Intel reveals notebook and netbook plans for the rest of the year

The netbook formula hasn't evolved much since its inception, still offering largely the same configuration and performance as it ever has. That likely won't change until the end of the summer, with Intel announcing that it's even thinking about retiring the newer Atom N280 processor and GN40 chipset entirely, leaving the older and more common N270 with its 945GSE as the main choice until September, when the new Pineview Atom chips might finally hit production. The company is also creating a whitebox N270-based 8.9-inch netbook that it's shopping around to resellers, again not doing any favors to fans of variety. Moving up to skinny 12- to 13-inch notebooks, Intel is still pushing its CULV architecture, and has its dual-core Calpella platform poised for inclusion in anything with a targeted MSRP of $1,200 and above -- and a release date sometime after the third quarter. That's a few months too late to catch the needy college freshman crowd, Intel.

[sk @ May 12th 2009 7:14AM]

Oh dear, that 945GSE chip set has to go. Intel please replace that crap with something better.

[Leindurstit @ May 12th 2009 7:46AM]

That's what Ion is for.

[Tarnation @ May 12th 2009 8:13AM]

Yeah good luck on ever actually seeing too many Ion products. They aren't exactly flooding the market. Oh and from the reviews I have seen they may not live up to the hype.

[Daza @ May 12th 2009 8:19AM]

That's what Pinview/Tiger are for. September isn't even far away, the lead time for even making these chips is a few months anyway so they're likely going to tape-out soon and start production soon. I am purely speculating but I think the 945SE will disappear from 10" netbooks sooner than you realise.

[sk @ May 12th 2009 9:49AM]

@Leindurstit, this is not as easy as just replacing it with the Ion chipset. Intel strong arms netbook manufacturer into using a combination Atom + 945 Chipset. If you order Atom CPU's only your company is put on the back burner and your prices will go up as well.

[Peter R. @ May 12th 2009 10:23AM]

@ Leindurstit

Well good luck with that, Intel will soon release the next-gen Atom, and we still haven't seen a netbook packin' ION on it's innards. Speaking of Nvidia's ION, I'm really wondering if it will support the new Pineview CPU. The new Atom CPUs will have the northbridge functions integrated directly into the CPU (which includes the GMA 950 GPU). This means no standalone Pineview CPUs for Nvidia's platform, I mean, I really doubt Intel will have a different manufacturing process just to produce standalone Pineviews (which would to help Nvidia ).

[fikhl @ May 12th 2009 10:58AM]

I'm looking forward to Computex next month where we might see some Ion netbooks (hopefully I mean!).

[DR House @ May 12th 2009 7:47AM]

How about you show us actual speeds of Calpella Intel?

If the rumored speeds of Quad 1.6GHZ/1.73GHZ/2.0GHZ is true then you can keep it to yourself Intel
I will take your Dual core 2 Duo 3.06 Releasing this june and for much much cheaper (500$~) there Quad 2GHZ is over 1000$ Alone for companies (HP gonna sell it for over 1500$ lol)

[boomhower @ May 12th 2009 8:49AM]

I need a new notebook this fall. I am hoping for these 32nm nehalem based chips to have a 10% clock for clock advantage. What I want in a machine would be a 2.8Ghz chip with a decent LCD and integrated video for $1000. Next up a 3Ghz chip with a top notch screen in the 15" and 17" formats for under $1500.with an option for a quad at 4200.

[darkmax @ May 12th 2009 8:09AM]

hmm... those prices aren't all that nice.

[mabhatter @ May 12th 2009 12:33PM]

I agree. What's going to happen is that Intel will probably replace the low end "dual core Pentium" brand with Atom. That's the tier that's completely missing in the non-low voltage between $400 and $800, which happens to be MOST of the laptops featured in Microsoft's ads as well. Note that $1200 mark exactly matches how Apple prices it's machines.

It looks like anything not "Centrino" branded is being dropped for Atom.. and Atom prices are rising. Atom has hardware license restrictions from Microsoft as well... to get the UMPC price you can't have certain abilities. So the bottom two rungs will be hard limited to 2GB ram and integrated graphics.

I agree, this isn't good news... Intel is "fixing" competition at the OEMs between it's own processors, much like Microsoft "fixed" the netbook market with the low price XP.

[Tarnation @ May 12th 2009 8:16AM]

Hey Intel haven't you heard we are in a recession, don't think a +$1200 price laptop is going to be a big hit. Oh and when is AMD gonna drop some of that 45nm sauce into the laptop market? Or have they already?

