UK Netbook Review

Intel is preparing to launch apps designed for netbooks at the Mobile World Congress in Spain next week. They have been created to show off Intel’s new Intel Atom Developer Program and, taking a page from Apple, their new AppUp Center application store for netbooks. The idea is to offer programs for Windows and Linux netbooks that are optimized for devices with small screens and Atom processors.

Adobe released a pre-release version of its Flash Player 10.1 last night which adds hardware support for HD Flash video. That means, if you have a supported video card, it will now be able to assist in decoding flash video on the web. That translates into more frames per second when watching Youtube, Hulu or any other site utilizing flash video. Now, watching 720p, or even 1080p on netbooks won’t be such a choppy affair. Two popular grahics chipsets on netbooks are supported – namely the Nvidia Ion chipset and Intel’s GMA 4500MHD.

Intel has announced a developer application program for Intel Atom based devices such as netbooks. We already know and love Apple’s ‘App Store’ for iPhones and iPods, and now it looks like Intel wants to create something similar for netbooks and other ultra portables.