Intel’s Haswell Chips Give You 50% More of Everything

By Joe Warner on June 5, 2013

Traditional PCs have been in a world of hurt lately due to the rapid gains made by increasingly powerful and ubiquitous tablets and smartphones. We’re supposedly two years away from when tablets will outsell PCs. Of course, everyone knows you really can’t do anything productive on a tablet or smartphone, but apparently productivity is overrated. All you really need is Vine and Angry Birds.

Still, even if you’re in the traditional PC camp, you must acknowledge one thing. Laptop battery life sucks compared to tablets and phones. Enter Haswell.

PC makers have turned once again to Intel to deliver the latest, awesomest PC chip that will rule them all. On Tuesday of this week, the public was introduced to the 4th generation Intel chips, codenamed “Haswell,” which promise 50% longer battery life compared to the previous generation known as Ivy Bridge. Some 4th gen products are boasting “all-day” power, up to 9 hours or a full workday. Or you can watch three movies on a single charge — take that, tablets and phones!

Some other stats to consider: Haswell chips offer a 15% performance boost and three times more standby time compared to Ivy Bridge. We’ll be seeing thinner form factors and fanless designs, improved laptop/tablet hybrids and higher resolution displays.

From the BBC:

“If someone is typing on their PC, we can literally shut everything down when it’s not being used and then immediately bring it back up again in between the keystrokes,” Navin Shenoy, vice president of the Intel Architecture Group, told the BBC.

“The system is smart enough to know it’s not being used for those nanoseconds. That’s the kind of granular power management at the chip level that we’ve never had before.”

Translation: Nobody cares, but hey, we’ll give it a shot!

For us few traditional PC users out there, 50% more battery life is our call to action, it’s our Gadsden flag, it’s our Alamo. Haswell is our last stand.

What will this 50% more power savings get you, dear old-school PC user? Try these on for size:

50% MORE FREEDOM

Who’s against freedom? No power cable means more freedom. It means bathroom breaks are no longer an impediment for work. It means sleepwalking and Skyping.

50% MORE SLEEP DEPRIVATION

50% more power means hours more of web surfing in bed when you should be asleep.

50% MORE ACCESSORIES

Won’t you have less need for batteries, power cables and cheesy lapdesks with fans? You’d think so. But one thing is certain: never underestimate the power of accessory manufacturers to make more things you don’t need.

50% MORE COFFEE

This super power savings will mean more hours spent at Starbucks watching people who will also be staying there longer, as they pretend to work on their longer-lasting Haswell laptops.

50% MORE INTERNET CATS

50% more power means at least 50% more cat videos. It could be more than that. Really.

Bonus: 50% MORE INTERNET CONSPIRACIES

People will have 50% more power to debate conspiracies, anytime and anyplace. Now combine the two:

About Joe Warner

I'm the senior editor of The CheckOut. I am an aficionado of shiny gadgets and classic Hollywood movies and can also tell you the names of the late '80s Swedish Davis Cup team members.

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