Intel has a bunch of different mobile processor to offer, but at the same time it has found a gap that it is now working to fill. The hole comes after Intel’s budget processor Atom, which is both energy efficient and cheap, but also too slow for more demanding tasks. Those who still want long battery hours and slim formats often have to jump from the netbooks priced around $400 to more than twice that and the notebook around $1,000 to get a PC with Intel’s UL or ULV Core 2 Duo processors.
The only ones found in between are cheap 15″ machines which on one hand doesn’t cost much and a lot faster than Atom-based units, but at the same time clumsy and run out of battery fast.
Intel is now planning an updated version of its Montevina platform and in the second quarter we will see Montevina Plus which will enable thing and light notebooks in the $400 – $1,000 price range.
There are no details revealed, more than a typical power consumption of around 5W, and that the goal is create small and handy notebooks that offer both performance and long battery times. This sounds almost too good to us, but before getting our hopes up we should wait for products based on the coming platform.
