Intel revokes Atom CPU discount from Lenovo, Samsung

According to Digitimes, Lenovo and Samsung has lost their special discount on Atom N270 processors because the two has broken Intel’s “rules” with regards to netbook screen sizes. Lenovo has the 12-inch IdeaPad S12 and Samsung is about to lauch its 11.6-inch N510, although this is as far as we know, exclusivly using the Nvidia ION platform.

We’re curios why this doesn’t apply to Dell and Acer as well, as Dell has had a 12-inch model and Acer have multiple 11.6-inch models under its various brands. However, Intel might just be letting Dell and Acer get away with it, as neither of these models use the Diamondville or N-series Atom processors.

Considering the hefty price Intel is charging for Atom processors that aren’t bought with its 945GSE chipset one has to start wonder if this isn’t all a scheme to get Lenovo and Samsung to shy away from using other solutions in their netbooks.

Lenovo might be even worse off, as the company is also offering a VIA Nano powered model, but then again, Samsung also has its 12-inch VIA Nano powered NC20.

It seems like Intel wants to keep a tight grip on the netbook market, but it might end up backfiring in the end, as people are still very sceptical about the Silverthorne or Z-series Atom processors and as this seems to be the future for Atom with the upcoming Pineview series of processors building on it instead of the Diamondville based N-series of Atom processors which so far most consumers have preferred.

There’s no word with regards to the N280 processor and although it doesn’t offer much of a performance advantage, at least for now, it seems like Lenovo and Samsung might not be penalized for using this CPU.

Lenovo adds VIA Nano powered IdeaPad S12

There has been a little bit of confusion about the Lenovo IdeaPad S12 with regards to what’s going on and it turns out the company is planning multiple SKU’s, something we’d overseen. So the delay (we’ve updated the earlier post) is only for the model with the Nvidia ION chipset.

To our surprise, the pre-order page has been updated and now feature a VIA Nano powered version of the IdeaPad S12 and in a way, this might be the most interesting model, of the three. Lenovo has gone for the Nano ULV 2250 which has 1MB of cache (that’s twice of the Atom) and the CPU is clocked at 1,3GHz on an 800MHz bus. Even though the CPU clock is slower, we’d expect this processor to perform better than the Atom N270.

Lenovo hasn’t listed what chipset it will pair up the Nano CPU with, but it will have Chrome9 HC3 graphics. However, as this graphics solution is used by all Nano compatible chipsets from VIA, we can’t even make an educated guess as ato which chipset will be used.

The remaining features seems to be the same as of the Atom models, with 1GB of memory (oddly listed at 667MHz when 800MHz memory would be the right choice for this platform), the same 12.1-inch 1,280×800 display, a 160GB 2.5-inch hard drive, 802.11b/g WiFi and a 6-cell battery.

Hopefully more details will be out soon, but at $449 the VIA Nano SKU is $50 cheaper than the Atom N270 models with the Intel 945GSE chipset. You can find the product pre-order page here

Interview with Tim Brown from VIA