What is Project Athena and how it affects me?

But what is Project Athena? Well, it’s a collaboration between Intel and the biggest laptop manufacturers in the industry to create the laptops of the future. The main goal is to create improved laptop hardware and software, and offer certitude to users. Remember ultrabooks from back in the day when they first launched? It’s a similar story, but with a lot more guarantees from Intel and OEM manufacturers. If you’re a normal Windows 10 user or even if you’re a power user, this is great news for you. Project Athena will have some important standards that will have to be met by the laptops. That means improved performance, faster boot time and startup, stable connections, and enhanced battery life. Along with all these, there will be an updated annual platform requirements standard, continuous collaboration in an open ecosystem, a comprehensive certification process, and real-world benchmarking. You’ll no longer see shady benchmarks with the brightness all the way down, no Wi-Fi, muted sound, and very little to none CPU usage. No one uses their laptop this way. The benchmarks on Windows 10 will be in real-world condition, with real tasks, as a normal user would have. Speaking of benchmarks, download one of these tools if you want to test your PC’s performance. This means that when you buy a Project Athena certified laptop, you can expect that the claims regarding speed and battery life are accurate.

If I’m just a normal Windows 10 user, what’s in it for me?

Some of the most important features you can expect on Windows 10 are:

Instant-on: inspired by the mobile world, Intel is aiming at a minimum to none boot time. In theory, your Windows 10 laptop should power on instantly, with all the connections available right away. 5G connectivity: all the Athena certified laptops will come with fast, reliable, 5G connectivity. Intel hardware: the certified laptops will also feature the latest and greatest. This means the fastest SSD storage and support for WI-FI 6, along with the latest hardware available. Longer battery life: Intel is aiming at a standard of 9 hours. While this might not seem so impressive, you’ll have to keep in mind that it’s not just a spec on a sheet, but a real-world number that every user owning an Athena certified laptop should achieve.

We also have to mention that not all laptops will be Athena certified. Only those who meet the standards and offer the best experience will pass. You can expect to see some Project Athena certified laptops to start rolling out in Q3 and Q4 of 2019, but the majority will be launched next year. If you’re an Windows 10 user, expect great things in the near future. The guarantees that Athena is offering along with the OS optimizations from Microsoft is a big win for everyone, especially for the average buyer. Opening your PC with Windows Hello will be faster than ever, running Windows 10 apps from the fastest SSD will also be cool, and downloading and uploading on WI-FI 6 will be crazy fast. This is pretty exciting news. A powerful laptop paired with the latest Windows 10? That sound like a great package, thanks to Intel and Microsoft. All that remains is to actually test these laptops with Windows 10 on your own. Are you as excited as we are? Does this new laptop standard means something to you or do you think that it won’t have such a big impact? Leave your answers along with any other questions in the comments section below. You may also want to check out these related posts:

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