Intel’s Atom processors have always been designed as low power chips, made to offer long battery life and decent performance for basic computing tasks. They’re also low cost, making them ideal for the netbook market.  But this emphasis on energy consumption rather than performance explains why there’s been so little change in the performance of netbook chips over the last 3 years. The differences in benchmark scores for the Intel Atom N270, N280, N450, and N455 processors are hardly noticeable.

However, is the last year,  dual-core netbook chips such as the Intel Atom N550 and N570, with higher performance ontasks that can fully take advantage of multi-core processors. But 3D and HD graphics performance has been pretty stagnant… until now.

VR-Zone has published some of the first benchmarks of Intel’s upcoming Cedar Trail platform. The next-generation Intel Atom chips are designed for netbooks, and they score 2-3 times higher on the 3DMark06 benchmark than any Atom processor available today.

Intel has officially introduced a new low power Atom N435 processor for budget netbooks. Intel’s announcement  comes after Asus announced their budget netbook, theAsus Eee PC X101 $200 netbook and the Lenovo IdeaPad S100, both which use the chip. PC World reports that Acer will also offer a netbook with the new chip soon.

The Intel Atom N435 is a 1.33 GHz single core chip with 512K of cache and an estimated TDP of about 5W.. As expected, it’s basically the newest and slowest member of the Intel Atom Pine Trail family. The next step up the ladder are the 1.66 GHz Intel Atom N450 and N455 chips which were introduced last year and which have TDP’s of 5.5W and 6.5W respectively.

The key marketing point of the Atom N435 is price. It’s  a budget chip which makes dirt cheap netbooks possible, especially in combination with the open-source (and free) MeeGo Linux, an operating system optimized for Atom and other low power chips.

Asus has brought out an updated version of it’s popular Eee PC T101MT convertible tablet.  At launch, the netbookt featured a 1.66 GHz Intel Atom N450 single core processor.   Now, the new version of the Eee PC T101MT will comes with Intel’s lastest and best performing Atom chip yet, the1.66 GHz Intel Atom N570 dual core chip.

The rest of the specs are largely the same, with the laptop supporting up to 2GB of RAM, and 320GB of disk space. The convertible tablet will come with 4 and 6 cell battery options. The new model was unveiled at an event in Italy, where Asus says the computer will be available in mid-April for about 499 Euros.

The Eee PC T101MT will run Windows 7 Home Premium in Italy — but while last year’s model was available with Windows 7 Home Premium in Europe, it shipped with Windows 7 Starter Edition in the US. There’s no word on whether the new model will be available in the US or what OS it would run if and when it comes to the States.

Some retailers are already starting to show listings for the new model. Lamda-Tek is charging £451.93 (including VAT) for the Eee PC T101MT with an Atom N570 processor in the UK.

via Eee PC.it and Notebook Italia

Notebook Italia did spot a new version of one most popular Asus netbooks – the Eee PC 1001PX and it looks like will get a modest spec bump and slight name change at the CeBIT trade show next month.

The new version is called the Eee PC 1011PX and looks virtually identical to today’s Eee PC 1001PX, but it trades the Intel Atom N450 processor for a 1.66 GHz Intel Atom N455 chip. The netbook has 1GB of DDR3 memory, a 250GB hard drive, 802.11b/g/n WiFi, and runs Windows 7 Starter Edition.

Does the Atom N455 processor and support for DDR3 memory make a big difference? Not really. But odds are that Asus will phase out the Eee PC 1001PX and replace it with the new model for a similar price in the coming months.

Russian PC maker iRU has a new netboo running the MeeGo operating system called the iRU Intro 102.  The netbook has a 1.66 GHz Intel Atom N450 processor, GMA 3150 graphics, a 10.1 inch, 1024 x 600 pixel display, 1GB of RAM, a 160GB hard drive, WiFi, Bluetooth, an SD card slot, and weighs about 2.4 pounds.

