Posted 03/05/10 at 07:34:50 AM by Paul Lilly

Intel's Atom platform isn't just for fun and play, at least not anymore. The No. 1 chip maker on Thursday launched its first Atom processor-based platform designed specifically for home networks and small office/home office (SOHO) storage devices.

"NAS systems have traditionally been found in businesses to manage, store and access data," said Seth Bobroff, general manager, Intel Data Center Group, Storage. "Today, households and small offices have an ever-increasing number of computers, laptops, netbooks and mobile phones that create and consume digital content. This advancement in mobility coupled with the explosive growth of data and media are creating the need for centralized, easy-to-use network storage solutions for the home and small office."

Available in both single core (D410) and dual-core (D510) flavors, Intel says you can expect up to a 50 percent power reduction compared to the company's previous generation Atom processors.

Other features of the new platform include six PCI Express lanes, 12 USB 2.0 ports, a port multiplier function, and eSATA ports.

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Posted 03/01/10 at 08:18:15 AM by Paul Lilly

We saw this one coming before the weekend, and just as we expected, Intel today officially took the wraps off of its new Atom N470 processor.

"This new, faster Atom processor for netbooks has integrated graphics built directly into the CPU to help enable improved performance and smaller, more energy-efficient designs or the popular netbook category," Intel said.

No big surprises here, at least not in terms of technical specs. The new single-core chip runs at 1.83GHz and features 512KB of L2 cache and DDR2-667 support. According to Intel, expect to see all the major OEMs introduces systems built around this new chip in the coming months.

What does come as a surprise, however, is that some netbook makers are already looking beyond the N470. According to Liliputing.com, some netbooks on display at CeBIT this week are equipped with eve newer Atom parts, including the N455 and N475. There aren't a whole lot of details on these higher-numbered chips, but from what we can tell, they look to add features like DDR3 support and Broadcom rather than faster clockspeeds.

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Posted 02/26/10 at 08:45:11 PM by Ryan Whitwam

It’s no secret that Intel’s Atom chips are a bit on the slow side. While we certainly like the battery efficiency, a bit more power would be great. It appears Intel is willing to appease us, and the announcement may come on Monday. Intel is expected to introduce the Pine Trail based Atom N470, which will be nearly the same as the N450, but clocked at 1.83GHz instead of 1.66GHz. We also heard a while back that the N470 netbooks would be allowed double the memory of the N450 units. We'll have to wait until Monday to see if that's still the case. It’s not a lot, but with Atom right at the edge of usability, every little bit helps.

Atom chips have been in high demand ever since netbooks took the PC market by storm. Atom offers lower power consumption than the previous low-power solution, the Core 2 ULV, but lags behind in processing power because of it. The N450 was released late last year, and quickly found its way into consumer products. Intel expects an equally speedy adoption of the N470. No word on if you will pay much of a premium for the new Pine Trail chip.

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Posted 02/23/10 at 07:56:03 AM by Paul Lilly

German website NetbookNews.de discovered something rather interesting about Lenovo's ThinkPad X100e. As it currently stands, the X100e sports an 11.6-inch screen with a 1366 x 768 display, AMD Neo MV-40 single-core CPU, and ATI Radeon HD 3200 graphics, but an overhaul might be in order.

NetbookNews.de stumbled upon the X100e's support page, which showed a different set of specs next to the above. The alternate specs included a 10.1-inch screen with a 1280 x 720 display and Intel Atom N450 processor. In other words, a smaller version built around Pine Trail.

Adding to the mystery, Lenovo has since revised the support page removing all traces of Pine Trail. Was it an honest-to-goodness mistake or a sneak peek of things to come?

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Posted 02/22/10 at 03:24:50 PM by Bart Salisbury

The Highlander battle among chip manufacturers has started anew. This time it’s among the makers of chips that run smartphones. Besides initiating a new round of cutthroat competition, this battle suggests that computing is undergoing a substantive conceptual shift--from units that are all powerful to ones that are strategically powerful.

