You can´t really compare this to a real laptop CPU. If you´re talking raw computer power, sure the Celeron is fine, but in the handheld industri, its all about size. The new S3C2440 is using 0.13µ technology, but the die is only 4.7 mm2 compared to the 0.18µ and 95 mm2 of the Mobile Celeron (I think its 95, I´m not really sure).
Yes, the ULV mobile Celeron is a <i>lot</i> bigger in size. (Though the ULV mobile Celeron is 0.13 micron with a die size of 80mm2.) That aside, it's still small enough to fit into a PDA if anyone ever wanted to use it. It's not <i>all</i> about size. It's about cost. No one wants to spend that much for a PDA, no matter how well it would perform. That's one of the reasons why the tablet PC market failed.
(The other reason for tablet PCs not catching on being Microsoft's idiotic idea that tablet PCs shouldn't be a PC in and of themselves, but just a wireless extension to desktops.)
If the market-analasys is true, the market should grow by about 700% in only 4 years. Samsung could stand to make a lot of money based on this new CPU, if Intel doesn´t catch up.
Stand to make a lot of money? Hardly. Handhelds are an incredibly small market where budget devices reign supreme. Of the very few people who buy them, hardly anyone even cares about top-notch performance. So would a new faster chip even matter? It matters vastly less than one for a desktop would, and those pretty much only have value for bragging rights. It's a very small market. Desktops are driven by midrange. PDAs are driven by low-end. So there's hardly any money to be made.
On top of that, 700% <i>sounds</i> huge, but small numbers even when multiplied by seven, are still small numbers. And that's assuming that the 700% is even moderately accurate, which is an asinine assumption to make, especially now that mobile phones are coming with cameras and small color displays. The whole PDA market has become a deseased animal waiting to be put out of it's misery.
So will Samsung be making money on it? Only if someone is smart enough to put an ultra-budget PDA chip and an MP3 CODEC into a mobile phone for only a $25 increase in cost at retail and call it macaroni. Will Intel lose <i>anything</i> by waiting to release an 0.09 micron PDA chip to upgrade their speeds? Only momentary prestige in a market that makes very little money and is more likely to shrink than grow.
"<i>Yeah, if you treat them like equals, it'll only encourage them to think they <b>ARE</b> your equals.</i>" - Thief from <A HREF="http://www.nuklearpower.com/daily.php?date=030603" target="_new">8-Bit Theater</A>
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