I don't understand x86 madness, please explain it to me

[Visa Declined]

An x86 phone would have an even bigger app problem than Windows Mobile, because only UWP's would run on it. In continuum mode, the device would be great because it could run full executable's. As a regular phone it would be quite crippled.

Sites like the Verge would have a field day slandering an x86 phone, and they'd be quick to call Microsoft "confused" for making it.

 

[Adam Chapman1]

Hmm. All this has got me thinking...

I wonder if it would be possible to stick an x86 processor into a Continuum-style dock. Continue to whack out ARM based processors in the phone, but once you hook it up to the Continuum dock, the phones storage, RAM etc., along with the x86 chip, emulates a windows PC.

It gives x86 on the phone (but ONLY in the right circumstances), it leaves the phone in a nice power efficient harmony, it gives the ability to have different power docks for whatever your needs are, and it gives you your phone storage and OneDrive bits.

May be over complicating things slightly when you can have a PC-On-A-Stick these days, but the dock would still hold some value.

 

[rafal soboczynski]

i think this concept is slightly overcomplicated, but i like idea someone mentioned of having extra gpu in dock. also if you put intel processor in dock you are required to use continuum wired (for x86 software at least)

 

[rafal soboczynski]

Hmm. All this has got me thinking...

I wonder if it would be possible to stick an x86 processor into a Continuum-style dock. Continue to whack out ARM based processors in the phone, but once you hook it up to the Continuum dock, the phones storage, RAM etc., along with the x86 chip, emulates a windows PC.

It gives x86 on the phone (but ONLY in the right circumstances), it leaves the phone in a nice power efficient harmony, it gives the ability to have different power docks for whatever your needs are, and it gives you your phone storage and OneDrive bits.

May be over complicating things slightly when you can have a PC-On-A-Stick these days, but the dock would still hold some value.

 

[anon(7929613)]

Trust me, x86 on smartphones will be the future unless Qualcomm does something extra ordinary. We cannot accept so much differences between a smartphone and a PC in terms of processing power. Those two have to match FULL STOP

 

[rafal soboczynski]

Trust me, x86 on smartphones will be the future unless Qualcomm does something extra ordinary. We cannot accept so much differences between a smartphone and a PC in terms of processing power. Those two have to match FULL STOP

Well x86 might be the future but matching power of pc and smartphone is like saying I want a stick of dynamite, with explosive power of nuclear warhead (well maybe that's little dramatic) but pc still evolves just like smartphone does and size constrain will not allow to have the same performance

 

[WildKarrde]

Nobody is talking about making a phone match the power of a PC. More like making a phone match the power of a good netbook. The heierarchy of PC's will never change. Desktop > Laptop > Tablet > Phone. Doesnt mean that tomorrow we cant have a phone as powerful as todays tablets, it just means thay tomorrows tablets will likely be more powerful too. x86 doesnt automatically mean the phone will be super powerful.

 

[anon(7929613)]

Well x86 might be the future but matching power of pc and smartphone is like saying I want a stick of dynamite, with explosive power of nuclear warhead (well maybe that's little dramatic) but pc still evolves just like smartphone does and size constrain will not allow to have the same performance

Intel compu stick, Asus vivo stick or other 7" windows tablets already sport an Intel atom processor and run full Win 10. Those devices have sizes comparable to a 6" smartphone. Think about it!
Also, there was a time when people said that laptops can never be as powerful as a desktop. But look at todays laptops like dell Alienware.

 

[anon(7929613)]

Nobody is talking about making a phone match the power of a PC. More like making a phone match the power of a good netbook. The heierarchy of PC's will never change. Desktop > Laptop > Tablet > Phone. Doesnt mean that tomorrow we cant have a phone as powerful as todays tablets, it just means thay tomorrows tablets will likely be more powerful too. x86 doesnt automatically mean the phone will be super powerful.

Tomorrow, the computing devices will not be classified by the size of their screen. How about that? We should try to look outside the cloud. Then we can see the sky. Who knows, someday we can even touch it!

 

[Arunabha Goswami]

Also, there was a time when people said that laptops can never be as powerful as a desktop. But look at todays laptops like dell Alienware.

