Intel Unveils its new Mobile & Tablet Strategy at MWC 2013
Clover Trail+, the world's smallest 4G Modem and "Tablets with Intel Inside" are prominent features of Intel's new accelerated mobile strategy
At this year's Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona, Intel unveiled its "accelerated mobile strategy" that aims to increase the company's presence in the expanding mobile and tablet market. Contained in this strategy is the previously mentioned launch of the dual-core Atom "Clover Trail+" SoC, the XMM 7160 4G LTE Modem and the company's plans for tablets and emerging markets.
The Intel XMM 7160 is one of the smallest and lowest power multimode LTE modems (LTE / DC-HSPA+ / EDGE) that can be integrated into a variety of devices such as smartphones, tablets and ultrabooks. The XMM 7160 will support 15 LTE bands simultaneously and will begin shipments to OEMs in the first half of 2013. The introduction of this modem is expected to coincide with a general optimization of the company's portfolio of SoC devices including the upcoming 22 nm Merrifield Atom SoC.
Intel also placed considerable emphasis on its expanding global presence and the "tremendous opportunity" offered by developing markets, specifically focusing on the Atom Z2420 "Lexington" which has been used in value smartphones by Acer, Lava, Safaricom and Etisalat. The latter company will be debuting an Intel-based handset in Egypt this April and marks the first introduction of the Z2420 in the MENA (Middle East and North Africa) region.
Finally, Intel aims to launch a range of "Tablets with Intel Inside" based on the upcoming quad-core Atom "Bay Trail" SoC. The Bay Trail platform is the most powerful Atom CPU so far and the company claims that it will "help enable new experiences in designs as thin as 8mm that have all day battery life and weeks of standby". The platform is expected to arrive in Q4 2013 and Intel has announced that it is working with Compal, ECS, Pegatron, Quanta and Wistron to bring Bay Trail tablets to the market running both Android and Windows 8.

Do you mean along the lines of HD video playback? I thought these did just fine with that. No?
HD video playback shouldn't be a problem for any IGP/GPU from the past 4-5 years as long as there is proper software support for whatever hardware acceleration is available. Pretty sure the main reason to be concerned about the IGP is 3D acceleration for UI and games on 1080p+ screens.
I think most company's are allready thinking about super hd...
Intel QuickSync is currently the most powerful hardware video decoder (compared to CUDA/AVIVO).
This is an ultra-low-power Atom intended for smartphones we are talking about here.
Super-HD on a 5-10" screen? Not worth it even if you hold your screen in your face. At 720p, individual pixels are already hardly visible on a 7" screen (awfully large for a phone IMO) even at uncomfortably close range. There are practical limits to how high resolutions can go and more than 1080p on 10" or smaller sounds completely overkill to me.
Yes, I know, some 10" tablets already push 2560x1600 but that is mainly because line-art and text (static images with fine details) still benefit from extra sharpness to some extent. For moving video, it would be extremely difficult to tell the difference even if video natively rendered and encoded at both resolutions was available for direct comparison between 1080p and 1600p devices.
While Intel's chips may not have the fastest IGP around the block, their ultra-low power Ivy Bridge tablet CPUs do beat just about anything else out there on performance per watt and benchmarks.
I use my tablet mostly for watching videos while away from my computer and reading so having an uber-IGP in a tablet is largely unnecessary, I would gladly take longer battery life, extra storage and extra RAM for smoother multi-tasking. Game-wise, I hate having fingers on-screen to use virtual controllers in action games so that rules out most graphics-intensive games.
It may be the fastest, but it has far from ideal quality. I think that disqualifies it from being the most powerful unless someone wants to argue quantity over quality.
Most of the quality bad press is from early implementations on Sandy Bridge. The current QuickSync stuff is on par with software encode/decode for most intents and purposes.
I totally agree with the fingers, I don't like touching the screens (hate fingerprints), but I wanted the tablet to get gaming on the go and mostly via gamepad once it becomes a better gaming platform (hence waiting for a T4 nexus 10 or whatever, I won't buy apple). I'm not sure how easy it will be to browse on shield & tv (but it's vanilla android so should have voice). But it might be good enough to just read news etc from bed. If shield has voice searching like nexus it may be good enough for basic browsing from bed etc on tv. They may have just added a device to my xmas purchases this year with shield rather than replacing the tablet purchase. I can still see wanting (not needing) a tablet for on the go use etc. I can't see doing much of anything on a phone other than making a call...LOL. I use my cell less than 100mins per month (more like less than 50). They're useless for me and only use them to make quick arrangements/adjustments to my day (hey babe, you need me to pick up bread on the way home...blah blah). My cell is off at work and I don't even give out my work# (only my parents have it direct). Maybe I'm just old fashioned. I actually WORK at work...
Not sure what people were ripping with, but I didn't see the quality in quicksync rips when I looked at them and compared to other stuff I had ripped via other means. For me quality is always #1 since I'm usually viewing on a 61in and bad quality shows up (next tv or projector? will be larger, so it'll be even more important). I get away with a lot more on my 48in, but the 61 taught me not to ignore quality for speed
Totally agree, I want MORE BATTERY! Quit making things so stinking thin. I have no use for a NON-all day phone (if/when I replace my junker). I wish they'd release 2 case sizes. One for people who think THIN is in, and another with double battery for the rest of us. I think people all buy these because there is no other choice. If Galaxy S3 & iphone5 came in 2 versions, I'm betting the THICK ones would sell far better. Someone needs to test this theory and release a fat version. They wouldn't have to add many mm to the phone to get double battery if it was the size of the entire back of the case.