UK Netbook Review

Intel’s next generation Cedar Trail Atom processors for netbooks, tablets, and desktops promise to be much better for graphics, and are due out by year’s end. We already knew that the Cedar Trail platform would support 1080p HD video playback and Blu-ray decoding. Now Chippy at UMPC Portal has some more details. Cedar Trail chips [...]

Intel’s Classmate PC services as a reference design for computer manufacturers to create affordable, durable netbooks for use in schools. To date, more than 4 million Classmates PC computers have been issues and now Intel is getting ready to upgrade the platform.

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.

Fudzilla reports that the chips we’ve been calling ‘Ceder Trail’ will actually be called the Intel Atom N2600 and N2800. The new chips will replace the Atom N4xx and N5xx chips that dominate the netbook space today and feature 32nm design (current Atom chips are built with a 45nm process) which reduces power consumption while offering similar or better performance.

AnandTech has snagged some details about Intel’s upcoming Cedar Trail platform which is apparently on track to launch during the fourth quarter of the year.