It has been a while since Intel used a naming strategy to define standards. Things like “Intel Inside” had a significant marketing impact and helped Intel achieve a dominant market position. Now Intel wants to “revive” its glory days with a campaign called “Project Athena”.
Project Athena is a set of standards that Intel wants to set for laptops. By looking at the list of requirements, it can be inferred that Intel wants to set some rules for what it means to be a mainstream laptop:
- 16+ hours of local video playback, 9+ hours of real-world performance and 4 hours worth of battery time to be charged in less than 30 minutes;
- A Core™ i5 or i7, 8GB DRAM in dual channel mode, 256GB NVMe SSD and an Intel Optane upgrade option;
- Fast connectivity with Thunderbolt 3, Wi-Fi 6 Gig+ and Gigabit LTE upgrade option;
- Slim, 12-15″ touchscreen display at 1080p or better resolution and narrow bezels on 3 sides;
- Biometric login and a wake from sleep time that is less than 1 second.
So what is Intel trying to accomplish with this “Project Athena”? Intel claims that machines which are certified will help users know they are getting excellent specifications and will ease their purchase decision making. Also, by placing the Intel logo on all these machines, Intel its getting some positive publicity that it engineers laptops for “Mobile Performance”. Between “Project Athena” and “Intel Inside” there is no difference from a marketing standpoint. Additionally, laptop retailers get to stick “Engineered for MOBILE PERFORMANCE” on their machines which should give them a positive spin. However, similar AMD machines will not get to wear this badge so it will place AMD at a disadvantage.
There are already some manufacturers that applied to this program: Acer, Dell, HP, Lenovo, Google, Microsoft, Asus, Samsung and Xiaomi.
In theory, many laptops on the market are compatible with “Project Athena” standard, so its no surprise that some laptops already have the certification:
Certification or no certification, thanks to Noteb.com search engine, here is a complet list of all laptops that are “Project Athena” certifiable.
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