Original title: Yu Hui, Director of Intel's PC Marketing Department: PCs are moving from “looking at parameters” to an era of “re-experience” Source: Titanium Media

Yu Hui, Director of Intel's China PC Market Strategy

Nowadays, more and more consumers are becoming familiar with the various parameters in PCs, and have also learned to independently evaluate PC products using performance testing software such as Master Lu and 3DMark. This makes it possible to create “single explosions” in the market, not only through channel promotion and manufacturer campaigns, but also pay more attention to consumers' independent choices and preferences.

However, from the perspective of long-term development, instead of letting all consumers learn hardware knowledge, it is better to provide a simple and easy-to-understand logo to quickly identify high-quality laptop products. This is exactly what Intel's new Evo platform brand, based on 11th generation Core processors, aims to achieve.

As Yu Hui, Intel's China PC Market Strategy Director, said, “PCs are moving from the stage where performance was judged by parameters in the past and performance was used to measure experience, to a stage where they started from actual scenarios and actual experiences, and selected products with a better experience.”Ultrabooks, Project Athena, Intel's path to mobile PC innovation

Just like smartphones, laptop products also need to move closer to thin and light designs

Looking at the trend of notebook computers, “thin and light” is undoubtedly an important breakthrough direction for cutting-edge technology. The weight of notebook products has moved from 2 kg to 1.5 kg or even less than 1 kg, reflecting the increasingly stringent consumer demand for mobile office time. Just as mobile communication products evolved from “big brother” to smart phones, notebooks also need to continuously meet the needs of efficient production while taking more account of users' travel portability.

Actually, as early as 9 years ago, Intel proposed the concept of an “Ultrabook.” At the time, it only advocated a portable design concept, including reduced body thickness, lighter weight, and longer battery life. At the time, in order to fully optimize the portability of a laptop, the hardware needed to be relied upon was an Intel processor.

Based on the Sandy Bridge architecture processor with the 32nm process and the Ivy Bridge architecture processor with the 22nm process, Intel is promoting the simplification of the design of mobile PCs by further reducing the energy consumption and cooling pressure of notebooks. Driven by this wave, many notebook products have indeed sprung up that have begun to use “thin and light” as a selling point.

The ultrabook concept introduced by Intel has promoted the development of thin and light notebook designs

Yu Hui said, “Since our inception, the mission to drive innovation has given Intel more roles. We have never been just a chip manufacturer, but an industry leader and promoter who can move the industry forward with our ecological partners. Taking Ultrabooks as an example, Intel began proposing the concept of Ultrabooks in 2011 and invested a large amount of budget in marketing. From 2012 to 2014, Ultrabooks had gone from concept to implementation into a large number of marketed products, and became the main driving force in the notebook market.”

In 2019, the “Athena Project” was officially released. If the previous “Ultrabook” was only a guide to the future direction of development, then the launch of the “Athena Project” further clarified the application scenarios of notebook computers and the required improvement in performance.

Mobile Super Edition products are recognized in the market

Intel has redefined the future laptop experience in the “Athena Project,” setting certification standards that are more in line with usage scenarios in the six key innovation areas of immediate work, performance and responsiveness, intelligent performance, battery life, and connectivity to external specifications.

The first to implement this plan into consumer products was the “Mobile Super Edition” series of products launched in the same year, but products that met the standard certification at the time only displayed a visual logo with the words “Mobile Super Edition” on the sales interface, rather than directly affixed to the fuselage.

Therefore, in the process of reaching consumers, the “Mobile Super Edition” series products often appear “not direct enough” — it can neither let consumers understand the performance or performance of the product like the Hi-Res or Dolby certification logo, nor can it have stronger product recognition and hardware awareness like the previous Core series logo. Compared to the consumer side, the Athena Plan and the exploration of “Mobile Super Edition” products have had a more significant impact on Intel's own strategy.Introducing the Intel Evo platform certification to establish an experience-centered reference system

Evo platform logo

“The Athena Plan 2.0 and Intel Evo platform that we launched this year are the best answers to the future direction of laptop development. Among them, Athena Plan 2.0 continues to refine previous product ideas, while the Intel Evo platform uses an independent brand certification logo to enhance consumers' perception of it.” Yu Hui told Titanium Media.

The Evo platform is a certification system launched by Intel. It includes not only obvious performance performance such as network speed, product size and weight, and interface expandability, but also hidden experience dimensions such as system response speed, professional software compatibility, cooling, and battery life optimization.

