Intel dominates the so called netbook market with the Atom CPU and coupled chipsets. The hardware isn’t exactly powerful and there are hardware limitations, not the least the amount of RAM. Officially Intel doesn’t support more than 1GB RAM with the current Atom platform, but the coming Pine Trail will change that. The next generation Atom processors ships with an integrated memory controller and GPU, and up to 2GB RAM.
Alas, it looks like the first model, Atom N450, will not support this but we will have to wait until March 2010 when Intel will launch the faster Atom N470. Since netbooks can address up to 2GB RAM it’s hard to understand why Intel is holding off the official support, but hopefully the new southbridge of the Pine Trail platform will be capable of addressing even larger amounts of RAM.
Intel has starting shifting focus to the Linux-based Moblin operating system that it is recommending to manufacturers, along with 20-32GB SSD or 160GB mechanical drive. The screen size will remain at 7-10.2″ but you can be sure that PC builders will tailor their own models.
RAM change in ASUS Eee PC (Picture courtesy of Tomshardware.com)
