14 DAY TRIAL // Computer vendors HP, Acer, Asus, Lenovo and Toshiba have started to lower the retail prices of their current notebooks in order to clear out inventories in preparation for Intel's launch of the Cedar Trail platform, which is expected to take place in September of this year.
The price cuts are for now limited to Taiwan, but are expected to arrive in other parts of the world shortly.
According to DigiTimes, the Asus Eee PC 1015PX, which is powered by an Intel Atom N570 dual-core CPU, can now be purchased for the equivalent of $311 US, while other netbook popular models, such as the Acer Aspire One D527, the HP Mini 110 or Lenovo's IdeaPad S100, are available for approximately $330 US.
Cedar Trail is the code name used for Intel's next-generation tablet platform that will be comprised out of the Cedar View processor and of the Intel NM10 chipset.
This platform is expected to bring into the low-cost computer market the long-awaited support for HD playback and HDMI output, as it will feature an improved integrated graphics core.
Unlike that found in today's Atom CPUs, this is based on a PowerVR design and it includes support for DirectX 10.1 as well as hardware decoding capabilities for MPEG2, VC1, AVC, H.264 and Blu-ray 2.0 content.
Initially, Intel will release two CPU models, the Atom N2800 and the Atom N2600, the first one working at 1.86GHz, while the latter is clocked at 1.6GHz. The two chips are expected to retail for less than $50.
Cedar Trail is expected to review netbook sales, which have been severely affected by the success of tablet devices. Asus, for example, was forced to decrease its 2011 Eee PC shipping estimates from six million to just four million units.