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Ever since Netbooks arrived on the computer scene about two years ago, they have attracted either the praise or scorn of users. Netbooks are regularly dismissed by analysts and such high-profile industry people as Michael Dell as being too underpowered and too small to be taken seriously.

Yet consumers tell a different story. Some 50 million Netbooks have been sold worldwide over the last two years, according to ABI Research, and while other segments of the PC market suffered over the past year, Netbooks continued to gain market share.

And it appears the underappreciated Netbook is poised to make further gains.

This week Intel unveiled a new version of its Atom processor platform, the N450, which will give Netbooks more power, more versatility and a longer battery life. The biggest new feature is that the Atom will integrate graphics capabilities with the CPU – a tweak that will lower power consumption by as much as 20%. Intel believes the new chip could foster a variety of new types of computing devices, including those that would have fanless and all-in-one designs.

“The Intel Atom processor has fueled an entirely new category of computing over the last year-and-a-half and we think the growth will continue for devices like Netbooks and entry-level PCs built around basic computing and Internet usage models,” Mooly Eden, Intel’s vice president and general manager of the PC Client Group, said in a statement.

Intel said the new chip already has significant momentum with some 80 design wins to date from such leading manufacturers as Acer, Lenovo, Dell, MSI, Toshiba, Samsung, and Fujitsu. While the bulk of the new systems will feature the new Windows 7 Starter or Home Basic operating system, some manufacturers will use the chip with such options as the Moblin Linux operating system.

By incorporating graphics into the CPU, Intel said it has been able to condense the total footprint for the Netbook platform by about 60%. Users should also notice smoother video streaming.

The new Atom chip isn’t likely to replace the market for high-end desktops any time soon, but it does mean Netbooks will gain in functionality and in popularity. Intel said since it introduced the Atom chip in June of 2008, it has shipped some 40 million units for Netbooks. ABI Research forecasts the market is expected to grow into the 100s of millions by 2011.

Comments (1)

	1. 12-27-2009 17:41
	I believe that, given a few more years, the netbooks represent the new face of corporate computing. Their power will be adequate to handle the computing tasks required for most professions while opening up tremendous possibilities for a mobile and distributed workforce, with its associated challenges. The cycle of popular consumer electronics gadget to corporate computing requirement is getting shorter, so there's no doubt that netbooks will become a potent force. The naysayers are protecting their turf rather than anticipating the change, which we've seen with other innovations like the Internet is not always a prudent path. Registered

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