[Patriks7 @ May 12th 2009 12:47PM]

So are you trying to tell me that the recession hasn't affected Intel either?

[qwert @ May 12th 2009 8:35AM]

So do i get this right?
According to intel you are not supposed to get power in a small package.
What about powerfull but small laptops (like the thinkpad x200 or the 12"powerbook)?
seems like "must be able to cut cake" is the only thing a small laptop has to be able to do today :(

qwert

[teasphere @ May 12th 2009 8:40AM]

Yet another case where, us, supposedly smart tech folks screwed ourselves. These things were promised at reasonable prices (~$199) they debut at $300+ and we can't rush out of our mom's basements fast enough to queue up in lines for them *and* they had horrid screen resolutions, terrible keyboards, and poor battery life which we all knew. At that point you have effectively set the price point. *Higher*

Now a few years out, of course they will keep that entry price. They have no reason not to. If we could, for once, control our nerd needs for even a few months after a product release that isn't what was promised... guess what would happen? When will we learn?

[Scarhawk @ May 13th 2009 3:03PM]

If people don't buy at $300, the price goes back up to $600 minimum. Despite the anemic specs, what netbooks show is that a slow computer is good enough for lots of people - kids, the elderly, the unemployed or poor, a second computer that sits there doing torrents all day, whatever. It's not just nerds buying a gadget because they can. If you can get email and web, it's good enough for everyone who doesn't care about HD video, which is almost everyone right now.

Now that netbooks are a real market, Intel is scrambling to both sell into them profitably and lock out others from bombing the margins even lower. That's how they've always done it. You can't expect Intel to be the low-margin leader in any segment ever, it's not in their DNA. Intel managed to convince third world dictators that they don't really want OLPC, they want a "real" Dell/Intel/Windows netbook. So far the plan is working on American consumers also. If you really want cheap you'll have to give up your Intel addiction.

OLPC got one thing right: the only way to get a $100 laptop is to take out all the profit and all the marketing costs. If you run Linux (Android?) on a cellphone chipset that sells by the hundreds of millions, you've got volume pricing as good as it gets, 10x the volume of anything Intel makes. From there the main way to take out more cost is to make the screen and battery small. At some point what you're looking at is an iPhone or Sidekick clone with jacks for external monitor & keyboard for those who can afford them. If you want massively high-volume pricing, you're looking at buying what somebody making $10/day in India would buy, which is a phone, not a computer.

[Peter R. @ May 12th 2009 9:41AM]

If rumors around the net are correct, the Tiger Point chipset will have the same ill-performing GMA 950 GPU, only difference will be a improved clock speed (200MHz versus the current 133MHZ). That's not quite what I was expecting, (how bout a better GPU, ah Intel) but since this is for netbooks it's better than nothing I guess. The best thing to look forward to is probably the new CPU, that should use less power and have better clock speed. Honestly, right now I'm more excited about the new Atom CPUs than ION, since I don't know how bad having a 9400M in a netbook would affect it's overall battery life. If placing the ION platform in a netbook like the Samsung N110 will drop it's battery life from 7 hours to 4, then I can forget that.

[fikhl @ May 12th 2009 9:52AM]

In other words, Intel is "recommending" consumers those laptops that are more powerful,have bigger screens and of course have higher profit margins. Screw you Intel, I hate you.

[studioerlik @ May 12th 2009 9:57AM]

Looking at the roadmap I think that for netbooks (sub $300) Intel is not that Intel is not that well placed to compete with ARM in the upcoming processor war: http://www.tech-no-media.com/2009/05/netbook-processor-wars-atom-x86-versus.html

ARM will have HD decoding acceleration in hardware, something Intel 's chipset is lacking. Also the N270 consume too much power for light netbooks. Intel looks somewhat stronger on the mini laptop segment ($300 to $599), but that will depend a lot on Pineview and Tiger.

[Justin @ May 12th 2009 10:29AM]

Intel is such trash.

ATOM is junk without ION. Give me ION or give me nothing, because GMA945 is a joke.

[nick @ May 12th 2009 1:48PM]

@ Justin
we've already established the fact that ION is useless without an atom 330 behind it.

Please put an Atom 330 in a netbook. If you Don't I will!

[Al @ May 12th 2009 2:52PM]

I want to see more 10in and 11in devices using the new CULV chip, with integrated nvidia graphics at a price about $100-150 less than what intel is suggesting.