For the price of an Alienware, you can build a desktop PC which is much more powerful. The fastest desktop will always be much faster than the fastest laptop available, which in turn will be much faster than the fastest tablet. Size does matter, at least for now.

But then again, An x86 phone doesn't need to be able to run the most resource-intensive programs. My laptop cannot handle the major games that come out now, and I'm okay with it. The cheap droids cannot run the most graphic intensive games properly, and everyone is okay with it. It will be the same with x86 phones.

 

[rafal soboczynski]

Intel compu stick, Asus vivo stick or other 7" windows tablets already sport an Intel atom processor and run full Win 10. Those devices have sizes comparable to a 6" smartphone. Think about it!
Also, there was a time when people said that laptops can never be as powerful as a desktop. But look at todays laptops like dell Alienware.

Yes vivo stick and 7 inch tablets with atom exist, but their computational power is nowhere near cheap ?300 laptop with i3 processor.
Also yea todays laptops can be as powerful as desktops from 3-4 years ago, and yea in 3 years laptops will be as powerful as todays desktop, but this doesn't mean phone, tablet, laptop and pc (devices from the same year) will ever be equal in performance

 

[anon(7929613)]

Yes vivo stick and 7 inch tablets with atom exist, but their computational power is nowhere near cheap ?300 laptop with i3 processor.
Also yea todays laptops can be as powerful as desktops from 3-4 years ago, and yea in 3 years laptops will be as powerful as todays desktop, but this doesn't mean phone, tablet, laptop and pc (devices from the same year) will ever be equal in performance

These PC sticks are priced at 100 to 150 dollars, and so even if they are 60% as powerful as a 300 dollar laptop, while running win32 apps, it will be 10 times more efficient than Lumia 950 xl at 1/5 th of its price!
Second, todays laptops are as powerful as todays desktops. Check out the latest high end Nvidia processors that runs both on pc and laptop.

 

[anon(7929613)]

For the price of an Alienware, you can build a desktop PC which is much more powerful. The fastest desktop will always be much faster than the fastest laptop available, which in turn will be much faster than the fastest tablet. Size does matter, at least for now.

But then again, An x86 phone doesn't need to be able to run the most resource-intensive programs. My laptop cannot handle the major games that come out now, and I'm okay with it. The cheap droids cannot run the most graphic intensive games properly, and everyone is okay with it. It will be the same with x86 phones.

Forget about Alienware, even dell Inspiron laptops with i5 processors are priced at 60k. If you assemble a decent desktop, you will end up spending the same amount. If you do not trust me, check yourself................................... There was a time when laptops and desktops used different processors. Today they use the same processors.! The only advantage that desktops have over a laptop with similar specs is that desktops can be upgraded easily.
X86 processors like Intel Atom processor may not be as powerful as course i3, but it is at least more powerful than the Qualcomm snapdragon processors. Check out the power ratings and other specs of the two processor families and you will know.

 

[rafal soboczynski]

These PC sticks are priced at 100 to 150 dollars, and so even if they are 60% as powerful as a 300 dollar laptop, while running win32 apps, it will be 10 times more efficient than Lumia 950 xl at 1/5 th of its price!
Second, todays laptops are as powerful as todays desktops. Check out the latest high end Nvidia processors that runs both on pc and laptop.

Well you cant compar it that way because, high end smartphone with atom processor is still going to be in ?350 range (don't compare prices of zenfone because im talking about true flagship)
Yea some companies put desktop grade 980 in laptops but there is a lot of issue with heat and power consumption not making it a true mobile computer. Also let's stay on topic and compare purely x86 vs arm (I don't think they are at level yet where they can put discrete gpu in phone)

 

[Migi2015]

To me Continuum is like the icing on the cake. If Surface Phone can deliver:

* a beautiful magnesium unibody chassis with sapphire screen, 1080p resolution is sufficient, no bigger than 5.2"
* an Intel SOC that rivals the Apple A9 in terms of GPU, LTE performance and having a motion co-processor
* the screen should have the best color gamut, viewing angles, contrast ratio and viewable in sunlight
* all day battery life
* fingerprint sensor on the home button
* mobile payment solution - Microsoft Pay?
* continue to close the app gap via UWP
* interactive 3D tiles - McLaren project
* Iris scanner for Windows Hello
* 32/64/128GB storage options
* only MS logo on the back

that would instantly sell millions, guaranteed. Especially since it would come out after Redstone 1 which enable Task Continuity and better Continuum support.

