The laptop in question was a 1.6 Ghz Core Solo with 2 Gb of memory and integrated graphics. Even with x86 outperforming ARM at similar clockings etc., a current generation quad core 1.5 Ghz tablet will probably be in a similar performance range as that laptop.
But you are right in that I am comparing a mid range laptop from 2006 with a top of the line tablet in 2012, which is unfair. However, it does not alter the argument much: Tablet/phone processors are getting fast enough for desktop work.
As an aside, it does not really matter if future tablets will run ARM or x86. What matters is that we are talking about slim, light devices that can not afford laptop caliber batteries or active cooling.
Even a 1.6 Ghz Core Solo with 2Gb of memory will outperform a 1.5 ghz quad-core tegra 3 tablet with 1gb of memory(low power ddr3 memory is very expensive and unused ram still consumes power) for about any day-to-day task, software very specifically crafted for the tegra 3 soc aside.
The instruction sets and core design are just not as performance oriented on those ARM chips.
To put insult to injury, especially on mobile there are not many apps that use the multi-core capabilitys of those quad-core cpu's very well, even the Android OS is not very optimised in the sense that modern Desktop OSes are. That is one of the major reasons why a dual-core A15 SOC is faster than a Quad-Core A9... There is no true multi-threading available in browsers, thats why Intels Medfield chips win handsdown all browser benchmarks. Having a fast single-core with hyper threading is obviously going to kick a lot of ass in the browser department.
But you are right in that I am comparing a mid range laptop from 2006 with a top of the line tablet in 2012, which is unfair. However, it does not alter the argument much: Tablet/phone processors are getting fast enough for desktop work.
As an aside, it does not really matter if future tablets will run ARM or x86. What matters is that we are talking about slim, light devices that can not afford laptop caliber batteries or active cooling.