Intel Clover Tail-based Windows 8 tablets expected to hit the shelves by November 2012
CNET reports that Microsoft’s next-generation of Windows will be ready as early as November, first shipping on tablets and hybrid devices.
The first batch of Windows 8 tablets are rumored to rely on Intel’s soon to be released Clover Tail Atom chips, providing backwards compatibility for most legacy apps. It’s looking like “more than 50 percent” of the devices will in fact be hybrids, that is, in between a laptop and tablet, essentially.
Microsoft has made it clear that Windows 8 is designed to be platform-agnostic, and a lot of hardcore Windows users have been showing angst towards the company’s decision to go in that direction with its primary desktop OS, but this could be the perfect solution to drawing in more otherwise uninterested consumers.
Personally, I like the idea of having the same OS across mobile and desktop devices – it’s one of the first tablet-compatible OSs to come stock with a full-fledged file browser. That alone is enough to win me over, but I already love Windows 8 anyway.
Some major benefits of the Clover Tail chipsets are their extended battery life at over 9 hours of continuous use and 30 days standby, along with 3G and LTE support, and their overall small size.
[CNET]
