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Now that the Intel Atom processor has been officially released at IDF, the big question of course is about performance. And of course I was excited to see that LaptopMag had the first full review of the Classmate (CL2). But then, as I read the article, I was puzzled. They are talking about the performance as being “relatively weak” - but then mention an Intel Celeron M CPU - but the CL2 is based on the Intel Atom processor… what’s happening here? Update: what’s happening is that I am confused (as Steve correctly points out in the comment below). The second generation Classmate PC brings the 9-inch screen, but is still based on the Celeron M CPU - the third generation will be based on the Atom processor. Oops.

So far I haven’t found any real benchmarks on Atom-based systems. I played with the two on display at IDF, but that was rather inconclusive. The Linux system took forever to boot, but once it was up and running it felt reasonably fast. I never use XP, so I don’t have any way to compare the performance of the XP-based system.

When I talked to the folks in the booth about the slow boot time of the Linux installation I was told that this was an out-of-the-box distribution that hadn’t really been optimized for this system. Given that the Atom is an in-order processor (and that booting a computer quickly requires some serious customization of the specific Linux install) I figure that this doesn’t really allow for fair performance comparison, yet.

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I’m at Intel’s Developer Forum in Shanghai. And of course I was very eager to see if I could get my hands on an EeePC 900. After all, the Atom processor was launched here yesterday. But much to my dismay, there was no sign of any notebooks at Asus’ booth and at the Netbook booth they had an EeePC 701 next to a few Atom based machines from other vendors. One was from an unnamed OEM, the other one a pre-production MSI model. Both with 1.6Ghz Atom processors with Hyperthreading (Windows reports them as N270), one running Windows, one running Linux. Both with 1024×600 displays that looked to be about 9″ screens (there were no specs or other material that I could find).

I’ll admit that I was disappointed, but then I played around with the no-name system running Linux and got pretty excited after all. Intel 945GM chipset, Intel wireless, 4GB SSD, 1GB of RAM. And according to what the people in the booth said it should be priced at about the same price as an EeePC 701 - so about $400 street price in the US. With the 1024×600 screen.

The MSI system (on the left) had an 80GB hard drive, other than that its specs seemed to be very similar. Both systems were slightly bigger than the EeePC, but not by much - certainly still a size that I’d be comfortable carrying around with me.

So maybe there will be some interesting EeePC competitors after all. I can’t wait to see more product announcement. IDF didn’t bring them.

Interesting blog entry over at ComputerWorld. The fundamental statement is that an EeePC plus 3G modem is a rather interesting competitor to the iPhone. Arguably the iPhone is more portable and the user interface is much nicer, but from the overall internet experience, I’d say that the EeePC is ahead.

Now think about the MID (Mobile Internet Devices) category that Intel is creating. Equipped with WiMAX (or 3G wireless capability) and a full x86-based software stack, they allow you to experience the internet just like at home (which frankly the iPhone doesn’t quite do - missing Flash support is just one of the issues).

Do I think that this will seriously impact sales of the iPhone? Not a chance. But it’s an interesting angle to think about the value proposition of MIDs and even the (second generation) EeePC.

I for one don’t own an iPhone and find myself taking my EeePC with a Sprint EVDO adapter to many places…

In an interview with Laptop Magazine Jerry Sheen, Asus’ CEO, finally confirmed some of the details of the EeePC that I was most curious about.

First and foremost, the EeePC 900 won’t be based on an Intel Celeron M but instead on the Intel Atom processor - the platform codenamed Diamondville. That should be great news for the power consumption of this little system, while still providing very respectable performance. There are of course no benchmarks available yet, but I expect the new system to perform better than the existing EeePC 701 model. Interesting comments on the comparison with the competing Via chips: “Diamondville is the better choice, because it uses the 45-namometer [process]. And pricewise it is very competitive. In my planning I will continue to use Intel’s Diamondville. And for the VIA one I think from the power point of view, Diamondville is still better.”

Equally important, Mr. Sheen confirmed that there will continue to be a Linux based version of the EeePC. Interestingly enough, he explained that the low end model with an 8GB SSD will run Windows XP, while the higher end versions with 12GB or 20GB SSD will be Linux based. I couldn’t be happier with that positioning.

And he confirmed what was already announced at CeBIT - the 8.9 inch 1024×600 display.

Finally he announced that the system would be available in April or May, earlier than many people assumed it would be - that’s great news. I can’t wait to get one (and what will I do with my existing one? why, my three year old twins always wanted a computer…)

Interesting… Asus’ EeePC is basically the hottest selling computer out there, yet Walmart stops selling Linux computers in its stores, including the Everex Cloudbook, which is competing for exactly the same market.

Interestingly enough, they will continue to sell these machines online, but apparently they are not flying off the shelves in the stores so they will disappear from there. I wonder why this experiment failed. Is it a problem with the Everex machines? Is it that Walmart is not exactly attracting the right audience for these computers (I cannot remember the last time I was in a Walmart)? Or is Linux simply the wrong choice of OS for this market segment?

