The power behind the new generation netbooks

This week, Intel announced the second generation Atom, Acer introduced netbooks and nettop on the Nvidia Ion platform, Hewlett-Packard shipped Pavilion dv2 using AMD Neo chipsets, showing that the netbook market will "molt" this year .

Research firm Gartner predicts about 21 million netbooks will be consumed in 2009, doubling last year. This product line will also expand in size and add more features thanks to the power of computing platforms from Intel, AMD, Nvidia .

Intel Atom supports Windows 7

Z550 is the new Atom processor with 2 GHz clock and super-threading technology, increased graphics performance and multitasking. Although this integrated chip computer has not been announced, observers predict the first system will appear at the end of 2009. Intel also confirmed that the new generation Atom will support at least 2 of 6 different versions of Windows 7.

Graphics capabilities of Nvidia Ion

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Acer's AspireRevo mini desktop is the first product to use Nvidia's platform, promising to deliver "superior graphics" compared to other nettops (small, low-cost PCs) available in the market. AspireRevo uses Intel Atom N230 1.6 GHz chip, Nvidia GeForce 9400M GPU and CUDA technology. The system is as small as a hardcover book but can play 1080p and DirectX 10 videos.

Cheap AMD Athlon Neo chip

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Meanwhile, AMD sees Neo as a big step forward in performance compared to the first generation Atom. The new PC HP Pavilion dv2 12-inch screen with Neo chip is equipped with 4 GB RAM, 320 GB hard drive, discrete graphics ATI Radeon HD 3410 512 MB memory but only 749 USD - a little higher than with the most expensive netbook but lower than the controversial fashion laptop Sony Vaio P.

Via Nano is ready

The Via company also claims it is holding 10 to 15 percent of the netbook market and the 1.3-GHz Via Nano line will soon be available in the 12-inch Samsung NC20 netbook system.