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(Credit: Intel)

It's an exciting and interesting morning for Netbook fans, as full official details and even system reviews of new Netbooks bearing Intel's next-generation Atom processors have emerged.

However, does the timing annoy you?

While we've known new Atom Netbooks were around the corner for months now, the announcement hits just three days before Christmas Eve and after the last weekend of holiday shopping. Does the new Atom make you want a new Netbook or regret getting one this holiday? On the other hand, do the modest gains from the new Atoms make you want an ultralow-voltage thin-and-light with a faster processor instead, or a next-gen smartphone/smartbook/tablet that could do HD video just as well?

Or does it simply not matter to you? Early reviews indicate that the new Atom N450's gains are mild, and mainly assist the battery life of Netbooks to go even longer between charges than they already do.

Sound off--we'd love to hear your thoughts as consumers.

The newest version of Asus' popular Netbook, the $379 Eee PC 1005PE, is the first system to reach our labs with Intel's new Atom N450 processor--the long-awaited sequel to the Atom N270 and N280 CPUs found in nearly every other Netbook.

This new 1005 model, thanks to the re-engineered Atom platform, is extremely efficient, and ran for more than 8 hours on our grueling battery drain test. That's extremely impressive, although the N450 was more of a mixed bag in our performance tests, beating other Netbooks in some categories, but matching or falling slightly behind in others.

The Eee PC 1005PE definitely scores points for being the first laptop out of the gate with the new N450 CPU, and its battery life is nothing short of amazing--making this a very useful system for serious road warriors. But we would have liked to see a 1005 that was more fully upgraded across the board.

Read the full review here.

The first Netbook we've seen with the Atom N450 is the Asus Eee PC 1005PE.

Intel has officially announced the next generation of its popular Atom CPUs for Netbooks. While probably the worst-kept secret in personal computing, unveiling the Atom N450 (previously codenamed "Pinetrail") weeks before the upcoming CES trade show means Intel doesn't want this key announcement to get lost amid the thousands of new products set to debut in January.

One of the brightest spots in the consumer electronics industry over the past two years has been the growth of Netbooks. These small, low-power, low-cost laptops are popular with almost every segment of the computer-buying public, from students, to business travelers, to seniors.

But, these machines had became largely commodity products, with identical components and features, driving prices down to $299 (or less, with subsidized deals from mobile phone providers). More recently, PC makers have attempted to create new tiers in the Netbook market with high-def displays and improved Nvidia Ion graphics, or even competing CPUs from AMD and Via. ... Read more

With its attractive deep-red finish and roomy 10-inch screen, this Asus Netbook is a tough bargain to beat.

Update (10:55 a.m. PT): Sorry, folks, looks like the Netbook's already sold out. Stay tuned for a new deal later today! (In the meantime, the two backup deals below are still good.)

When it comes to super bargains, I have to confess I rarely think of Best Buy. But the store's been rocking some pretty solid deals of late.

For example, today only (and while supplies last), Best Buy has the 10-inch Asus Eee PC 1005HAB Netbook for $229.99. That's not including sales tax or shipping (the latter will run you $11.50).

This isn't your average, boring, black Netbook: the sale model has a stylish "deep red" lid and wrist rest.

Other than that, however, the specs are pretty standard: Intel Atom N270 processor, 1GB of RAM, 160GB hard drive, and the aforementioned 10.1-inch screen. The OS: Windows XP Home, not Windows 7.

That's the only real ... Read more

On this week's Digital City, we discuss Google's rumored new phone; get to the bottom of the current iMac shipping delays, and go over the best games you can play on a Netbook (all after Dan had to get up at 5am to shoot a local news TV segment on his favorite holiday games).

Then, things take a turn for the weird with a solid gold PlayStation 3, rumored to be under Jay-Z's Xmas tree; and a surprising NYC find -- a Mario-themed pizza place that is calling out for a visit from the ghost of intellectual property lawyers past (see below).

Related links:
>>Is Google making a phone?
>>Top 20 Netbook games
>>Top 5 Holiday Game Picks (CW11 morning News)

>>Watch the Digital City live every Monday at 3pm EST on CNET Live!
>>Subscribe to Digital City on iTunes
>>Join the Digital City Facebook fan page
>>Need more? Follow Dan on Twitter! And Scott!