 

[a5cent]

The x86 phone must still adhere to app sandboxing in order to preserve the phone experience and prevent malware/viruses and security issues - This is being done with Project Centennial

If all 3 of those conditions are not met, an x86 phone should not be considered.

You have any sources supporting the claim that Project Centennial's sandboxing has anything to do with protecting from malware? AFAIK Project Centennial has absolutely no chance of protecting against malware except possibly in the most primitive situations where malware is outfoxed by a bit of runtime file system virtualization.

AFAIK the sandbox encapsulating a Win32 app at runtime exists solely for the purpose of managing software installation and deinstallation. Nothing more. Certainly it's not a sandbox in the sense typically used in the context of security.

 

[a5cent]

The only advantage that desktops have over a laptop with similar specs is that desktops can be upgraded easily.

I'll believe that when laptops also ship with 300W GPUs. Laptops are nowhere close to competing with high-end desktops in terms of performance.

 

[elindalyne]

You have any sources supporting the claim that Project Centennial's sandboxing has anything to do with protecting from malware? AFAIK Project Centennial has absolutely no chance of protecting against malware except possibly in the most primitive situations where malware is outfoxed by a bit of runtime file system virtualization.

AFAIK the sandbox encapsulating a Win32 app at runtime exists solely for the purpose of managing software installation and deinstallation. Nothing more. Certainly it's not a sandbox in the sense typically used in the context of security.

When I said malware, I probably should have just mentioned system stability and the like. The AppX app model *should* pretty much sandbox all the files and registry entries. This absolutely doesn't preclude a malicious dev from writing a keylogger or something else, but running full trust code is explicitly disallowed on non PC installations so that also cuts down on potential attack vectors someone could exploit. Additionally, elevated permissions will not work with Project Centennial applications.

Basically, the point I was trying to make with my post is that x86 phones absolutely would need to install applications via the store. If i'm remembering correctly from the breakout at BUILD, people can still do evil things, but there are protections in place to do things like kill an app if someone is doing nefarious.

 

[WildKarrde]

Forget about Alienware, even dell Inspiron laptops with i5 processors are priced at 60k. If you assemble a decent desktop, you will end up spending the same amount. If you do not trust me, check yourself................................... There was a time when laptops and desktops used different processors. Today they use the same processors.! The only advantage that desktops have over a laptop with similar specs is that desktops can be upgraded easily.
X86 processors like Intel Atom processor may not be as powerful as course i3, but it is at least more powerful than the Qualcomm snapdragon processors. Check out the power ratings and other specs of the two processor families and you will know.

This just isn't true. Have a look at Alienware's website. There's a vast difference in just the laptops, based on the size. An Alienware 18 can pack a whole lot more power than an Alienware 13. A desktop can pack up to 4 video cards, no laptop can do that. Desktops can also pack in more than 128 GB or RAM. Dell made one 6 years ago that could use up to 192 GB. The biggest, baddest Alienware laptop (and it is HUGE) only has 32 GB RAM max. Add in the ability to add multiple CPU's to a desktop, a kick-butt water cooling system, and massive amounts of overclockability, and there is no laptop in the world that can come close to matching the potential of a desktop. Yes, that will be one expensive desktop, but the Alienware 18 can cost as much as $4000... that's not much less than I spent on my car. Comperable laptops from other manufacturers aren't much cheaper.

Another great example are the Surface Pro tablets. Sure, they are pretty sweet, but you could buy a much faster laptop for the $900 that the base model i3 SP4 costs.

 

[HeyCori]

Nobody is talking about making a phone match the power of a PC. More like making a phone match the power of a good netbook. The heierarchy of PC's will never change. Desktop > Laptop > Tablet > Phone. Doesnt mean that tomorrow we cant have a phone as powerful as todays tablets, it just means thay tomorrows tablets will likely be more powerful too. x86 doesnt automatically mean the phone will be super powerful.

Haven't phones already surpassed old school netbooks? :grin: