Have Laptop Will Travel

Originally posted on December 3, 2009 @ 7:20 am

We’ll be seeing Intel’s new Atom line, the Pine Trail-M, sometime next year (I hope it comes out Q1), and already the netbook world is abuzz about what it means.

Fudzilla reports that the new netbook platform will consume less energy – about 20% to be exact – than the current Atom iteration. Maximum PC says that Pine Trail-M is smaller and cheaper to produce. The Pine Trail-M is actually 64% smaller than the current Atom! And I thought the Atom is already one of the smallest processors out there. Imagine that.

But for all the hype that it created, what does the Pine Trail-M really mean for us netbook owners?

Lower power consumption doesn’t necessarily mean a noticeable change in battery life.

Remember, the processor is but one component in your netbook. Just because its power consumption has been reduced by 20% doesn’t mean that your battery life will increase by 20%. The other components of your netbook – the hard drive, the monitor, and others -will still consume power the same way they’ve done before.

A cheaper processor probably won’t mean cheaper netbooks.

I know, I know. I’m disappointed too. I want my netbooks cheap. And powerful. But we all can’t have our cake and eat it too, right? I’m guessing that by the time the Pine Trail-M comes out, netbook manufacturers will take advantage of the new processor’s cheaper price point and smaller space to add more components and features into their netbooks. I won’t claim to know what exactly are they cooking up, but let’s imagine netbooks with better, discrete, video cards. Heh, I’d even want a netbook that’ll put a Macbook Air to shame, but that would be kind of pushing it.

But what do you guys think? I’d love to hear your thoughts on this.