The objective is to make more powerful chips that consume less energy, and take up less space, with the intent of creating products that are smaller and less functional than their PC brethren, but are more in-tune to the particular needs of their users. The big players include the well known, such as Intel, ARM, Samsung, AMD, and Apple, and the lesser known, such as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing, Microelectroincs, and GlobalFoundaries. The money being spent in this competition totals in the tens of billions.

These chips are prevalent in smartphones, and they are working their way into netbooks, tablets and eReaders, where the current PC processor OS restriction doesn’t apply. This means that a whole new world of computing potential will be showcased as this little war plays itself out. It also means there will be some multi-billion dollar casualties along the way.

Suggested by this is the concept of computing shifting to address the particular, rather than the general, needs of users. If this market becomes economically attractive it might lead to a decrease in attention to the higher end, which in turn could mean slower development of the ‘hot’ technology that currently drives the market.

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Posted 02/18/10 at 08:02:31 PM by Ryan Whitwam

An ARM-based netbook running Ubuntu could be in your future with the newest version of  Ubuntu Netbook Edition. Much like Windows, the popular Linux distro did not previously have support for ARM processors. This meant you’d only see Ubuntu on Atom-based netbooks, a category dominated by Windows. With the anticipated flood of ARM packing “smartbooks” expected to materialize, the devs got to work rewriting Ubuntu.

According to Ubuntu’s Jamie Bennet, the problem was that Ubuntu Netbook Edition required 3D graphics drivers that didn’t exist for ARM chips. They got around this by employing 2D Enlightenment Foundation Libraries to fake a 3D interface. We’re hearing that you won’t be able to tell the difference in the interface.  If true, that’s a big win for smartbooks and Ubuntu.

This may be the space that Ubuntu specifically, and Linux in general, can succeed in. Windows is completely locked out of the smartbook game until such time as Redmond gets around to adding ARM support. Don’t expect that to happen anytime soon. Is an Ubuntu smartbook something you’d buy?

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Posted 02/17/10 at 08:06:17 PM by Ryan Whitwam

It hasn’t been that long since Intel released their updated Pine Trail Atom chips, but already there are some indications they may be refreshing the Atom platform. The word is that Intel’s new core is called “Oak Trail”. These new chips would replace the ailing ultra low-power Atom Z series. These are the Z5xx chips we’ve seen in the likes of the Sony Vaio P and Asus Eee PC T91MT tablet.
 
Atom N450 and N470 are the most common versions of the Pine Trail chips, most often found in netbooks. The Atom N series chips are higher power and not in danger of being replaced. The Oak Trail chips are said to consume much less power, but still remain capable of running a Windows device. Still no firm details, but it’s probably still safe to buy products running the N series Atom chips.

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Posted 02/09/10 at 08:01:05 AM by Paul Lilly

What a strange and topsy-turvy world we live in when a competing product from Apple can be considered a bargain next to its PC (as in, Windows) counterpart. What are we talking about?

Behold Netbook Navigator's Nav 9, the new 9-inch tablet which sticks it to Apple's iPad with the ability to multitask. But at $1,200, you had to be seriously committed to multitasking, because you would have been paying twice as much as Apple's entry-level iPad.

Wondering what's with the past tense? Well, the Nav 9 has been given a recent price drop bringing the base model down to a more affordable $799. Still expensive, but a lot easier to swallow than its previous price point.

What that gets you is an 8.9-inch 1024 x 600 multitouch display, an Intel Atom N270 processor, Intel GMA950 graphics, a 16GB SSD, 2GB of RAM, 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, LAN, 3 USB ports, a MiniSD card slot, SIM card slot, Windows 7 Home Premium, and a 3-cell battery. In other words, it's a netbook that's been flattened out, though at 10 x 6.6 x .8 inches, we hesitate to overstate its flatness.

If you're dead set on paying a premium, there are several higher priced models, the most expensive of which checks in at $1,399 and includes a 128GB SSD.

Netbook Navigator's Tablet Comparison Chart

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