Intel Showcases First Project Athena Laptops
After first announcing the program at CES and providing additional details in May, Intel this week announced that the first laptops that meet the company’s Project Athena certification will soon hit the market. During the IFA trade show in Berlin on Tuesday, Intel teased the impending launch of Project Athena systems from several of its manufacturing partners, including Acer, ASUS, Dell, HP, Lenovo, MSI, and Razer.
Project Athena is Intel’s name for its latest “innovation program” which drives its hardware and software partners to design laptops that meet certain “key experience indicators” (KEI), such as consistent responsiveness on battery, at least 9 hours of battery life under real-world conditions, and instant-on responsiveness. In other words, the goal is to create thin and light laptops that are powerful enough for advanced tasks and efficient enough to offer all-day battery life. Systems that meet these criteria will receive marketing from Intel with an “Engineered for Mobile Performance” identifier.
The specific laptop models thus far awarded Project Athena certification include:
- Dell Inspiron 14 5000
- Dell Latitude 7400 2-in-1
- Dell XPS 13 2-in-1
- HP EliteBook x360 830
- HP EliteBook x360 1030 G4
- HP EliteBook x360 1040
- Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon 7th Gen
Project Athena systems will be powered by Intel’s 10th Gen Core mobile processors, including the 10nm Ice Lake and 14nm Comet Lake platforms. With other required features such as Wi-Fi 6 Gig+ and NVMe storage, expect Project Athena systems to land on the higher end of the pricing spectrum.
Intel’s last major effort to steer the development of the laptop industry was its Ultrabook initiative in 2012, which had a significant effect on the market, even for systems that failed to meet the program’s specifications. At the least, Project Athena may help further promote realistic battery life estimates in laptop marketing.
