Analysis: Dell has dragged the Linux-ARM Trojan horse inside the Wintel PC

LONDON — The idea of adding smartphone capability to the conventional notebook PC may seem like a bit of a gimmick at first sight. But the idea of doing email and other basic operations while increasing battery life by a factor of ten compared with the same operations on an Intel processor certainly appeals.

And that seems to be what Dell and some other computer makers are doing when they adopt a hybrid Intel-ARM twin-processor approach.

The Dell Latitude E4200 and E4300 laptop computers run a version of Linux as an "instant-on" operating system on ARM-based hardware with flash memory. This subsystem is separate to the main Windows Vista or Windows XP operating system running on an Intel Core2 Duo processor. In theory, users can do email and other light applications under Linux, Mozilla and so on, and only need switch to the Windows operating system and the Intel processor for the heavier applications.

It seems to be universally agreed that games are amongst the heaviest applications.

As you get closer to the idea, it becomes apparent that the twin-OS/twin-processor arrangement is clever — including as it does access to application databases while bypassing the Windows operating system — but is slightly more fraught than is ideal.

Some notebook reviewers have castigated some of the implementations of the instant-on feature as not living up to expectations. But in principle most people "get it" and realize that different executions will follow and provide the Wintel combine with competition on an application-by-application basis. For processor technology licensor ARM Holdings plc this is a marketing boon that may help it dent the penetration of Intel's Atom in the netbook market.

Things are especially good for ARM because users are getting to compare a power-efficient ARM platform, probably one designed for a smartphone, with a relatively power-hungry Intel processor, which may start tipping buyers towards favoring an ARM-powered PC or netbook.

I don't know what specific ARM processor has been designed into the LatitudeON hardware — a reader may be able to supply that information — but it could be something like an OMAP2 device from Texas Instruments which would include an ARM11 processor core, or possibly an OMAP3, which includes the Cortex-A8 processor core. If you look at the Beagle Board from Texas Instruments and Digi-Key, you can get a feel for what can be achieved in a 3-inch x 3-inch card that has all the functionality of a basic computer with an OMAP3530 that runs either Windows CE or Linux.

And it is pretty clear why this could be so good for ARM. It allows its processors to compete head-to-head against Intel. If you can get ten times the battery life out of the sub-system for basic operations such as email — which is what many of us spend a lot of our time doing — then pretty soon users will start questioning why they are bothering to switch the Wintel part of the PC on at all.

And then they may question why they bought a Wintel PC. There are still reaons but they are more about Windows than Intel.