simply haven't been all that enticing except for maybe the top tier SoCs used in flagship phones.
Comments
That's the standard retort from camp Wintel: wait until (insert laundry list of Intel code names hyped on Anandtech). Then you'll see! Microsoft Windows 8 will own the future!
Win 8 is a bit like Vista. On the other hand Win7 was pretty decent. I prefer OSX but Win7 was a vast improvement over XP while Vista was one of those two steps sideways, one step forward and one step back things. Win8 same deal. Whether Win9 will be a good OS is still TBD but given their pattern it probably won't suck as much as Win8.
Too bad it's currently the prime and sole example of a Intel Soc in a smartphone. 2 years ago Clovertrail got the same level of praise of the forthcoming Silvermont and under deliver on actual product, like the nVidia Tegra, they got a lot of hype and praised by the bloggosphere, but got deceiving product at the end.
We already have at least 6 Bay Trail tablets on the market. Silvermont's performance and capabilities are exceptional. There is nothing "deceiving" about them.
We already have at least 6 Bay Trail tablets on the market. Silvermont's performance and capabilities are exceptional. There is nothing "deceiving" about them.
Why are you avoiding the conversation? have you any Intel smartphone you can compared with? On tablet they all need to compensate with bigger battery. The iPad Air is currently one of the tablets with the best battery life with the smallest battery capacity, same apply for the iPhone 5S.
Ugh? I wasn't talking about Desktop CPU..... Intel problem is they need to slowdowns and remove to much feature from their CPU to make it work on mobile devices.
Atoms, until this generation, has been oddly backburnered in terms of process and development. I guess not that oddly given the pricing. They simply haven't been all that agressive given they could have moved Atom forward to 32nm earlier.
Silvermont goes from in order to out of order at 22nm with a 50% gain in IPC and moved the ISA to Westmere level. They should make for good tablet SoCs and decent smartphone SoCs. Airmont is following quickly the year after. And 64 bit is a non-issue for Intel.
The iPad Air is currently one of the tablets with the best battery life with the smallest battery capacity, same apply for the iPhone 5S.
That has as much to do with iOS as the chip. Probably more.
Why are you avoiding the conversation? have you any Intel smartphone you can compared with? On tablet they all need to compensate with bigger battery. The iPad Air is currently one of the tablets with the best battery life with the smallest battery capacity, same apply for the iPhone 5S.
Avoiding the conversation? We haven't yet seen Silvermont in a phone, but we have seen it in a tablet. You just made the claim it was all hype and would be "deceiving", but that was not the case.
The ASUS T100 is running x86 Windows 8.1 with a 31Whr battery and offers 10:40 of use (Engadget).
The iPad Air is running iOS 7 with a 32.4 Whr battery and offers 13:45 of use (Engadget).
You think Bay Trail isn't efficient? A slightly smaller battery and it comes close to an iPad Air, despite the fact its running a complete Windows OS which isn't even as efficient as OS X.
Originally Posted by st88
The ASUS T100 is running x86 Windows 8.1 with a 31Whr battery and offers 10:40 of use (Engadget).
Not bad given Windows. It simply isn't as thrifty as OSX or iOS.
When I read this story earlier and MacRumors it made me smile as I remembered all the analysts and tech bloggers claiming that Apple could not innovate. ...
I wouldn't call it "innovate". It's certainly the next step. Apple just took the lead and came out with the 64bit faster than others. Good work.
Atoms, until this generation, has been oddly backburnered in terms of process and development. I guess not that oddly given the pricing. They simply haven't been all that agressive given they could have moved Atom forward to 32nm earlier.
Silvermont goes from in order to out of order at 22nm with a 50% gain in IPC and moved the ISA to Westmere level. They should make for good tablet SoCs and decent smartphone SoCs. Airmont is following quickly the year after. And 64 bit is a non-issue for Intel.
My hunch is that Intel's been suffering through some strategy tax or product segmentation tax for awhile. Obviously, Atom was created for Netbooks, so it naturally had to perform not as good as Core processors and relied on n-1 nodes to make them cheap. Then for 3 straight years, they tried to shoehorn the in-order core into a smartphone SoC. They got a couple of very minor wins (Razr i, Yolo), but I view those as more concept phones (read: concept car) then a serious win. When they finally fab their smartphone SoC with their state-of-the-art fab node, we'll know they've finally accepted the model of selling CPUs for hundreds of dollars as not the way to move forward. That they are serious and view it as vital to the company.
