As many of you may be aware by now, Intel’s 7th-gen processors, codenamed Kaby Lake, will be arriving on the laptops shortly. However, controversy surrounding the chips have erupted and it has to do with the branding of the Core m series
Up until today, Intel’s 4.5-watt processors for the laptops have been branded under the Core m series such as the Core m3, m5 and m7. With the Kaby Lake processors, Intel is rumoured to be dumping the Core m5 and m7, opting to name them as the Core i5 and i7 respectively. If this change is true, the only way to identify a regular Core i series chip and a previous Core m series chip is through the SKU numbers. Regular Core i processors will have the processor numbers ending with the letter “U” (e.g. i3-7100U, i5-7200U and so on). Meanwhile, the processors that would be part of the Core m series will have a “Y” in the SKU number (e.g. i5-7Y54, i7-7Y75 and so on). With this change, the only chip that will remain in the Core m series is the m3.
This change in the branding of Intel’s processors wouldn’t really affect those who know their way around hardware, but it would definitely affect the regular buyer who aren’t as well versed in Intel’s processor models. For example, a person may walk into a store and buy a laptop that is powered by an Intel Core i5 processor, only to discover that this isn’t the regular Core i5, but a lower end processor instead.
Long story short, Intel’s decision to change the change the Core m branding of the m5 and m7 chips to the i5 and i7 respectively is going to confuse a lot of people. Hopefully, Intel has decided to backtrack on this decision. If they don’t, we foresee many a lawsuits will be filled over the misleading branding.
Source: LaptopMag