14 DAY TRIAL // Since the netbook market has kept growing at a rapid rate, Intel decided to provide system makers with the Atom N550 dual-core chips, and the CPU maker has now proudly announced that a host of PC suppliers have and will provide, through the end of the year, mobile PCs based on it.
The Atom N550 CPU has a clock speed of 1.5 GHz, 1MB of cache, a TDP (thermal design power) of 8.5W and, as already mentioned, two cores.
The other asset of this chip is the support for DDR3 memory, a capability that only the most recent Pine trail chips possess.
Basically, this processor aims to provide a higher level of responsiveness and a wider application support than its predecessors, while not impacting on the laptop's compactness.
“In their short history, the netbook category has experienced impressive growth,” said Erik Reid, director of marketing for mobile platforms at Intel.
“Having shipped about 70 million Intel Atom chips for netbooks since our launch of the category in 2008, there is obviously a great market for these devices around the world,” he added.
Among the companies that have and/or will release Atom N550-enabled netbooks are ASUS, Acer, Lenovo, Fujitsu, MSI, LG, Samsung and Toshiba.
Their products promise to support Adobe Flash, for accessing online multimedia sites and hotel booking systems, among other things.
The mobile computers also claim to be able to handle certain games and other applications that previous-generation netbooks failed to cope with.
“Acer strives to continually improve on our customers’ total mobile experience, whether it is increased responsiveness or extended Internet interactivity through longer battery life,” said David Lee, associate vice president of Acer’s Mobile Computing Business Unit.
“We are pleased to select dual-core Intel Atom processors for Acer netbooks, helping to empower netbook users achieve even more – both at work and at leisure,” Mr. Lee concluded.