Thankfully, it appears that market leaders Intel Corp. and Advanced Micro Devices Inc. understand this shortcoming and are moving to address it. Both last year and this year, the all-important notion of performance-per-watt has dominated the spotlight. Greater performance-per-watt results in cooler inside temperatures and increased power efficiencies. For laptops, both of these elements are critical, and addressing them usually translates into longer battery life.

Typically, laptop processor speeds have increased at the cost of battery life. However, with last year's release of its mobile Core 2 Duo processors, Intel made great strides in increasing performance while decreasing power consumption. But can the chip giant keep it up?

Considering how important the mobile computing category is to overall profits, it's clear that AMD will have to deliver some substantially better products to make a dent in Intel's dominance. Can AMD deliver?

Keep reading for details -- including a surprising and novel approach to CPU design by AMD.

Intel pushes its lead