[nextparadigms]

Things are a lot different now than they were back then. The fact that ARM keeps growing at a very fast rate is very real. ARM will be in billions of smartphones and tablets and who knows what other kind of devices in a few years. If people start using those devices more and more instead of x86 PC's (including ARM PC's), then it's over for Intel.

ARM doesn't have to beat Intel in raw performance. They just need to make them irrelevant to most people. And they are succeeding.

In a classic disruptive innovation fashion, Intel will (continue) to move up market, in servers and super computers, where it will be more profitable for them and where ARM won't be able to reach them (for now). This will become obvious when ARM-based Windows 8 and OS X computers will become available at the end of next year or in 2013. As soon as that happens, laptops will start becoming a low-margin business for Intel.

As a "normal" person, why would you get a $1000 ultra-book, if a similar looking Transformer-like device will be available for $500, and have almost the same "perceived" performance. Dual core and quad core 2.5 Ghz Cortex A15 chips will show how that kind of performance is enough for most people.

[zobzu]

that being said, since the recent multi core ARM cpus (hello tegra 3) have a TDP close to intel's atoms, and with the amount of engineering intel pushes into the mobile area, i wouldnt be too surprised if intel would actually beat arm as well in that area.

personally, i don't want a transformer device. the main reason is that it runs android and has little connectivity options. it cannot do anything CLOSE to what I do on the laptop. i own some tablets (!) and i rarely use them. i like to test stuff on them, and sometimes, browse the web or the like. but they're not very useful.

i like the phone better (its smaller!!) and the light laptop better (it does everything without compromises ! and im talking using word, the web, IM, etc, not coding. heck im+web and copy pasting around in android is such a pita. not even talking about getting a proper video out, or copying files on a usb stick.)

[lmm]

I love my transformer, but you can get a "normal person" ultrabook for the same price with better performance and maybe half the battery life. For "normal desktop" use that's probably a good tradeoff.