Intel has just unveiled the plans for its Atom line of chips, commonly found stuffed inside today’s netbooks, and they’re a little bit tasty. As well as outing a concept laptop just 14mm thin, the silicon giant revealed new tablet and netbook hardware is in the works for MeeGo, the mobile software it’s been knocking together with Nokia.
Almost every netbook shipping today uses a low power Intel Atom chip inside, and today at the Computex tradeshow in Taiwan, the company whipped the covers off the latest update to the chip, a dual core version of the Pine Trail CPU currently shipping in netbooks. While precise specs are unknown, that extra core should help performance, better DDR3 RAM is supported, and Intel says it runs cooler than the current line.
Much more tantalisingly, the new Intel Atom chip allows for much thinner machines than we’ve seen previously – up to 50% thinner, the company claims. To prove it, it whipped out a “Canoe Lake” prototype laptop that’s just 14mm thin, as you can see in the gallery above. Fingers crossed this form factor will be par for the course come next year, as the chip is shipping to manufacturers now.
MeeGo: Intel shows mystery smartphone and TV syncing
Looking further ahead, Intel also announced an Intel Atom system on a chip, dubbed “Oak Trail”, designed for tablets and “sleek” netbooks, due next year. This chip is more high power than the Intel Moorestown platform for mobiles, as it will run Windows 7, but Intel also promises support for “Google operating systems” (The plural hints at both Android and Chrome OS) and MeeGo, the upcoming collaboration between Intel and Nokia.
In other words? Don’t be too surprised when netbooks as thin as a MacBook Air, and much, much cheaper, start appearing, with a wide selection of operating systems to choose from. Who said the iPad and netbooks can’t live in harmony? We’ll be sure to let you know as soon as any partners for the new Intel Atom chips are announced.
Out TBC | £TBC | Intel
