Digital Home Thoughts: Intel Previews Upcoming Atom Developments

"Intel renewed its netbook push Tuesday with the formal announcement of its next-generation Atom platform, codenamed Pine Trail. The details of Pine Trail, including the late 2009 launch date, had already been widely leaked, and today's disclosure provided little new information. But for those who haven't followed the Pineview leaks, I'll break down the details of what was announced."

Ars Technica provides a good glimpse on what we can expect from Intel in the netbook market over the coming months and to be honest, I have to say that I am disappointed. The changes Intel is making smells more of protecting their netbook marketshare instead of pushing for innovation. What really surprised me is how Intel is pricing their solution, making more powerful solutions such as the NVidia ION far more expensive. I was hoping that Intel would come up with something dazzling which would help shake up the netbook market, but now I think that the only netbooks I'll be considering or recommending for the next year will be those based on ION. While 3D performance is not required for most of what netbooks do now, I'm finding it becoming increasingly important. From casual games to Google Earth, the 3D boost is definately worth the extra power consumption.