The problem with Silvermont is that it's still trying to fit inside a box of not competing with Core while arriving a little bit late. They are essentially a new entrant in the mobile world and have to push out the incumbent. Silvermont is at parity with ARM SoCs. To push out the incumbent, they have to be better, both in performance and perf/watt.
Sorry, I have a much higher standard for Apple, especially with the price I am paying for a low-end laptop like Macbook. If I purchased any other low-end brand laptop for a very cheap price, then I probably wouldn't complain. It seems like you (and many others) gave Apple a free pass just because it is only an "esthetic problem." If you have such low standard for the price you paid Apple and if you have the mentality of the American auto industries back in the 80s and 90s, that is fine by me. I've never said the crack tempered the laptop functionality and that is not the point.
Again, you questioned rather or not I actually own the product, like the way you assume that the iOS 7 crash is my own fault. That does not help the discussion at all. I still own the white plastic Macbook (2007) and I returned it once for a new case and now the bottom part started to crack. I've never questioned your experience just because your experience is different than mine.
Quote:
Agree It is always easier to blame some else for their own mistake. Also I do agree the volume of sales do not represent the quality of a product, but it make much more easy to identify a major design flaw if every device is affected with. Apple has never got a free pass before, every new product Apple comes with is scrutinize by so many groups so happy to get something bad to say about Apple and their product.
I totally disagree with you about calling those MacBook being plastic junk just because of a esthetic problems, have you got one of those MacBook? I've got many at my office, I still do have one in perfect shape, for the price and the time (2007), it was one of the best small laptop on the market, the cracking case issues was purely esthetic and never tempered the laptop functionnallity.
Hmm...So Samsung is building the A7....and how much of it will they copy since they will have have access to the chip? How much of Xynos will be copied from the A7? this will make a great patent war...
They didn't have access to the A7 architecture, and none of it will be copied. At least for 2014 where most of the 64-bit CPUs will be Cortex-A53 on 28 nm, or -A57 if they have a 20 nm node ready in 2H 14. Most of the CPU designs will end up in the same place: 4-issue, OOE, lots of caches, dual and quad core, and on-die power regulator for active idle. A Haswell type architecture is just about where they are all heading.
Theres this thing called Glasses. They help with vision. You may want to research it and come back to us in a week. While you are at it buy a Nexus7 and report back to us.
There is also this other thing called a bigger font which is easier to see, especially on a retina display.
Sticking with the low resolution screen of a 3GS does not seem like a very good solution.
Originally Posted by rgwychu
Sorry, I have a much higher standard for Apple, especially with the price I am paying for a low-end laptop like Macbook. If I purchased any other low-end brand laptop for a very cheap price, then I probably wouldn't complain. It seems like you (and many others) gave Apple a free pass just because it is only an "esthetic problem." If you have such low standard for the price you paid Apple and if you have the mentality of the American auto industries back in the 80s and 90s, that is fine by me. I've never said the crack tempered the laptop functionality and that is not the point.
Again, you questioned rather or not I actually own the product, like the way you assume that the iOS 7 crash is my own fault. That does not help the discussion at all. I still own the white plastic Macbook (2007) and I returned it once for a new case and now the bottom part started to crack. I've never questioned your experience just because your experience is different than mine.
I do questioned your over reacting impression of calling things broken or crap base on anecdotal impression. Apple haven't got a free pass for this, as you related your self, Apple made a recall and replaced the top case free of charge, I don't think those issue is enough to utterly call it crap. Same apply on your assertion about the A7 and iOS7.
I've seen so much worst problem in the past, like the unstable for real Quadra 700, the bad power supply iMac G5, the ram amnesic PowerBook G4, the leaked PowerMac G5, the hinge cracking PowerBook Ti, etc..... Nothing is perfect, Apple included, but on the long run Apple is better a fixing things than other.
They didn't have access to the A7 architecture, and none of it will be copied. At least for 2014 where most of the 64-bit CPUs will be Cortex-A53 on 28 nm, or -A57 if they have a 20 nm node ready in 2H 14. Most of the CPU designs will end up in the same place: 4-issue, OOE, lots of caches, dual and quad core, and on-die power regulator for active idle. A Haswell type architecture is just about where they are all heading.