Ju Shengli, senior product manager of Intel's computer platform, introduced several core experience innovations involved in Intel's Evo platform certification to Titanium Media: 1-second wake-up, Wi-Fi 6 network support, fast charging, 9 hours and longer battery life, and the multi-use expansion provided by the Thunderbolt 4 interface.

These may seem like some parameters or capabilities that can be given by hardware, but in the development process of PC products, it is actually a systematic project. Ju Shengli explained, “Taking the Wi-Fi 6 network as an example, in the entire Evo platform certification, there are clear requirements for the product's signal strength performance, speed performance, and even network resource allocation capabilities. This requires that everything from the antenna design on the product hardware to the final system layer optimization be optimized to ensure that the product passes certification.”

High-load applications such as video editing place higher performance demands on mobile office laptops

As applications in multiple scenarios such as games, creation, and office are all concentrated in this product that weighs less than 1.5 kg, there is no specific score or software in the world that can measure the actual performance of notebook products in most application scenarios. “As a PC industry practitioner and an observer of the future direction of development, Intel has long realized that 'user experience' is more important than 'performance score' in product development.” Yu Hui said.

According to her, “The core of the Evo certification platform is not just about a certain hardware standard, nor is it a performance standard for processors, motherboards, or storage. When formulating this certification, Intel started from the user experience perspective and took into account the detailed performance that high-end business people, creative designers, students, and small and medium-sized enterprise entrepreneurs are most concerned about in notebook use.”

However, if you want to create a unified verification standard for the “user experience,” the level of complexity is far greater than the verification performance. To this end, Intel has opened three laboratories around the world dedicated to testing related products, and has formulated more than 70 pages of testing standards and specifications, covering a total of 31 categories, with a total of more than 100 indicators.

Ju Shengli, Senior Product Manager of Computer Platforms at Intel

Thanks to close cooperation with OEMs under the new architecture, Intel can achieve greater technological sharing and gain a proactive advantage in the market. In terms of the speed of deployment of the Evo certified product market, Intel is already working with OEMs such as Asus, Lenovo, and Dell.

Yu Hui told Titanium Media: “By the end of this year, more than 20 products certified by the Evo platform will be on the market. Innovative notebook products that provide a better experience for these notebooks will be launched. At the same time, Intel hopes that users can experience the product more from the experience rather than rely on performance parameters to judge the product.”The dual identity of technology companies: chip manufacturers and industry drivers

Evo certified notebook products

Whether it's CPUs used in PCs, SoCs in mobile devices, or even server core products, for most consumers, the first impression that comes to mind when they mention “Intel” is still a processor chip supplier. However, in reality, the business that Intel has touched is far more than “chip products.” On the industrial side, since establishing a data-centered development strategy, Intel's business line has covered various fields such as storage, data processing, and cloud services.

On the product side, in addition to the continuous iteration of processor products such as Intel Core and Xeon, the Optane series storage solutions and SSD storage products for various scenarios have also been launched. Therefore, Intel's position in the PC field and the business it has touched has far surpassed the chip supply business. The launch of the Evo platform has also once again clarified Intel's dual identity. It is not only a leading chip supplier, but also an industry driver that continues to pursue perfection.

In the long run, in addition to enhancing Intel's own industrial position and bringing consumers a better product experience, the value of the Evo platform is also a platform for further deepening cooperation between Intel and notebook OEM manufacturers and even the upstream supply chain. Through the integration of the entire PC industry chain, it can enhance the product experience in multiple dimensions such as systems, interface design, and input forms.

11th generation Core processor and xEGPU architecture

For Intel, this move is also conducive to further exploiting the existing advantages of its own chips, such as guiding manufacturers to fully explore the graphics power of the Xe graphics card architecture of the 11th generation Core processors, integrated Wi-Fi 6 modules, touch chips, etc. Thus, products equipped with Intel hardware can obtain more in-depth optimization capabilities, and form deep bonds with OEM manufacturers to jointly explore more possibilities for notebook development using resources from both parties.

“Here, I can also share a specific case with you. Among the OEM manufacturers cooperating with Intel, there is one model of product that, under the joint design and optimization of both parties, the final battery life of the product increased by 20%, the cooling capacity increased by 28%, and the size of the motherboard and original components reduced by 18%.” Yu Hui said.

In the future, the marketing strategy of the Evo platform will be more in line with younger consumer trends, and at the same time, it will continue to strengthen in-depth partnerships with OEMs. Yu Hui said, “In this era where multi-dimensional experience is emphasized, Intel believes that experience innovation can be achieved through Evo platform certification, and product breakthroughs can be driven through the integration of the PC industry chain.”(This article debuted on the Titanium Media App, author: Deng Jianyun, editor: Xiang Ou)