The iRU Intro 102 might make an attractive option for those that don’t want to pay for a Windows license they don’t expect to use. Unfortunately I have no idea if these netbooks will be released outside of Russia.

via Netbook News.de

The SunBook from Clover Systems is the first 10 inch netbook to ship with a Pixel Qi transflective display. The Pixel Qi display lets one use a netbook normally – as in  full color mode for viewing pictures, watching movies, or doing just about anything else you’d expect to do on a netbook. But you can also kill the backlight to view the display in a sunlight-readable high contrast, low power mode.  When you shut off the backlight, when it looks like a netbook with an E Ink-style display.

Unfortunately that Pixel Qi screen comes at a cost. The SunBook went on sale this weekend for $795 (in the US).  And, the rest of the specs are pretty much standard netbook fare including a 10.1 inch 1024 x 600 pixel display, 1.66 GHz Intel Atom N450 processor, 1GB of RAM, and a 250GB hard drive. The computer runs Windows 7 Starter and has a touchpad with multitouch gesture support, 3G and 4G options, and a battery which Clover Systems says is good for 8 to 12 hours of run time.

Check out Liliputing’s hands-on video after the break.

Lenovo introduced IdeaPad S100 netbook, and the company promised it would be available with up to an Intel Atom N570 processor. At the time, Intel hadn’t yet made the new chipavailable, and we didn’t have any information about what makes the N570 different from existing Atom chips. Today, DigiTimes reports that the N570 chip should launch at the end of February.  According to the report, Lenovo, Asus, and Samsung will all introduce computers with the new chip in March.

Currently, the Intel web site only shows one chip in the N500 family — the dual core 1.5GHz Intel Atom N550. It’s likely that the N570 will be a similar chip with a faster clock speed and like Netbook News, we think it  will run at 1.66 GHz.

Intel is expected to launch its next-generation Cedar Trail and Oak Trail chips later this year. The N570 is likely just a minor spec bump for an existing product — much as the Atom N470 was a modest update to the N450 chip last year.

Coby’s booth at CES was full of tablets this year,  but netbooks were harder to find.  But, there was at least one netbook present – the Coby NBPC1029.

Spec-wise, the NBPC1029 is nothing special. It has a 10.2 inch, 1024 x 600 pixel display, a 1.66GHz Intel Atom N450 processor, 1GB of RAM, 160GB hard drive, 802.11b/g WiFi, 0.3MP, and 3 cell, 2200mAh battery. It runs Windows 7 Starter Edition.

But it also has a pretty attractive design with a slightly angular case, nice wide keys on the keyboard, and an attractive chrome edge and buttons by the touchpad (although the “buttons” are actually just one button with a rocker in between and they’re not as easy to press as I would like).

There’s no word on pricing, but Coby does have a product page for the NBPC1029 on its web site.

The annual CES show is upon us again next month, and most netbook manufacturers are expected to unveil new lines of netbooks there.  Until then,  Asus appears to be going through its current lineup and offering a few spec bumps here and there. For example, NetbookNews.de noticed that the Eee PC 1008P has gotten a spec bump from it’s single core N450 processor, to the dual core Intel N550 atom.

The upgraded Eee PC 1008p can be seen here at Amazon Germany, although it’s referenced as a 1.6GHz chip, even though the Atom N550 is actually a 1.5GHz dual core processor. The spec sheet attached which clearly describes the computer as coming with a 1.5GHz Intel Atom N550 dual core processor.  It’s available in pink or brown lid, and sells for 399 Euros.

Remember the Toshiba NB520, a new 10 inch netbook with a dual core Intel Atom N550 processor and Harmon Kardon stereo speakers that we reported on the other day?   Well, it looks like Toshiba has another new netbook up its sleave.=The company has also introduced the NB500, which features a similar design, but on the more budget end of the scale.

The Toshiba NB500 has the same colorful lid options as its pricier sibling but this model drops the fancy Harman Kardon speakers for more regular netbook offerings.   Netbook News reports that the NB500 also lacks the ability to charge your phone or other gadget through a USB port when the netbook is turned off.

The netbook’s procsessor is also a less powerful  Intel Atom N450 CPU (more battery life will be a bonus though). The rest of the specs are pretty much par for the course, including a 10.1 inch 1024 x 600 pixel display, 1GB of RAM, a 250GB hard drive, 802.11b/g/n WiFi, and a 6 cell battery.

You can check out the press release here, but no word yet on pricing or UK availability.

via Notebook Italia