Intel is looking to loosen ARM’s grip on the mobile market with Haswell, the recently unveiled successor to its hugely popular Ivy Bridge architecture. The company says that Haswell chips are smaller, faster and consume less energy – three major selling points that management hopes will catch the attention of mobile device manufacturers.

This week, Intel revealed that it has started shipping the Haswell Core i3-4012Y, a 1.5GHz dual core processor with a power draw of 4.5 watts. This figure translates into as much as 50 percent more battery life than previous Core chips, a massive increase that can potentially add a lot of value to customers.

The i3-4012Y is designed for smartphones, tablets, hybrid devices and laptops. In the latter use case, the chip uses up 11.5 watts of power – still a good deal considering the platform includes 3MB of on-board cache and Intel HD 4200 Graphics.

The cache and integrated graphic processor are also included in the i3-4012Y and the 1.5GHz Core i3-4020Y, two other members of the Haswell product family that started shipping this week. The former packs 1.3GHz while the latter delivers 1.5GHz, and both consume 6 watts under Intel’s Scenario Design Power measurement.

Microsoft, which recently acquired Nokia’s mobile business for a massive $7.18 billion, stands to benefit from Intel’s big push into the low-power chip market. The software behemoth needs to set its Windows 8.1 tablets apart from existing products in order to make gains against Google and Apple. This is true on both the hardware and the software side.

Recognizing the need to differentiate, Microsoft recently announced a major update for the Windows 8.1 version of Xbox Music. Starting October 17, users will have access to a tool that automatically generates playlists based on the contents of selected web pages.