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.

Sony dumps VAIO P pricing in Taiwan

It seems like Sony’s VAIO P isn’t selling too well, as the company has just dropped the price of its entry level model in Taiwan to a somewhat more affordable €495/$690. It’s still not even close to what most other companies charge for their netbooks, but it’s a start.

What you get for your money is the VGN-P13TH/Q SKU, which includes an Atom Z520 at 1.33GHz, 2GB of RAM, a 60GB 1.8-inch hard drive and all the other usual VAIO P features. A similar model is retailing for $900 in the US. If this isn’t quite up to scratch, you could opt for the €585/$810 VGN-P23T/W SKU which ups the processor to an Atom Z530 at 1.6GHz and the hard drive to an 80GB model.

The SSD models are still expensive in Taiwan, but it will be interesting to see if Sony follows suit in other parts of the world and drop the pricing of the VAIO P there too.

Archos launches the 9 pctablet UMPC/MID

Not only did Archos launch a new netbook last night, but they also launched a new, well, we’re not quite sure how to categorize the Archos 9 pctablet, as it’s something of a mix between an MID, a UMPC and a PMP (personal media player).

It has a 9-inch touch screen display, an 80GB hard drive (most likely 1.8-inch), an Atom Z515 processor (it operates at either 800MHz or 1.2GHz and can change on the fly) and most likely the US15W chipset, Bluetooth, WiFi and a built in DVB-T tuner with two antennas. It’s an interesting device in its own right, but it’s likely going to be priced out of most people’s reach for now. It’s expected to hit retail later this autumn. You can find the product page here

More Pineview/Atom N450 details emerge

It’s not even been 24h since the last leak, but already a wealth of additional information about the new Atom N450 has made its way online. Thanks to HKEPC we now have a full breakdown of the specifications of not only the N450 for mobile use, but also the desktop D410 (single core) and D510 (dual core). The good news is that the TDP of the N450 is down from 16W of the N270 to a mere 7W and the average power draw is down from 4W to 2W.

Thanks to the chipset redesign, we’ll see netbooks with a 4-layer PCB design rather than today’s 6-layer design, which will allow for lower costs. The reduced TDP also means that the N450 doesn’t need fan cooling which will simplify the cooling design and further lower costs. The core clock speed will stay the same at 1.66GHz, although the N450 supports DDR2 667MHz memory which might lead to a small performance boost.

The bad news you ask? Well, for starters the NM10 Express chipset will feature the GMA500, the same integrated graphics solution (IGP) as found in the US15W chipset that gets paired up with the Z-series Atom processors (also known as Silverthorne) and this graphics solution has a terrible reputation for poor video performance. Now this is something that can hopefully be solved by more mature drivers, but we’ll just have to wait and see what Intel does to address this problem. At least the clock speed of the IGP is said to be 200MHz which is faster than the IGP of the 945GSE chipset which is clocked at 133MHz, but this doesn’t really mean much without some real world benchmark figures.

A lot less is known about the desktop parts, but but will be clocked at 1.66GHz and the dual core D510 should arrive in the 4th quarter of this year alongside the mobile N450. The single core D410 won’t arrive until the first quarter of 2010 if this information is correct. None of the new Atom processors will supports Intel’s virtualization technologies, but this wasn’t really expected, but all three models support 64-bit operating systems, although the 2GB memory limitation makes this kind of moot. You can find the HKEPC article here in Chinese.

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