I was being a little facetious... with regard to Samsung (and others) copying Apple..
But how? I'm still cloudy on how they would know a chip is 32 or 64-bit. We're not talking about a node change which is something that needs to be performed at the fabrication level and is completely up to Samsung but an instruction set of a chip. What about Chipwork's images say "This is 64-bit"? Samsung would know that Apple included 4MB of RAM on the chip and other physical features but I don't see how Samsung would know it's 64-bit just by looking at it.
if they really did know all about this chip itt really makes that part of Samsung uncharacteristically tightlipped and ethical when they could have leaked the news and let Samsung make an announcement when Apple starts ramping up production before the iPhone 5S was announced.
Originally Posted by rgwychu
Sorry, I have a much higher standard for Apple, especially with the price I am paying for a low-end laptop like Macbook. If I purchased any other low-end brand laptop for a very cheap price, then I probably wouldn't complain. It seems like you (and many others) gave Apple a free pass just because it is only an "esthetic problem." If you have such low standard for the price you paid Apple and if you have the mentality of the American auto industries back in the 80s and 90s, that is fine by me. I've never said the crack tempered the laptop functionality and that is not the point.
Again, you questioned rather or not I actually own the product, like the way you assume that the iOS 7 crash is my own fault. That does not help the discussion at all. I still own the white plastic Macbook (2007) and I returned it once for a new case and now the bottom part started to crack. I've never questioned your experience just because your experience is different than mine.
I do questioned your over reacting impression of calling things broken or crap base on anecdotal impression. Apple haven't got a free pass for this, as you related your self you've got it repair from Apple free of charge, I don't think those issue is enough to utterly call it crap. Same apply on your assertion about the A7 and iOS7.
Sure, Apple didn't get a free pass just because people like me are "overreacting based on anecdotal impression". Wow, Apple is willing to repair their defective product for free because people like me are "overreacting based on anecdotal impression". It's a real wonder of how you view things. Go tell Anandtech and iPad Air users that their article is just based on some anecdotal impression just because you don't have the same issue. The fact that Apple took care of the Macbook plastic crack, which the media didn't make a big deal out of it at all, just proves my point. You can't say an issue doesn't exist just because the media didn't make a big deal out of it.
Paying hundreds of dollars more for the same hardware quality that you get from other laptops. If a product that sucks you extra hundreds of dollars for nothing shouldn't be called junk, then I'm not sure what should be qualified as junk. What difference does it make if I saved that hundreds of dollars to buy a used laptop that doesn't work? I guess hundreds of dollars don't really worth much to you.
Yeah, plastic Macbook had Mac OS X, so did Macbook Pro, only if somebody told me that it was worth the price. And I bet that somebody wouldn't be people like you who tell plastic Macbook owners that the crack is just an anecdotal impression.
If what you have to say is "you are wrong because of this technical reasoning", then I am all ears and I respect that. However, all you are doing so far is "There must be something wrong with you because your experience is different than mine. Your experience is based on anecdotal impression because it is different than mine. The same applies to those who post their experience that are different than mine on any online forum, including Anandtech's article." I'm not sure how that kind of reply itself is not based on "anecdotal impression." I guess that is your best shot.
Thanks for the reply. I would be interested in a MBA with an ARM chip. I would keep an iMac at home to do the heavy lifting and use the MBA for just browsing, email, etc. on the go.
The problem with Silvermont is that it's still trying to fit inside a box of not competing with Core while arriving a little bit late. They are essentially a new entrant in the mobile world and have to push out the incumbent. Silvermont is at parity with ARM SoCs. To push out the incumbent, they have to be better, both in performance and perf/watt.
x86 compatibility for Windows tablets is a big deal. Windows on ARM is pointless.
Core is going to be Ultrabooks and up. Silvermont will get marketed as Atom, Celeron and Pentium for lower end products.
Whether they get smartphone design wins is still up in the air. I'm not certain that Intel cares that much even now. They sure as hell care that ARM doesn't encroach on laptops and servers and would like to win in tablets.
But if they really cared about being real players in smartphone SoC market they could have been making ARM SoCs this whole time. I'm thinking the margins simply haven't been all that enticing except for maybe the top tier SoCs used in flagship phones.