Not so long ago, buying a laptop was as simple as deciding whether you wanted a Netbook (11 inches or smaller) or not (12 inches and larger). Suddenly, however, it's getting to be a fairly confusing time to be in the market for an 11-inch laptop. Why do we say that? Simply put, this size used to be considered a "Netbook" category, mainly populated by Intel Atom processors. With the rise of ULV (ultra low-voltage) processors, however, a number of small-screened laptops--anywhere from 11 to 15 inches in size--have emerged, all thin and light, generally lacking optical drives, and running one of a variety of single- or dual-core ULV processors.

You need to know that the laptop you choose can have a greatly varying performance depending on the type of ULV processor it has. Take, for instance, the Toshiba Satellite T115-S1105. With an 11.6-inch screen, it's roughly the same size as the Nvidia Ion-toting HP Mini 311 ... Read more

The new Momentus Thin laptop hard drive.

(Credit: Seagate)

At only 9.5mm, the regular 2.5-inch laptop hard drive is already very thin compared with the 25.4mm of the 3.5-inch desktop hard drive. But Seagate, one of the bigger hard-drive makers around, just decided to go even slimmer.

The company announced Monday the Momentus Thin, a new 2.5-inch-based laptop hard drive that's 25 percent thinner, at only 7mm. This reduction in thickness makes the new hard drive comparable, in physical size, to that of most solid state drives (SSDs) used in Netbooks and ultraportable computers. However, it retains the advantages of regular hard drives, which include much higher capacities and, most importantly, a much lower cost per gigabyte.

The Momentus Thin offers the same performance as a regular SATA 2.5-inch hard drive, which is faster than most low-end SSD used in Netbooks. The new drive comes in two capacities (250GB and 160GB); sports 8MB of cache memory, supports a SATA 3Gbps interface, and spins at 5400rpm.

The Mometus Thin ... Read more

Win an HP Mini 311 Netbook!

We're quickly heading toward the finish line of our daily Crave holiday giveaway extravaganza and to kick off the week we have a nice prize courtesy of the folks at HP: The HP Mini 311 Netbook.

I've personally had my eye on this one because it has Nvidia's Ion graphics, which give you HD video and basic gaming capabilities. And laptop guru Dan Ackerman says in his four-star review, "HP's Mini 311 adds a larger, high-definition display and advanced graphics to a basic Netbook, while keeping the price very appealing." (Read the full review).

We'd like to thank HP for offering up this prize and also want to give a shout out to Shopper.com for helping out with the Crave giveaway. Shopper.com powers CNET's price-comparison engine and it's a great site for finding the best prices on products. (See all of Shopper's deals, coupon codes, and rebates).

Normally, the HP Mini 311 would cost you about $399, but you ... Read more

The biggest consumer electronics event of the year is around the corner, and by that we of course mean CES 2010. We'll all be there in Vegas scouting out the best of what's new, but you may find yourself asking: after Windows 7 and the launch of Core i7 laptops, what else is there to look forward to? Plenty, by our measure. Here are the trends we're expecting to see.

New Atom processors, new Netbooks
The star of the show will likely be Intel's new line of Atom processors for Netbooks. Previously codenamed Pine Trail, these new CPUs will give the Netbooks platform a performance push, we hope, making these popular laptops even more ubiquitous. Currently, Netbooks are great for some tasks, but can be frustrating to use if you need them for all-around computing. Look for added graphics and HD video performance in particular.

On a related note, hardware manufacturers will continue to try to "upscale" Netbooks, by adding features such as discrete graphics, touch screens, and HD displays--all in an effort to move prices past the low-margin $299 mark. We'll see increased stratification in Netbooks--a category previously notable for its commodity nature.

(Credit: Qualcomm)

Here come the Smartbooks
If you don't know the term already, get ready to know it, as this will be one of the hot product trends of 2010. Consider them even cheaper and smaller Netbooks toting smartphone-level processors and a pared-down OS. Small CPUs such as the Nvidia Tegra and the Qualcomm Snapdragon are what will power this next generation of devices, and almost none of them will have an operating system that will be Windows or Mac.

Expect to see most of these hybrid devices with 3G antennas, sold in cellphone stores, and subsidized by mobile phone providers, much like some Netbooks already are. Economic realities have pushed computer makers to favor value over flash in designing new systems, and at CES 2010, we're likely to see a bigger focus on Netbooks and other low-cost PCs over the extravagant showstoppers of previous years. Smartbooks could help define a new low-end pricing zone, but it remains to be seen whether they'll offer enough computing power.