I look forward to seeing more sales numbers for the EeePC, the Cloudbook and some of the other new entries into this market like the Kohjinsha E8 and the yet to be officially announced Compaq 2133.

As the number of EeePC-sized machines increases we are seeing more and more comparisons. And the more of them I see, the more I am disturbed about the cluelessness of some reviewers (no offense…).

Look at this comparison of the HP 2133 vs. EeePC 900. Specifically look at the table at the bottom. Green means better. The Via C7-M runs at more than 1GHz, the Intel CPU quoted runs at 900MHz. Argl.

First - I have yet to see any public information on the CPU used in the EeePC 900. And second, as I mentioned before in the Cloudbook vs EeePC 701 comparison, a Via C7-m at twice the frequency is still slightly slower than a Celeron M.

Vista on a machine like the HP 2133 would be seriously painful.

At a press conference at CeBIT in Germany Asus shared more details with the public. So far they are mostly focused on the German (and Austrian) market. The second generation EeePC will come with a T-Mobile Hotspot bundle that gives the user 300 hours of free use of T-Mobile hotspots - so no WIMAX, just a WiFi bundle.

The other bit of news that had been rumored before - primary OS for the new model will be Windows XP. The reports contradict each other regarding the availability of Linux as an option; so maybe the addition of a Microsoft OS is part of the 100 Euro ($150) price hike? Thanks for nothing, Asus. If this gets confirmed we all should start a petition for them to keep selling a Linux version. I don’t want to have to pay for the license to an OS that I certainly won’t use!

Still no information on processor and chipset…

Not a huge surprise, but Asus announced the Gen2 EeePC at CeBIT. All the reports that I’ve seen so far are in German, but they don’t really contain much information, anyway, and in some aspects even contradict each other…

Here’s what we seem to know so far:

• 8.9 inch wide screen with 1024×600 resolution
• 1GB Ram by default (but most people will upgrade that, anyway, right?)
• 8GB or 12GB of SSD (there are some contradictions here)
• higher price (399 instead of 299 Euro - no idea what that will translate into for the US market)

The information that I’m most interested in is missing. Which CPU / chipset? And when can we have it?

I’ll keep looking.

I still haven’t been able to get my hands on a Cloudbook, but the good folks over at NotebookReview.com did and posted a very interesting review of it. Their conclusion:

…upon closer examination it’s clear that VIA and Everex had to make a number of sacrifices to bring this ultra-mobile notebook to the market for such a low price. The low-capacity slow hard drive, and slow overall performance make the CloudBook a less than compelling purchase compared to the current generation Asus Eee PC 4G.

They also report of excessive heat issues and a few other problems (apparently the Cloudbook doesn’t deal well with the small screen size and even has problems when connecting to larger external screens).

What I found most interesting were the benchmarks. Please go to to the NotebooReview.com review for all the details, but here are the highlights as far as I see them: (note, these were done under Windows XP in order to make it easier to compare with other notebooks)

• The PCMark05 scores for the 1.2GHz VIA C7-M based Cloudbook are abysmal. 612 PCMarks (compared to 1132 PCMarks for the 630MHz Intel Celeron M based EeePC).
• The wPrime (32M) time is equally bad: 249 seconds for the Cloudbook vs. 201 seconds for the EeePC.
• And finally, the SSD in the EeePC got to shine. The Cloudbook with its hard drive reached a transfer rate of 18.3 MB/sec with 34ms access time. The SSD in the EeePC is about a third faster in transfer rate (24.3 MB/sec) and of course simply blows aways the disk in the Cloudbook with 0.5ms access time.

I think the benchmarks make it clear - the Cloudbook is painfully slow compared to the EeePC.

Looking forward I can’t wait to see Benchmarks of the rumored second generation EeePC based on the Intel Atom (yep, Intel released the official processor brand for the chip codenamed Silverthorne).

The good folks over at engadget were talking to Sony Vice President Mike Abary - and in that conversation he apparently decried that devices like the EeePC would create a race to the bottom. Interesting perspective - but it may be slightly influenced by the fact that Sony doesn’t have a competing product and would rather not have to invest into a market segment that could seriously impact it’s ultra-light notebooks.

But instead of complaining about the lack of features (which seems to be implied in this comment), I think Sony should try what HP and Pioneer and others are trying: create a competitively priced product that provides better features and therefore can grab a higher price and maybe even higher margins.

I certainly think we are going to seeing many more products below $500 that don’t go for “cheapest” but for “best value proposition” instead. And for Intel, AMD and Via this is indeed a very interesting market. The margin in their business can be influenced two ways. Higher ASP (unlikely here as the OEMs can’t allow the BOM (bill of materials) to get too high) or lower production cost. That’s where tiny chips like Silverthorne, created on a 45nm process, come into play. If they can be produced sufficiently cheaper compared the current entry level CPUs (like the 65nm based Intel Celeron processor) then it is possible to have a similar or even better margin percentage, even if the resulting chip carries a lower sticker price. Via already announced their next generation Isaiah processor (still on 65nm, though) which will compete in this market, and I am sure that once AMD can produce its Geode processors on 45nm, they will see better margins from that, too.